Category Featured

If you’ve never been to the Upper Peninsula —GOOD! Don’t go. It isn’t for you. It’s a shit place with nothing to do and nothing to see. Stay away, for your own good.

If you have been, then you know it’s heaven on Earth, and not to tell anyone about it. The first rule of the real diehards of the UP, the so called Yoopers, is not talk about the UP with the trolls. Trolls, if you don’t know, are everyone who live under the Mackinac Bridge, which separates the Upper Peninsula from the rest of Michigan. And the rest of the planet, really. If you do make it past the bridge, stop at the Yooper Tourist Trap. It’s well worth a visit.

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula is one of the most stunning natural places on this little blue ball. The fresh water lakes, the untouched forests, the rivers and waterfalls tucked away from the swarms of tourists. It’s a dreamland for the outdoor enthusiast.

Biblical Plagues in Rapid Secession

There are downsides to the UP, and they aren’t for the weak of heart or faint of knee. ‘Round about spring the mosquitos hatch. These nasty buggers can hatch right out of the snow. I’ve seen them crawling around on the ice looking for blood. There aren’t a few mosquitos here or there, but swarms of them so thick you can’t go outdoors.

One time my dad and I decided to hike to a nearby lake through the woods. I had head to two coverage and a hat. I had on so much mosquito repellant that I probably gave myself brain damage. My boots covered my feet, and I had gloves on my hands. So, we set out in mosquito season. ‘Round about the time we reached the other lake I couldn’t take it. I snapped an evergreen bough off of a nearby tree and started whacking the air around me. I saw the lake, muttered, “yeah, it’s great. Let’s get out of here.” And we dashed home, swinging pine boughs at the mosquitos. My neck, face, ears, wrists and ankles were covered in bites.

When the mosquitos die down a bit, the mayflies hatch. These congest the surface of everything from screen doors to picnic tables to windshields to boats. And if you were planning on fishing during bass season you can forget about it, because the fish are full to the gills with mayflies. They don’t want your stupid lure, they want a La-Z-Boy and a multi series Netflix show to binge while they chill in their nests and ignore you.

After the mayflies come the bitting flies. These assholes will nip and gouge at any exposed skin on your body, including your eyelids. But, if you think you’ll just wear long sleeves and pants to fool them you can forget about it, because they can bite through steel. Also, it’s 90 degrees outside, Celsius, and you’re damp and covered in sweat, which only attracts more flies.

And then there is about a week of nothing trying to bite or kill you. In that week, you can enjoy the fall foliage, stroll around in the amber-tinted forests or take in stunning vistas of Lake Superior.

After the Plagues Come the Snow

But right as you start thinking, “Hey, we should get a cabin up here,” the snow hits. And it hits hard. In the UP there is snow from about early October to round about May. And if you haven’t heard the very technical term “round-about” before, you haven’t studied the weather or insect patterns of the UP because that’s as good as it gets. ‘Round about is a technical term in the UP.

Finally, the fishing report for the UP: Many of the folks who come up, the trolls, they come up for the fishing and hunting. Hunting season is so-so, but you might as well stay downstate and save yourself the $5 Mackinac Bridge fare. Lodging costs more in the UP for hunters, too. Stay away, stop killing all of our wildlife, ya jerks. Fishing, on the other hand, is also horrible in the UP. So many people escaped to Michigan after the tourism board launched their Pure Michigan campaign that pretty much all of the fish in the great lakes are now in troll bellies down south. Fishing reports for the past five years have been abyssal. 

‘Round about now, you’re probably asking why I’m even writing about the UP. The answer is that this is a warning, a morality tale of sorts. Stay out of the UP so the fish come back, and the mosquito populations die down. Stay away, ya damn trolls! Back, back! Try somewhere else in America.

Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan are the land of plenty. Plenty of space. Plenty of weight on the locals. Plenty of cheese on the french fries. Plenty of everything. We started in Minneapolis, home of the Mall of America, the largest mall in the country. You can walk for hours and not see everything. I know. We tried. There is a theme park in the center, a movie theatre, spas, hundreds of shops and dozens of restaurants. Anything you want you can find at Mall of America, except your car. You’re going to lose your car. My god, where is the car?

Minnesota: Lakes, Malls and Snow

Minneapolis has a great free zoo in Como Park, out on the east side. Check out the Como Park Conservatory. You can donate at the entrance if you want to, or don’t. I don’t care. But we always tried to drop a few bucks in the pot because damn do they do a good job with the animals at Como. They have a free-range sloth in the greenhouse area, and there are meerkats all over the place right inside the entrance. They have larger animals, too, but for me the greenhouse always won out. Such a lovely spot to come, especially in the colder months. Which, in Minnesota, are about 10 months of the year.

