This year, I’m going to be featuring some guest writers on my blog, other travel writers whose work has inspired me. Each person will be writing a post about the following question: What’s an experience you’ve had on the road which has changed your life?” The goal is to gather some intriguing tales involving the …
writing
Forks in the Road
When I first started The Open Road Before Me, it was early 2011 and I’d just decided to quit my job of three years to take up teaching English in South Korea. I was burnt out and desperate for change, and addressed the problem by veering down a vastly different road from what I’d been …
Tips on Traveling Alone and Not Going Crazy
It seemed an advantage to be traveling alone. Our responses to the world are crucially moulded by the company we keep, for we temper our curiosity to fit in with the expectations of others…Being closely observed by a companion can also inhibit our observation of others; then, too, we may become caught up in adjusting …
Tips for Filing a Travel Insurance Claim
Years ago, I wrote a post about my ‘hunt for travel insurance‘. I looked at several different companies and ended up picking World Nomads travel insurance as the appropriate option for me. Even as I wrote the post, I was resentful that I had to consider buying insurance. I’d been paying for health and auto insurance …
Traveling as an Introvert
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung Human psychology is fascinating, and it also happens to be something I know next to nothing about. And yet, even people like myself, with next to no knowledge of the field, know what it means when someone is described as an ‘introvert’ or ‘extrovert’. You …
Christmas Letter 2015
The past 12 months have been strange ones for me, and for a number of reasons. It’s the first year in the past four where I’ve spent more time in my home country than overseas. It’s the first time since university where I’ve found myself living abroad in a country outside of Asia. And it’s …
Top 10 Memories: Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend
I treat the camera like a person – I gaze into it. Photos are a flat thing, and you need to put life into them.” – Cara Delevingne Sometimes travel is dangerous. I know it as well as anyone. From being jumped on a cobblestone street in France to battling altitude sickness while crossing a pass …
The Flowscape of the City of Angels
pal·imp·sest /ˈpaləm(p)ˌsest/ noun something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form. The Chao Phraya winds through Bangkok like a serpent, muddied waters twisting through the haphazard urban sprawl before emptying into the Gulf of Thailand. The canals are lined with communities and open spaces; as we walk up, children play basketball …
The Fall
Traveling has been the thing which has brought the most joy into my life. So many of my favorite memories involve exploring some amazing new place, or experiencing the hospitality of new friends. Traveling has changed me and made me into a much better person than I was. And yet… Some of my most terrifying memories come from …
Reflections in Yosemite
“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir It’s easy to become removed from Nature; to become lost in virtual worlds as we work in our cities of metal and stone. It’s easy to forget how tightly bound we are to the world when our …