What Living on $20 a Day Looks Like

One of the biggest surprises about long-term travel is just how cheap it can be.

In my second year of college I’ll never forget the price-sheet my dad brought back from Utila, Honduras. To this very day you can still get a room on the water for $5 a night and a meal for $2.

Before leaving home I’d heard things like this but it’s hard to believe until you see it first-hand:Continue reading >>

Off to Kiteboarding Mecca La Ventana this Week

Tomorrow we’ll be driving from Central California to the tip of Baja Mexico: about 1,500 miles of desert, sagebrush, and endless Negra Modelos.

Destination: La Ventana, a massive sandy bay on the sea of Cortez with absolutely ridiculous kiteboarding conditions.

La Ventana is a of freak of nature in a geographical sense: Every day at about 1pm all hell breaks loose as winds sweep off the Sea of Cortez right into the lower part of the bay. For 4-5 hours the scene resembles a natural disaster that collided with a kite-flying convention. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, the wind shuts off. You can laze on the beach and watch the moon come up over perfectly flat water.Continue reading >>

The Less Romantic Side of Geo-Arbitrage

Or how working in paradise can really suck.

[The porch out front in Bingin, Bali. As if I’m actually going to get any work done here…]

I was in the deepest of sleeps. My dream put me somewhere in the mountains, walking down into a beautiful valley with the wind lightly rustling my hair. The rustling got a little stronger until–wait a minute…

I opened my eyes in time to see a giant rat sprint to the edge of the bed and then leap off into space like a possessed flying squirrel.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Everyone within 50km must have heard as I bolted out of bed and ran around the compound screaming bloody murder. When my roommate figured out what happened he nearly choked to death from his own laughter.

This is about when the glamour of my lifestyle really started to fade.Continue reading >>

365 Days: 20 things I Learned from Traveling Around the World

Travel for long enough and one day you wake up to realize: This is no longer a vacation, it’s your life.

Over one year ago I quit my job and decided to travel around the world. This was both a dream 10 years in the making and one of  the best decisions I’ve ever made [photo: night train from Belgrade to Sofia].

In the last 12 months I learned a lot about long-term travel, what I need to be happy, and how to survive outside of the US. Many of these things can’t be learned at home or in a book, and while reading about them on the internet can only get you so far, a lot of people have asked me to explain how I’ve done it.

Well, here’s part of the answer.

 “There’s no substitute for just going there.”
–Yvon Chouinard

My trip hasn’t been about sightseeing (although I’ve done that) as much as just being somewhere. The simple challenges of daily routine can be overwhelming:  trying to eat, drink, and sleep in a place where nothing makes sense, you don’t speak the language, and where none of the basic comforts of home are available. It’s not easy, but if you want a fast-track to personal development, get on a plane.Continue reading >>