I’ve put together some video for you of my recent expedition to one of the Sahara’s most remote corners. Only one previous expedition has reached the Ouri plain in Chad’s Tibesti mountains. That was about 15 years ago, and given the difficulties, I can’t see anyone else trying it anytime soon. I’m no cinematographer by any stretch, so please don’t expect a movie. I simply want to give you a sense...
I shared a video with you in my last blog, where I got together with an old childhood friend to search for a campsite we’d set up 27 years before. I hope it brought to mind some of your own childhood adventures and memories, and that you spent a couple days taking a mental journey through the hazy summers of your youth. But I’m not quite finished taking you down Memory Lane… We didn’t just search...
I found one of my old campsites this summer… nearly 27 years later. In a recent blog, I talked about exploring old haunts in my hometown region with my friend Rob Wilson. Rob was my partner in crime for many teenage exploits. And when we weren’t pulling pranks or getting in trouble at school, we took to the woods near his home on Buckwheat Road, or we borrowed a canoe from my father’s friend Lee...
I visited the public library in my hometown over the Christmas holidays. I hadn’t been back in about 15 years. The children’s section was just as I remembered it. But the rest had changed dramatically. The building finally got a much needed renovation and expansion, and the adult section I browsed in for so many years has been transformed into offices and a comfortable, quiet reading area. The...
I’ve got Namibia on the brain these past few days. I just finished writing photo captions for a story about a self-drive trip I did last December. It’ll be the main feature in the next issue of Outpost magazine. Driving my own Land Rover Defender all over Namibia definitely ranks up there with the best trips I’ve ever taken. I was free to explore the desert at my own pace. I was self-contained...
Liechtenstein is a strange place. It’s a monarchy ruled by a prince in the middle of Europe, landlocked in the Alps between Switzerland and Austria. At 62 square miles it’s the 6th smallest country in the world, but has the world’s second highest GDP per person thanks to it’s status as a tax haven. It’s the sort of anomaly on a map that people pop into for an hour, just to say they’ve been there...
It’s been quiet here in Road Wisdom land, but it’s the silence of distant places rather than the silence of inactivity that has fallen over my blog… I’ve been on the road these past couple months. Exploring the rugged interior of New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Navigating the hectic city streets of Tokyo, and the quieter corners of northern Honshu. And more recently in...
I’m still drifting through Central American memories, looking at my life 10 short years ago…
The present has rippled and the past intervened. It’s leaking through the walls of this cold northern room, and all those feelings are coming back with it.
This is from Chapter 4 of Vagabond Dreams. It’s about traveling alone, and that first time you set out on the road.
My recent visit to Panama City has left me drifting 10 years in the past… I’d like to share with you a reading of something I wrote at that time. It was my first real trip. I was alone and disoriented, in a place where I didn’t speak the language. I didn’t really know why I was there or what I should do. I only knew I had to go. Those of you who have followed such impulses...
Just got back from my first trip to Las Vegas. Yeah, it’s weird eh? I’ve been to Mongolia but never Vegas. Am I the only one to go there and not set foot in a Casino, club or The Strip? What the heck did I get up to? On the outskirts of Sin City, among the red rocks and the ghosts of broken dreams, I filmed a couple programs for my health and fitness website. I also put together this...