If you’re anybody at all worth knowing than you live on Lake Minnetonka. We don’t, because we’re not worth knowing, but we have friends on the lake. Experiencing how the elite live is a joy and a curse. It’s such a delight to experience, but then you have to zip up your suitcase and go back to the cheap motels with holes in the bedding and curly hairs in the sheets. You can get a taste of the rich life by strolling around the quaint villages that ring the lake, or driving down the mansion-lined streets. There are several open access points to the lake. You can even check out Prince’s house, which is nearby.

Wisconsin: Land of Cheese and Roller Coasters

Wisconsin is famous for cheese, but also for the Wisconsin Dells, which house a bunch of theme parks. Here you can ride all manner of rollercoaster or spinning tea cup. There are decent resorts and it’s near enough to an airport that you don’t have a long drive after landing. The prices are reasonable in the off season, and a bit extreme in summer. If you ever wanted to learn an Eastern European language, many of the staff at the Wisconsin Dells resorts and theme parks are there on summer work visas. 

We didn’t spend much time in Wisconsin because it wasn’t theme park season. Instead, we sort of transited the state, and our hearts thank us for avoiding the artery-blocking cuisine.

Michigan: The Mosquito’s Playground

Michigan is for nature lovers. If you don’t love nature, don’t bother congesting the freeways and airports, it won’t be the place for you. The best thing to do in Michigan is get outside. Detroit has a lot to offer, as does Ann Arbor, but your best bet is to get into the woods, enjoy the lakes, go on an ATV ride or rent snowmobiles if it’s winter. Just get yourself geared up and get outside.

With the launch of the Pure Michigan tourism campaign, RV, ATV, boat and snowmobile enthusiasts from around America started to explore the bounty of Michigan. This was great for the economy but bad for those of us who were already outside enjoying the peace and quiet. Nothing says hike faster than having a group of loud tourists behind you in the peaceful forrest.

I have so much more to say about Michigan. I’ll do a whole post on the Upper Peninsula soon, so stay tuned.

We have done a lot of US road tripping, check out more on the Road Trip page.

For about a year and a half we lived in Missouri, smack dab in the middle of the American Central Midwest. This, I can assure you, was culture shock to the extreme. As a vegetarian and flex vegan, Missouri was a whole new world, culinarily speaking. And not a good one. More like a Mad Max wasteland world, where everything was barbecued or deep fried, and nothing came with vegetables, despite the fact that they were being grown all around us.

In Missouri, we checked out Branson, of course, and St. Louis. Now, if you’re in the market for a solid heart attack, we’d suggest dining in St. Louis. Go literally anywhere. But St. Louis has some healthy options too. You could walk around the zoo, which is free. And St. Louis has a massive park (that houses the zoo, conveniently) and a nearby free science museum. All of these attractions are well worth a visit.

Indiana: Corn, Literature and More Corn

Indiana has some perks worth checking out. For one, Kurt Vonnegut, my favorite writer of all time, hails from Indianapolis. Sure, he spent most of his productive years elsewhere, but the midwest doesn’t have shit to claim, so we’ll let them have it. Indianapolis is now home to the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library, which is pretty sweet, to tell the truth. You can go right in, have a tour, buy some themed gifts or attend some of their events. They really are doing an awesome job of sharing Vonnegut’s vision. So, that’s something the midwest has going.

Indiana has an awesome downtown area. We checked out The Garage, an eatery for everyone with tiny stalls selling everything from lobster rolls to Pakistani to cheap margaritas and soup. We loved the downtown. We also checked out the Indiana State Museum, which at $17 was well worth it to see the throngs of taxidermies animals and era-by-era cultural items. Indiana has a lot going on back in the day, including being trampled flat by mammoths. True story.

Illinois: The Cornhole of America

Illinois has a few things to offer the intrepid tourist eager to see real America. I hear Chicago is nice. I went once. It was cold, wet, and everywhere we went a Sheik came up to us and said, “you probably shouldn’t be here.” Apparently south side Chicago is not where I’m meant to be? No joke, that happened more than once as we were looking for a well-known philately shop. I missed the downtown, the skyscrapers and the views of the great lakes because we ran out of gas and decided to leave after the third person in an hour told us to get out of there. So, we did. 

Cahokia is one of my favorite things in the midwest. This, at one point, was the largest native city in the United States. Now we know almost nothing about it, or the people who built it. All we have left are these huge mounds that you can walk around on. We climbed several, looked out at the ol’ Mississippi and enjoyed the views. I can see why they picked that spot. Endless flatlands for crops or grazing and the river for fish and transportation and trade. Still, very little is known about them, and most school-aged kids haven’t even heard of it.

