I'm so tightly squished beneath the weight of two thick, giant duvets, I can hardly breathe. Or maybe that's the altitude. Either way, at least I'm warm. And being warm in Leh, Ladakh in the winter is no easy task.
Read MoreStories about finding your heart and soul around the world.
Filtering by Category: Adventure
Female construction workers in Jodhpur carry sand in buckets on their head as their children play nearby.
On Flying and Not Dying in India
After traveling several months throughout India, I can't seem to understand how people don't die more often.
Read More
Heading deep into the jungle on a tributary off the Marañon River in the Northern Peruvian Amazon.
Adventures & Oil Spills in the Peruvian Amazon, Part 2
We are floating on a giant water salad. Thick, green plants that look like bok choy surround our dugout canoe and stretch infinitely before us on a small tributary off the Marañón River in the remote Peruvian Amazon.
Read MoreDawn on the Marañon River, Northern Peruvian Amazon
Adventures & Oil Spills in the Peruvian Amazon, Part 1
Within the last six months, five oil spills from a single pipeline have contaminated the indigenous Kukama communities of the Northern Peruvian Amazon. Last month, we attempted to visit two of these sites in order to document the effects and to tell a more complete story of the true cost of oil extraction in the rainforest.
Read More
Dust storm and desert flowers in Black Rock City, Nevada
A Journey Home: Stunning images of Burning Man 2014
We need to be reminded that amazing places such as this can and do exist—communities where creativity, innovation and art come together to inspire humanity. This is Burning Man, 2014.
Read More
En route to Hampi, women construction workers walk along the train track
Stepping off the path + A train ride to Hampi, India
"Chai chai chai! Chai chai chai!"
"Pakora! Samosa! Pakora!"
We are on a train heading east to Hampi. Food hawkers jump on and off at every stop, rushing through the cars shouting, selling refreshments. I want to taste everything that passes—samosas served from a worn cardboard box, crispy masala rice snacks in a giant plastic garbage bag, fresh mango lassis carried in a tattered milk crate. Yet I cringe as the vendors grab food with their bare hands, passing it to customers wrapped in sheets of used newspaper."Chai chai chai! Chai chai chai!"
Read More
Cows at a farm along the road in Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary, India
Jungle Leopards + Adventuring in Goa, India
Goa is where we motorbike through dry rural winding country backroads, weaving past gypsy camps filled with colorful Rajasthani women who wear brilliant red orange saris and layers of silver jewelry. Tents line the road where these workers from the north live temporarily doing hard construction labor, carrying bowls of rock on their head. Yaks and cows lazily wander, oblivious to the cars and motorbikes that zip past. The farther away from the beach we get, the more worn and dry the landscape becomes. Yellow haystacks á la Monet and brown rice paddies void of crop or water fly past as we move deeper inland.
Read More
Exploring The Quiraing on the Isle of Skye, Scotland
Wanderlust + Solitude vs. loneliness + How I finally decided to travel the world
I have always had it in me, wanderlust. It's pretty much forever been my dream to explore the world through long-term travel.
Forget those short stolen twelve days of annual vacation allotted to working America (even though that's all the time I've had these past few years). No, that kind of travel is frenzied, restricting the majority of life to an unnatural cycle of constant want of more. I'm talking about the kind of long-term travel where you give up owning most things, leave behind a stable home, learn to live simply on a budget, and really see the world.
Read More
Snowfall at the Summer Palace, Beijing
Why we need endlessly changing horizons + A day of winter wonderland + breathing in China
I'm happy to announce that I've broken through the shackles of the internet firewall of Chinese censorship — I've arrived in India! It's 2013! And I haven't posted in a really long time. Oops.
In order to blog properly, I really need to dedicate quite a few more hours a week to this. Easier thought than done when continually on the move. I'm seeing so much every day (awesome!), it seems like it will take forever to fully process my documentations. But the amazing thing is, I really feel like I'm living. And I love that.
Read More
Rafting down the Colorado
Down the Colorado River, through the Grandest of Canyons
Hiking out of the Grand Canyon — 8 miles, 5,000 feet — felt like re-emerging from a quiet haven inside the earth to stand again atop the soil of civilization. Back up here it's a hot and crowded mess. Everything feels excessive. Everyone seems oblivious. The chaos is distinct after having been so deeply peaceful and disconnected. It feels like I’ve been gone for months, yet it's only been seven days.
We saw so much in those 90 miles rafting downstream.
Read More
Escape the default
I had never been to Black Rock City, Nevada before. An other-worldly place, a destination location available to vacationers only but once a year.
It arises from the empty white alkaline desert, completely pulsing and alive day and night, and then returns back into itself after just seven days. There is so much magic and wonder here, in a place that doesn’t even physically exist the majority of the year.
Notoriously difficult to describe, some people say Burning Man is a glorious experiment and experience.
Read More