Favorite Stories
If you need some inspiration to hit the open road, these tales should do the trick:
Climbing Acatenango and Fuego Volcanoes
Mountains are the sirens of geologic formations — luring in adventurers and enthusiasts with a rugged beauty that draws a veil over the hazards they contain. Soaring altitudes, inclement weather, and unstable terrain… these things and more have wrought tragedy upon countless back-country explorers drawn inexorably towards the mountains. But…
Etosha National Park with Acacia Africa
My interest in Namibia began with nature documentaries. For some reason, deserts fascinated me — I think it was the utter foreignness of it. I’d never seen a place that was seemingly so barren, so devoid of life. But I quickly learned that these dry places that seem so desolate…
Exploring Chobe National Park with Acacia Africa
After leaving Livingston, Zambia and the rain-deprived, but still splendorous Victoria Falls behind us, our Acacia Africa tour group crossed into Botswana via the Kazungula ferry and made our way to Kasane to explore Chobe National Park. With nearly 12,000 square kilometers of protected area, the largest elephant population of…
Trekking from Shatili to Omalo
Half of my initial attraction to Georgia grew from the pictures of mountains I saw — the regions of Kazbegi, Svaneti, and Tusheti. When I booked my ticket here from Korea, my ambition was to hike for months, exploring all the back-country hiking routes I could find and chronicling the…
Climbing Mount Aragats
There’s too much snow. It’ll be too cold. The weather won’t be good this week. You’ll shoot your eye out… The reasons why I shouldn’t have gone to Kari Lake and Mount Aragats were many. All of the above (save one, can you guess which?) were offered up, and I…
Tbilisi City Guide
Tbilisi has been my home for the past 2 months, and I’ve enjoyed exploring it and (mostly) eating as much delicious food as possible. It’s a great city for foodies, history buffs, music connoisseurs, and winos alike — all things which made this city a fun one to call home. …
Guide to Hiking in Yubeng
It started with Tinder. I know, I know, that sounds bad.  But if it wasn’t for Tinder, I might never have heard of that place in an alpine valley mere kilometers from the Tibetan border.  I might never have seen the photos of misting waterfalls, glacial lakes, and fluttering prayer flags…
Ten Things to Do in Taupo
There’s a saying which goes, ‘time flies when you’re having fun!’, and is it ever true! The past three months have been a blur, spent working, hiking, making new friends, and experiencing the best that Taupo has to offer. Â I got extremely lucky with my position as a receptionist at…
Driving the Southern Scenic Route
I woke to the car shaking from the wind, to the clatter of rain on the roof. Â It had been a blustery night, parked by the seashore at Moray Terrace, but I’d caught a few hours of sleep and had made the snug confines of Te Namu as comfortable as…
Camel Safari in the Thar Desert
If you don’t die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like…
Sunset in Khiva
The sun was setting on my first full day in Khiva, and I was sitting on a ledge watching it sink behind a horizon punctuated by minarets and mosques. Â The day had been a full one, wandering through the Ichon-Qala fortress which encompasses most of the remaining Old Town. Â Now,…
Danger in No Man’s Land
Setting out from the Kyrgyz border post at Bor Dobo, I had a decent idea of the distance (15+ km) between me and the Tajik border.  I assumed that I would be able to catch a ride, but figured I could hike the difference if none came along.  From the start,…
Latest Posts
Read more about my latest adventures and recommendations here:
Hiking to Refugio Frey and Beyond
It’s no secret that my heart is linked — inextricably — to the mountains, that something in them draws my soul like a moth to a flame. They’re magnetic, potent, and irresistible to me — intoxicating and terrifying in the same moment. For this reason, Patagonia has long been a…
Christmas Letter 2019
Looking back at the end of another year, it’s striking to see how differently things went from my expectations. This time last year, I was frantically preparing for a move to China, where I would be teaching English and potentially managing a department of foreign teachers in a language academy…
My Walk Out of the Woods
It’s been almost 3 months since I posted original content on here, making it my longest break from blogging since I started The Open Road Before Me in 2011. There was good reason for that. April and May could best be described as a gauntlet, during which I decided to…
Dealing with Depression Abroad
Behind every smile is a pain, behind every pair of eyes a story that will break your heart. It’s hard to remember that sometimes, especially when we put up the ‘gram-worthy facades that make it look like everything is peachy-keen. Remember when Robin Williams died? It shocked everyone, that behind…
Which Flight Deals Site is the Best?
Traveling around the world has always been a dream of mine. Eight years ago, that dream made the transition from imagination to reality when I packed up and moved overseas to South Korea. I’ve managed to keep that dream alive — living in Korea, New Zealand, Mongolia, Georgia, and now…
Ten Awesome Things to Do in Guanacaste
In the northwest corner of Costa Rica, tucked just under the southern border of Nicaragua, is the province of Guanacaste — a place of volcanoes and rainforests, rivers and beaches, classic colonial architecture and extreme water sports. Covering almost 4,000 square miles, the province has much to offer visitors; here’s…
Reasons to Visit Georgia in 2019
The country of Georgia has been making waves in the travel industry lately, ever since its inclusion on the Lonely Planet ‘Best Places to Travel’ list for 2018. A small nation nestled between Russia and Iran to the north and south, and the Black and Caspian seas to the east…
Christmas Letter 2018
It’s been a few years since I’ve done a Christmas letter. Perhaps that’s because my last one didn’t go over too well with relatives back home. Perhaps it was just the craziness of my schedule at the end of 2016 as I geared up for my third year in Korea. …
Guatemalan Cooking Class in Antigua
It’s hard to fully explain how much I love food. An ex-girlfriend of mine had some idea when she accused me (I kid you not) of loving food more than her. Needless to say, she wasn’t too happy when I made no effort to deny the accusation, and we broke…
REVIEW of Acacia Africa: Desert and Delta Express Tour
Last month, I got to fulfill a childhood dream and travel to southern Africa. My sister Alisha and friend Sejeong went with me, and after a great deal of research on Alisha’s part, we decided to make this journey with Acacia Africa. There were several reasons for choosing them. They…
REVIEW of Acacia Africa: Desert and Delta Express TourRead More
The Great Pacific Northwest Road Trip
I love a good road trip. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of setting off to some distant place, knowing it will take you days to reach it, not knowing what adventures await you along the way. There are many reasons I enjoy living outside of the US, but few…
Under the Stars in Spitzkoppe
You would’ve loved this place, brother. It was wild, raw, elemental. The type of place that makes you realize how you fit into the universe and be thankful for your capacity to experience just a fraction of what it has to offer. You would’ve loved the rocks, red with iron…
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