The midwest has some pretty cool parks. Not Yellowstone or Niagara, but still. They try. One of my favorite things about living in Missouri for a year and a half was watching the farming community do their thing. I have to assume this is a labor of love, because they aren’t making a profit. Everything I read about farming suggests it’s all but a starvation wage after investing in everything needed to keep the farm active. Still, I can see the appeal of farming from a job-satisfaction standpoint. You work hard, hands in the soil, and you see real results. We watched the field near our house go from snow-covered to sludge to ribbed for seeds, to sprouting and finally to fruition and harvest. It was a thrill to watch the machines roll through and see real live farmers in coveralls out there checking the plants. I suppose if you’ve always lived near fields it wouldn’t be that exciting, but corn, soybeans and yarrow grew nearby and it was stunning.

We made trips to Minnesota, Colorado and Kansas in addition to our Illinois, Missouri, Indiana trips, but I’ll write about them later. For now, that’s the midwest as we saw it. You’re welcome to it, especially in harvest season when the sky turns grey with little tiny specs of husk and ear finely chopped and ready to clog your lungs.

If you missed our American Road Trip adventures, you’ll find more including routes on the Road Trip page.

I’ve written before about learning languages, and how much I enjoy the undertaking. Here I’ll discuss learning the Bulgarian language and culture. I speak German, and tried for many years to improve my Mandarin. I find languages totally fascinating. How a whole group of people see the world is limited (and advanced!) by their language, their ability to think and talk about what they see, feel and experience. It’s all driven by language, and the differences between languages are so thick and vast sometimes that it feels impossible that any two people from different root languages could share similar ideas, and yet—we do!

For work I was tasked with learning the Bulgarian language, and sent to an instructor who would teach me one-on-one. This was pretty sweet for me, as a lover of words and languages. We sat across from one another for about four months talking about Bulgaria, Bulgarian customs and traditions and ideas, and of course learning the language. This is exactly my type of exploration. A mix of understanding a new place and a new way of thinking about the world. My teacher was an older woman who never acclimated to life in the US, and spoke of her homeland as heaven on Earth.

Bulgarian Language Roots

Bulgarian is a slavic language and Bulgarians swear they invented Cyrillic. Cyril and Methodius being Bulgarian, of course. The Macedonians and Russians also claim them, but they are wrong. I know because my teacher told me, and later every Bulgarian I met would mention it at some point. So yeah, they invented Cyrillic, which was created by simplifying Greek and adapting it to the more guttural sounds of the spoken language. Of course this was all to translate the Bible, as the Bulgarians are the best Christians since Christ. 

In the video below you’ll see a very pregnant me reciting part of a Bulgarian poem alongside others.

The Bulgarian language is stunningly rich in culture and history that it can’t be separated out. You can’t untangle words to find simple nouns, but instead stories and fables support single words. It is a joy to learn.

Any language you approach from the outside seems methodically structured, but of course they aren’t. They are hobbled together by necessity. With English, it’s apparent in how we steal and use words from other languages (Garage, aisle, kindergarten, for a few examples) but other languages aren’t as Frankensteinian. Bulgarian has words from Russia, words from Greek and words from the Turkish language, all neighbors geographically, but for the most part Bulgarian is pretty pure. And this isn’t surprising once you meet a Bulgarian. They don’t want outside influence. 

Stubborn People, Stubborn Language

When the Ottomans took control of Bulgaria they held it for over 500 years. That’s longer than America has been around, folks. And in all that time, the language and culture of Bulgaria hardly budged. Their religion, often underground and attacked, survived. Their style of clothing: intact. After 500 years the Ottomans were forced out (bloody, horrible affair, too) and the culture was little changed. That is some grade-A stubbornness. And they retain that stubbornness to this day, steadfast in the preservation of their culture and language. So when you learn a new word you don’t get a one-to-one translation but an epic story complete with a Bulgarian hero or grandmother or saint.

You can learn more about Bulgaria here.

Bulgarian music takes advantage of the easier grammar (at least compared to Russian!) to fuse traditional music with modern rap. This is a delight to any listener, and should be appreciated as a complex cross-cultural experiment in both language and music.

If you haven’t heard Bulgarian before, check out this video clip of a native speaker and note how fluidly and smoothly the language cascades, as compared to the harsher Greek, more nasal Turkish and more guttural Russian languages that surround Bulgaria. 

Make no mistake about it, summer in Athens is HOT!

We spent a month and a half in Athens and the surrounding areas this summer. At times, the temperature was a sweltering (and dangerous) 115 and higher. While the sea was an inviting way to stay cool, it was often too hot to even trudge to the car to reach the shores.

Still, there was much to see and do in Athens on the less-than-murderously-hot days. Here are the top five things we enjoyed. More to come!

The Parthenon

This ancient temple at the Athens Acropolis is pretty impressive. It has everything a good traveler could ask for: impressive history, ancient-looking rock stuff and a gentle pathway to the top for easy viewing. Still, when you have to fight crowds of tourists and blaring tour guides. Dodge pointy parasols and be barked at by bitter tourists, you realize the Parthenon is one of those once-in-a-lifetime stops. The structure is impressive, but covered in scaffolding and hard to photograph given the crowds and metal and wire support structures.

