Black Rock City, Nevada is an otherworldly place — a destination physically accessible for just one week a year.
This temporary city of 68,000 is the site of Burning Man, and it holds more magic and wonder than many places on earth.
Read MoreStories about finding your heart and soul around the world.
Filtering by Tag: inspiration
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.
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Sunrise in Black Rock City, NV
Instagramming Art at Burning Man 2013
Every year an unlikely group of creative minds gather in the middle of a dry harsh lakebed in Black Rock Desert, Nevada to practice radical self-reliance and radical self-expression, among other things.
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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!"
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Hauling in a boat after a day at sea, sunset view from my favorite hangout on Palolem beach
The value of mapping what you know + Beach life in Goa, India
I've grown to love late night arrivals. A blanket of darkness wraps around everything keeping it secret until morning's unveiling. There are so many unknowns that come with travel: Will this new bed have bugs in it? Will I die in a rickshaw? Will there be toilet paper? All that is unfamiliar dawns the next day. Ok, maybe not all, but at least you get to see where it is that you've landed.
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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.
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A working elephant at the sanctuary carries palm branches near Trivandrum, Kerala
A theater of humanity, images of village life in Kerala, India
"In the West, you save up all your money in order to spend it on an experience. You are searching for something," our Indian travel agent winks at me. Her sparkly nose ring catches the light and her bangles jingle as she hands us our train tickets. "Us Indians, we think you're a little bit crazy; we would never travel like you. We'd rather spend our money on gold jewelry, land, or a new house." This explains her inability to tell us more about popular sights at our next destination in India.
In the West, we do believe in the almighty experience. And for me, like many, the ultimate coveted experience has always been to travel.
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Checking out beautiful decorative designs from a puja ceremony at the yoga ashram in Kerala
Sometimes you have to surrender before you win + Answering Mother India's call
Stepping out of customs and into a crowded pen of late-night travelers, the warm Mumbai air reassures me we are no longer in China. Bunches of people are waiting, but not for us. Unfortunately, that appears to include the taxi driver we'd supposedly hired in advance.
"Sometimes you have to surrender before you win. Surrender is at the heart of the Indian experience." — Gregory David Roberts, from Shantaram
If there's one thing I've learned about India, it's that surrender really is at the heart of the Indian experience. There are so many inexplicable hoops and loops to everything here, and the method in which they are worked out rarely makes logical sense.
In this instance, in order to find our driver, we have to pay someone to contact someone else who eventually discovers our guy sleeping in his car.
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Girls preparing offerings for a small ceremony at Tirta Empul Tampaksiring
Travel as a quest for truth + Cleansing at a water temple in Bali
Tirta Empul Tampaksiring is a sacred water temple north of Ubud. Legend has it that a Hindu god once struck his staff into the earth bringing forth this natural spring. Today the Balinese bathe in the clear holy water as a sacred cleansing. I imagine the ritual to restore energy, honor the spirit, wash away pain, reveal truth.
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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“They came to sit & dangle their feet off the edge of the world and after awhile they forgot everything but the good and true things they would do someday.”