Updated: 07/01/2018 | July 1st, 2018 With the cost of higher education rising dramatically each year, should you forgo college* and instead use that money to travel the world? It’s one of the questions I receive a lot from graduating high school students and disenchanted college freshmen and sophomores. In their emails, they express a […]
A Birthday Promise to Myself
Posted: 06/12/2014 | June 12th, 2014 Today is my birthday. I am 33 years old. I’m not a fan of birthdays. It’s not like today is any different than yesterday. My thoughts, feelings, successes, and failures are still the same. It’s the time in between the birthdays that changes us, not the day itself. And, anyways, […]
The Evolution of a Long-Term Traveler
Posted: 04/29/2014 | April 29th, 2014 There are downsides to long-term travel: the five-hour friends, the quick relationships, the solitude that leads to loneliness. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns. But then nothing ever is. Despite those occasional downsides, I think long-term solo travel is something people should try at least once in their life. […]
Why Pretentious Travelers Fill Me With Hate (And What I Do About Them)
Nothing irks me more than people disparaging people’s travel choices. I don’t get why people do it. The whole “traveler vs. tourist” argument, talking about what makes someone a “real traveler,” and making fun of people’s routes — people waste so much energy trying to lift themselves up above others. Isn’t travel supposed to make you open-minded? […]
That Place Called Home
Posted: 02/03/2014 | February 3rd, 2014 “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport!” These were words I hadn’t heard spoken in two years. And they’d been sorely missed. After landing in Bangkok, I glided effortlessly through an airport where I’ve been countless times and made my way to the train into the city. It […]
The Grass is Never Greener
Posted: 12/09/2013 | December 9th, 2013 As I lay on a beach on the island of Ko Lipe, my Kiwi friend Paul turned to me and asked, “Backgammon?” “Of course,” I said. “What else is there to do.” We’d play for hours before heading to our favorite restaurant in the “town center.” The owner would […]
How Do You Decide What Travel Content to Trust?
With so much travel content on the web these days it can be hard to know whose opinion to trust. Bloggers are regularly taking free press trips from companies or tourism boards, and it makes me wonder if their content is still reliable. In this post, I share my thoughts on free press trips and what it means for the future of travel blogging.
Home: The Death of a Nomad
Posted: 10/29/2013 | October 29th, 2013 When I decided to move to New York City, I had this vision of what would happen: I would settle down into my own amazing apartment, decorate it with lots of cool stuff, join a gym, take cooking classes, and — in between all that — take numerous trips to JFK airport and […]
The Accidental Traveler
Posted: 05/28/2013 | May 28th, 2013 I can count on one hand all the places I visited before I was 23. Travel wasn’t part of my upbringing. It wasn’t something my family did outside of the occasional road trip to visit my grandmother in Florida. In college, I skipped studying abroad because I was afraid […]
Why Tourists Ruin the Places They Visit (and What to Do About It)
Last summer while I was living in Sweden, I met up with travel writer Doug Lansky, the man behind several worldwide destination guides for Rough Guides. We were talking about travel (of course) and began discussing the philosophical question about whether, as traveler writers, we end up destroying the places we love by sharing them […]
The Settled Life in New York City
Posted: 02/22/2013 | February 22nd, 2013 It’s been almost a month since I signed my lease and picked up the keys. I’ve bought a bed. I’ve unpacked my bag, hung up my clothes, and filled my fridge with food. I’m settled. I have roots. I have a neighborhood. I’m no longer fully nomadic. Am I […]
Paris is NOT a Touristy Destination
Updated: 07/23/18 | July 23rd, 2018 As winter continues on and the days get colder, I find people begin to think of travel: warmer places, tropical beaches, and spring trips. My inbox fills up more than normal with questions on where to escape to, what to see, and things to do. But there is always […]