With Kids- the Parthenon

Our daughter enjoyed chasing lone lines of ants around the giant marble slabs that make up the entrance to the Acropolis. That and the slushies near the ticket booth were the highlights for her.

The Beach

There are a few  great beaches to choose from if you’re in Athens. We went to Rafina first. This beach is rougher than what you’d picture for the Aegean. Rough rock led out into beautiful turquoise water where you could slip under the waves and watch little crabs and small fish poke in and out of the formations. It is about half an hour from Athens.

Marathon Beach is the site of the famous battle between the Athenians and the Persians who outnumbered them. The Athenians wom, repelling the invaders. Legend has it a runner dashed to Athens to tell of the victory, dying upon arrival. The beach today is quaint and quiet. Sand leads into gentle water without much surf. There is no shade.

The nearby Battle of Marathon mound is worth a drive by.

Poseidon’s Temple Beach is a great little spot to cool off after you see Poseidon’s Temple. The temple is 8 Euro per adult and 4 for EU members. It is every bit as cool as the Parthenon, only smaller and without any crowds. The views of the sea from atop are unparalleled. Its about an hour outside of Athens. The water is warm and gentle, though rougher than Marathon Beach. Sea urchins and loads of rocks make for a more dynamic adventure.

With Kids- the Beaches

Rafina– not for young kids, but if your children can swim comfortably or wear a mask they’ll enjoy the wildlife.

Marathon– Perfect for young kids who can’t swim. They can still sit in the water and enjoy the gentle waves.

Poseidon’s Temple Beach– Rougher water and the perfect mix of rocks for snorkeling and gentle surf for younger kids.

The Bazaar

The bazaar isn’t one thing but several streets with souvenirs and trinkets, high-end memorabilia and antiques. The flea market ranges from people’s home items displayed on little blankets along the cobble stone to book sellers with loaded carts. In all, the area is worth a visit. Of additional  value, the views of the Ancient Agora and Acropolis are great from along the bazaar alleyways.

With kids: The bazaar- There are trinkets and ice cream for the kids, but mostly they’ll be unimpressed by a shopping adventure in high heat. 

The Food

Athens has great food! Downtown there is no shortage of restaurants, and many of them offer great local cuisine, including seafood. In the more central tourist areas the food is overpriced and mass produced, but if you find a side street or a higher-end establishment you’ll be wildly impressed.

With Kids: The Food

We’d like to call out an unlikely win for dining with kids- Athens Beer. This establishment brought out a baby cradle when we arrived, and accommodated our older kids with great after dinner drinks that mimicked the adult drinks.

The Museum

We visited the Archeological Museum on a rather warm 114 degree day. The draw was not only the wealth of amazing history but the air conditioning that would make viewing it possible. The rooms of pottery were interesting, but the real attractions are the rooms full of statues. Some of these artifacts are in mint condition, others are the classic no armed Greek garden piece you’ve come to expect. Still, the collection will blow away even the most seasoned museum visitor.

With Kids: The Museum

Skip the pottery side rooms and go straight to the first floor statues. We had fun trying to mimic the poses of the statues and drawing them in little notebooks.

Books open a window into how another person sees the world. For travelers, we strive to see the world in new ways everyday– and reading is just one of the many ways we expand our vision. As an avid reader, I’ve collected quite the glorious bookshelf of travel literature, and as I go through the shelf, book by book, I feel a sense of nostalgia and joy remembering where I was and who I was when I read these books. All of them have, in a way, helped me to see the world in a better (or more honest) light.

Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

For over a year Shackleton and his crew survived in the frigid waters of the Antarctic seas, their ship crushed by ice and rendered useless. Yet they endured, and survived. No one would come to their aid, and indeed– no one knew where they were or would find their bodies if they sunk below the sheets of ice they floated on. Eventually they would set sail– in a life boat– and several would live to tell the tale.

The Great Railway Bazaar

I’m not a fan of Theroux books in general because he seems to be on these epic adventures almost begrudgingly. His banter isn’t witty or interesting, it’s full of disdain, and it infects the patient people around him. I had high hopes for his books about China, and especially about train travel– something I’m passionate about and love. But still I have to say that this book is good– mostly because there are not many other great reads about train travel around the world, and it’s such a lovely way to move around.

The Geography of Bliss

One man sets out to find the world’s happiest people. Shockingly, they aren’t all first world countries. Or maybe that shouldn’t be surprising at all. Still, I read this while on the road and always came back to the idea that Burma, despite its endless problems, is one of the top countries on my bucket list.

