Travel Journal
The next morning, I was the first to wake. Sleeping with six other girls in a room the size of a closet is an experience all on its own. The floor space and bed-tops are in a constant state of chaos, piled high with clothing, backpacks, souvenirs, and complete sets of fly-fishing gear. I tiptoed through our floor collection of plastic bags and clothing piles to the button-sized bathroom.
Read MoreBeneath the streets, my hair melted to my face and everything stuck. The air felt like 100 degrees and despite a growing, restless crowd of Argentinians, my eyes surrendered shut in the extreme heat. I was one hot mess; but it was a mutual state; so that the chaos of it all was almost comfortable.
Read MoreFilm footage of my random one day stopover in L.A. with Rumi Neely.
Read MoreOur cab driver, Hani, looked like George Clooney. He lit a cigarette, asked for 25JD up front, and came to a stop on the side of the road before ushering us into an unmarked car. There was a lot of hand waving and what seemed like friendly arabic, some money changing and then he left us. Damn him, he left us.
Read MoreThe intricate design and high vaulted corridors of twisted rock had me convinced Petra was some sort of elaborate modern hoax. A fantasy world brought to fruition. It wasn’t until I had wandered the city streets myself that I began to process Petra as a reality; plainly panorama before me.
Read MoreFew places compare to the Canyonlands of Southeastern Utah. The sheer size and gravity of nature at its best. The innate sense of freedom; the euphoria of standing still amid a waste of wild air. Wadi Rum is one of those places.
Read MoreIt was cool enough to wear a sweater, and the sun was setting when we found a hilltop spot to sit and stare out at the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights and Yarmuk Gorge. The ruins of Umm Qais (Gadara) were at our back, Israel to the left and Syria to the right.
Read MoreI woke up on the seventeenth floor, suspended above a city beneath an overcast sky; misty roads winding through stacks on stacks of white stone structures. When you live for months at a time in a place void of rain, mist, and cloud; moody mornings are more like million dollar moments.
Read MoreIn Bahrain you drive on sidewalks and park where you like. You hear English so often you forget you're in the Middle East; you hire tailors to craft the designer stuff you see while sipping mango juice and paging though fashion magazines.
Read MoreAway from the ongoing project that is Manama, the landscape of the Middle Eastern land unraveled into ribbons of oil pipes and oceans of sand.
Read MoreI lived in the Middle East for just over six months, and still I only caught small glimpses of a world and culture I never imagined myself visiting, much less living.
Read MoreAfter three nights at the Grand Hyatt Muscat, we traded our suite for an SUV and drove from Muscat into the nether, sans GPS. The road was straight and went on forever, dotted with feral donkeys and curiously constrained camels.
Read MoreThe idea was not to linger in any one place, but to stay on the move, to drink in the never-ending panorama of the Muttrah Souq. Like most things, ideas are almost always good in theory; but they tend to wane in the most crucial of moments.
Read MoreFrom a distance, Christchurch appeared as a wave of twinkling lights. After two weeks of small towns and open roads, the unfolding chaos of an urban center was somewhat unsettling.
Read MoreOur first tuk-tuk cost us just 10 Baht, and the driver dove right into a much-rehearsed scheme-laden script. We expected as much, being foreign and all, but his lack of creativity was almost endearing.
Read MoreThe sun was long gone as Justin and I sat on a pier looking out onto the Doha skyline. There were four or five fishermen to our left, and a couple dressed in thobe and burka to our right.
Read MoreThe next morning, I woke up to a winter wonderland. Packed with snacks, I made the drive to Mount Cook to hike Kea Point and Hooker Lake. I crossed rope bridges over rivers of glacier water and scrambled in my low-top converse chucks over snow-capped boulders. An hour down the trail, I was completely alone.
Read MoreA little bit about Bahrain, a tiny island in the middle of the Middle East, opposite the bridge to Saudi Arabia. I had landed in Bahrain six weeks earlier on a flight from Sri Lanka, at the height of summer, when temperatures hovered somewhere around 114.
Read MoreIn southern Italy, you learn to slow down. You discover the subtle differences of espresso, lungo, macchiato and americano. You eventually give in and hang your underwear out to dry like your Italian neighbors and separate your trash into 14 different bins of labeled refuse.
Read MoreThe place looked as though it might be closed, but the door creaked open when I pushed inside. There seemed to be no one for miles; collected instead in the city by the bay, living complicated lives beneath the eaves of red ceramic tile.
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