Shantaram

This book isn’t about travel, per say, but elements in Lin’s story bring the color and vibrancy and excitement of wanderlust to life. Lin, the escaped convict, disappears in Bombay to hide and find a new life for himself. He finds a lot more than that. What I love about this book is how well the setting plays into the story, and how important “place” is to the outcome and direction of each character’s life.

Vagabonding

Like so many other travelers, I liked Rolf Potts book about life on the road. I read this sitting on a white-sand beach on an island off of Texas, and have a lovely picture of me in the sun with this travel book shading my face and filling my brain. Full of great insight and advice, this is a must-read for any world traveling hopeful.

The Sex Life of Cannibals

If you know where Kiribati is you’re ahead of where I was before I opened this book. Stranded on the island (by choice) this writer gives intersting, comical and witty insight into traveling around the islands, and a blunt and honest take on what will likely become of the small islands in the central Pacific.

Honeymoon with my Brother

One of my all-time favorite travel sagas, this book tells the story of a man whose fiancee leaves him and he decides to take the already booked and paid for vacation honeymoon– with his brother. The two set off on a gloomy, bittersweet trip and end up falling in love with themselves, and who they are as people. It’s great because yes– they travel and see new things, but in the end what they really find is who they are. And fraternity.

Marco Polo

You can’t have a travel book list without this epic. Although a lot of the history in Marco Polo’s tales are not accurate, he does an excellent job of painting a picture for readers. You get a sense of the Khan’s palace, realm and riches, but take it all with a grain of salt. Still, the book wouldn’t be what it is without a bit of exaggeration.

Hector and the Search for Happiness

A therapist suddenly realizes that he works non-stop to make his clients happy while he himself isn’t happy. He has no idea what happiness is. So, he sets out on a trip around the world to try to find happiness. What I love about this is that in the end (spoiler alert) he doesn’t know why he went on the trip at all. He just ran from his life, and tried to find resolution on past experiences. It’s great because it doesn’t idolize travel.

Lost on Planet China

Written by the same funnyman who wrote The Sex Life of Cannibals, this read was hilarious for anyone who knows China. His first time in the country was full of missteps, observations and mistakes that all China travelers make– and later laugh at. And yet his insight into China and the Chinese was thoughtful and kind, almost loving. This book inspired me to wipe the slate and try to see each place anew every morning.

A Peace to End All Peace

This isn’t a travel book, to be sure, but I read this when I was backpacking through Central Asia, the Caucus and Eastern Europe. And then, finally, I finished this book in Istanbul one day while looking out over the Bosphorus. It was fitting that I closed the book in Turkey, as that’s where this nonfiction account of WWI and the ridiculous aftermath began– with Churchill looking out on the same waters. This book, like many travel literature, framed much of the rest of my travel through Europe. Why are boundaries and borders where they are? And was a temporary peace worth the lasting conflict these lines in the sand created?

Race to Dakar

I love Charley Boorman. I don’t know what it is, but there is something about this guy that is instantly likable. Maybe it is his friendship with Ewan McGregor that elevates him to such “cool” strata, or maybe it’s the fact that he is man-boy who was able to keep his hobbies as his primary job well into adulthood. And not only that, but he manages to make it in everything he tries– including writing. But his real passion is a good road rally, and I have that passion as well (though not as fast or to the same level!)

The Ridiculous Race

While in Shanghai, I read a lot. I read on the subway (with the book pushed flat against my face from the crowds) and I read on the bus (with a lap full of cabbages to store for winter). And when I was reading this book, I laughed a lot out loud, causing the Shanghai-ren around me to laugh too. This is the true story of two young men who decide to set off around the world in opposite directions and race back to again– a circumnavigation of silliness. I loved the idea of two friends setting out on adventure– and it was all the more comical knowing they were apart and yet always thinking of how to best one another.

Flightless

We travel by ground transportation a lot since I’m not a fan of flying, so Flightless– the tales of people who travel without flying– was perfect for me. I loved the idea that other people are out there with the same mindset. It’s always good to get reassurance. For me, travel isn’t about flying over the ugly parts– it’s about all the parts. And that, my friends, has landed me in some ugly territory at times– but those memories are just as priceless as the beautiful ones, and often more memorable.

Wild

When the person who is your anchor in life dies, what holds you together? For some people, the answer is, “I don’t know,” and that was the case with Wild. One woman sets off to try to find herself on the Pacific Coast Trail– and ends up walking for a long, long time before she finally does. What I liked about this book was that the author doesn’t hold back. She made big mistakes and wasn’t too shy to tell us all about them, in all their dirty details, just to highlight how important it is to be outside, in nature, moving and nomadic.

 Three Cups of Tea

Despite the controversy over his books, I liked Three Cups of Tea, and read it when I was in Uzbekistan, not far from the lands he was describing. I loved his descriptions of the villages, of the cultures, of the way of life I’d never likely see. And, ultimately, I loved that there was a person out there brave enough to go into the chaos of Pakistan and try to help young girls get an education.

Wild Swans

Again, this isn’t a travel book, per say, but it is an excellent book that inspired me to want to travel to China– to really see the China I had missed in prior visits stuck in the cities. After reading this book in Illinois, I set off for China and backpacked in the western provinces for several months. At last I had seen more of China– that land outside the major cities that so few travelers really see.

Road Fever

One of my all-time favorite road rally books begins with Tim Cahill deciding to drive from Tierra del Fuego (the most southern point in South America) to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska (the most northern point in North America) by truck. This book is insane, and covers deserts, ice lands, bandits and a whole lot in between in a record 23 days. This is part of what inspired me to want to participate in the Mongol Rally. Thanks Tim, for the inspiration!

If you know of other great travel books, let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the list!

If you’re sitting around watching TV all day, you’re not out seeing the world. Let’s face it though, every traveler knows that downtime is important to long-term travel happiness. Once, in Kashgar, sick with dysentery and heat exhaustion, we spent an entire day at a hostel watching TV shows on our laptops. Was it a proud travel moment– no! But it’s the truth about long-term travel. Sometimes, the museums and back-alley photo shooting expeditions can wait. Here are the shows we devour, and that inspire us to travel.

Idiot Abroad

This is one of my all-time faborite travel shows because Ricky Gervais’ comedy coupled with the witty banter of Karl Pilkington is a hit. Gervais and his buddy Stephen Merchant send Karl out into the world, intentionally directing his travels to the hardest places on the planet for a normal London bloke to survive. An epic prank against Karl turns on its head when he starts to love the adventure, and comes back for an additional two seasons.

Anthony Bourdain – The Layover, No Reservations, Parts Unknown

I’ll admit that I’m late jumping on the Anthony Bourdain bandwagon, but now that I have– I’m hooked. I love how he mixed tidbits about the countries he travels to in with great food and witty banter. I resisted watching because I don’t like cooking/food shows, but this is a whole lot more. And now I’m constantly craving foods I can’t find at home.

Long Way Round and Long Way Down

As a motorcycle fan, these shows about traveling bikers was an easy sell for me. I started watching it when I heard Charley Boorman was competing in the Dakar Rally– I want so badly to participate someday in a Kamaz. I love their friendship and the way they travel and try new things together. Ewan McGregor may be a big-time Hollywood star, but when he’s with Charley he’s just a pal, and these two kids are out on adventure together.

The Amazing Race

I’ll admit I’m not into reality TV, but this show has captivated my attention more than a few times. I’m not a die-hard fan, but if I catch an episode here or there I’m happy to be seeing more of the world. Travel is already awesome, so I’m not sure why there needs to be money and a game attached to it, but hell– it sells.

Pole to Pole

This travel series, although old, was one of the first to really captivate armchair travelers. And like a few of the other best travel shows, it’s by Michael Palin.

LOST

Loads of people were caught up in the drama and chaos of the series, but we were just excited to be seeing a new place. And what kind of travel is more extreme than time travel?

Expedition Unknown

As historians and travelers we were geared up to love this show– and we do. I think it could stand to go more into the history and relevence of the myths, and also branch into lesser-known figures, but all in all– we’re hooked.

Around the World in 80 Ways

This was a hilarious concept for a show and I could see myself trying to do this in a country just for a bit of good fun.

Samantha Brown

Her passports are great insight into travel, and whats more important– this was one of the few shows aired in China on the English CCTV channel, so we got to know her quite well over the years.

Madventures

These two world-traveling backpackers have finally landed in the big time with this series documenting their trips around the glove.

Bizarre World, Bizarre Foods

This show starring Andrew Zimmerman was a short-lived follow up to Bizarre Foods, which, again– isn’t really our thing. We did, however, like the idea of drawing attention to the world’s most interesting and unique things– whatever they are. It’s so fun to learn about other cultures before you visit so you have some insight into what you’re eating/seeing.

Around the World in 20 Years

This British documentary is only one episode, but it’s captivating, and Michael Palin has other episodes around the world that really make this a complete picture of one man’s travels through time and place.

Top Gear

A lot of people don’t think of this as a travel show, but I’ve seen them in Africa, and the US, and South America and riding up to the North Pole in a truck/dog sled– and all the while they follow their passion for motorized fun. It’s great to travel, but traveling with passion is even more enlightening.

Have other suggestions? Let us know in the comments below.

This post will compete with thousands of other similar posts on the web. What makes it different? Well, to be honest– nothing. But I will be upfront about what we did, how we did it, what worked, and what didn’t and how to go about using that mysterious FastPass+.

Disney World — Magic Kingdom

We traveled to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom with three kids ages 8, 5 and 3, and four adults.

We purchased out tickets on site at 8:30am after parking in the middle of the Simba lot and then taking a (fun!) trolly to the gate. Everything at Disney is set up to be efficient. If we ever wanted to streamline the military/government, etc– we should hire Disney to do it. Folks called “cast members” greet you and direct you to the ticket counter where someone else lightens your wallet for you and hands back a few credit-card sized plastic tickets with a barcode on the back. You can scan this with a smartphone and, after you download the MyDisneyExperience app, you can program your three free, complimentary FastPasses (see below for more on that).

Having never been to Disney World (or any of their affiliates, like Disney Land, Disney Hong Kong, etc) I was shocked to see that they didn’t skimp on anything. Everything was lovely, clean, organized and fun. The rides were fun, well organized and every attempt was made to make waiting in line fun. They have some interactive stuff to do while you wait, and in the little kid’s attractions there are even little playgrounds. I liked, also, that they kept some of the staple attractions (Small World) and combined in new stuff, like Tangled in the parade, along with Frog Princess and Frozen. What I didn’t like was that you couldn’t see the characters. For whatever reason I was under the impression you could walk around the park and meet and greet with stuffed characters like Mickey and Donald. Instead, you had to wait in long lines, which was kind of lame. I thought part of the magic was that you walked around and it seemed like the characters actually lived there. To piggyback on that, we were sad to find out that there was a 90 minute wait to meet Ana and Elsa, so we couldn’t do it. 90 minutes with a preschooler is just too long. It would be cool if they opened a few more Frozen meet and greets so every little girl’s dream could come true (and so parents didn’t have to deal with grumpy kids in lines!). But that minimal, small complaint is about all we had to complain about. The rest was so amazing, the rides so fun, even the park food was decent. I expected a cheesy, overpriced, under delivered experience and I was wowed. Hard to do, so I applaud you, Disney. No wonder you are the magic makers.

Disney World — Animal Kingdom

With tots in tow we only wanted to do two parks, and Animal Kingdom was an easy second choice for us. Kids love animals, adults love the global aspect and the artwork, so it was a win for everyone.

I’ll admit that I didn’t think it could be as cool as Magic Kingdom– but for me I ended up liking the park better! The safari ride was a blast, all of the architecture and art and amazing details throughout the “continent” regions of the park made it feel like you were on an around-the-world journey but instead of TSA and visa hassles there were rides and caramel nuts. Sweet!

We loved the Everest ride. Sadly, the Kali River Rapids were closed (after waiting in line 40 minutes they evacuated the ride, us along with it. It never reopened). The Big’s Life show was short, but awesome and great for all ages, while the Finding Nemo musical was probably once of the most amazing performances I’ve seen as an adult. Again, I was shocked at how nothing was skimped on. There were no shortcuts taken. Someone put a lot of time, money and creativity into every single aspect of the park. Every tile was a tiny work of art, every piece of stucco was just perfectly placed to replicate a region of the world, down to the tiniest details (squat toilets in Asia!). One of my daughter’s top delights was the live music in Africa, complete with a dance area. Those kinds of touches make the day brighter.

Disney World — DownTown Disney

Downtown Disney is a cute experience, but we went before any adventures at other attractions, so the kids were a bit disappointed by the fact that it wasn’t “DisneyWorld.” Fair enough!

They have a fun Legoland experience, where I beat a bunch of kids at building Lego rally cars. They have statues of Mickey Mouse and his posse and  Winnie the Pooh. We dined at the Rainforest Cafe, a first for me and a lot of fun for the kids. With snacks, treats, loads of shopping and a fun candy store, there was no shortage of stuff to do, but with a 3 and 5-year-old the fun was a bit pedestrian. With younger kids, probably skipping this or bringing a stroller would be best.

How to Use the Disney FastPass+

Here are a few tips for Magic Kingdom FastPass+. First off, people around you at will have purchased their tickets well in advance, meaning they already inserted their top ride and attraction picks. So, if you buy your tickets at the gate you’ll be hard pressed to get a FastPass to the more coveted attractions, like the Seven Dwarfs Ride, Meet Anna Else, etc. For us, we put in what we wanted and managed to get decent time slots. Most open slots will be in the evening, when the park is less busy. Especially in peak season.

The thing to remember is that the system, although efficient and well designed, isn’t totally stable. Of our three FastPasses, only one worked. One ride we were told our daughter was too short for even though she bumped her head against the measuring bar. The other ride was down when we showed up for our FastPass time– a shame since we had run across the park in 90-degree weather to use our cards. The third ride worked well, though when we got to the attraction we found that the normal standby wait time was only 10 minutes– a bit of a waste of a FastPass. So, for us, the whole system was more of a hassle than it was worth.

Here are a few tips for Animal Kingdom FastPass+: We arrived at 8:30, bought our tickets and then discovered the park wasn’t that packed so we went to the most coveted rides (Everest, Dinoland, etc) and rode those a few times since the wait was less than ten minutes. Because we had a preschooler with us we did the ride swap option, which Disney kindly does to allow parents of small children the chance to do the rides one at a time. It worked well for us. Ask about it at the gate, or with one of the hundreds of attendants or kiosk gurus if you’re curious how it works.

As with our visit to Magic Kingdom, the FastPasses were more of a hassle than they were worth. Kali River Rapids was closed down and the other coveted rides didn’t have much of a wait at all, so for us we ended up only using one FastPass again. I think if you go on an off-peak day you can’t scrap them if you don’t need them. For us, the parks were rated a 4 out of 10 for business (week one in May, 2015). We can’t imagine how the parks would be possible to enjoy at a 10 day as they were plenty crowded.

What to Bring to Disney World with a Preschooler and Elementary School Kids

If you bring a bag, you have to go through a somewhat long security line, FYI. I had one bag (see pic above) with a poncho for each kid, a bunch of energy bars, snacks, and water bottles. I brought sunscreen, Band-Aids, a hat and change of clothes (there is a water park to run through at Magic Kingdom, and River Rapids at Animal Kingdom could soak the tots). We ended up using everything in the bag. One major fail was we forgot the stroller. You can rent them on site for $13 for a single or $16 for a double and they have stroller-parking areas by each attraction. We didn’t do it right away, and by the time my arms were sore from carrying the kid the rental area was too far away to get back to without sacrificing an hour or more. Bring a small camera with a video recorder (record the parade, it’s awesome!) that is (preferably) waterproof. So many rides have water, and even the shows have little splashes.

Where to Stay in Orlando for Disney World Access

We stayed for a week at the Marriott Harbor Lake Resort, Orlando. The place is amazing. It has two kid-friendly pools. One has a pirate ship sunk into the water with slides and climbing stuff, water shooting out of alligator mouths, etc. The other pool has two tall towers that dump huge vats of water on kids below as well as a wading pool and huge water slide. There are hot tubs nearby for the adults, and fun activities were going on all the time.

Marriot Harbor Lake Resort, Orlando

Our room was a great, two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with kitchen, balcony, and all the normal comforts of home. I would stay here again! The only down side (if it is one at all?) is that they don’t clean the room every day. This was great for us because we had kid stuff everywhere but I imagine if you were a party animal you’d want someone to mop up after you a bit more.

Marriott Harbor Lake Resort, Orlando Lake View Room

We recently did a massive road trip across the motherland of America. Here are the absolute highlights for over a month on the road.

• Bear Baiting in Big Bay
• Niagra Fall, in Canada
• Mount Washington Resort, in New Hampshire
• The Freedom Trail, in Boston
• Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, in Philadelphia
• The Capital on a lazy Sunday, in DC
• Carmen, in Winston-Salem, NC
• The Ocean on Halloween, in Wilmington, NC
• Drinking PBR during the day in Nashville, TN
• Seeing Al Green, in Memphis
• The flatlands of Oklahoma after seeing Oklahoma!
• The world’s creepiest wasteland, outside of Las Vegas, New Mexico
• Singing with Hippies, in Boulder, CO
• Touring Vail by Moonlight
• The Columbia River Highway, through OR
• The beautiful rainforest drive on I-5N

We recently had some friends visit us in Beijing, an occurrence which was a wonderful reminder of how many amazing sights there are in this city. Instead of the major tourists hot spots like the Forbidden City, our friends enjoyed the smaller, more tucked away treasures. The Llama Temple was a favorite, as was eating street food and walking around in the hutongs. We did hit the main highlights (hey, ya got to!), like the Great Wall at Mutianyu and the Forbidden City and Summer Palace, but the real days of exploration and discovery involved the more local favorites, Jingshan Park after the rain, Houhai on a weekend, etc.

Above (image) a very crowded summer-time Forbidden City. The palace was so packed we had to wait in “line” to peek into each throne room. On the other hand, the Great Hall of Clocks provided air conditioning and an early glimpse at China’s attempts to reverse engineer Western technology.

Above (image) Mutianyu. Surprisingly, this favored section of the Great Wall was not that busy mid-week in late May. It was, however, beautiful and worth the drive up. Our guests couldn’t have dreamed of better weather for their Great Wall day.

Above (image) of a side street off Nanluoguxiang. Our guests enjoyed waking up and strolling around the hutongs in search of coffee and adventure. They usually succeeded in one of the two. People watching in the hutongs is a great way to pass some relaxing time. The little window at 12sqm Bar & Cafe was a great place to peek out at the world.

Above (image) of a very un-crowded Llama Temple mid-week. The guests enjoyed this a great deal. It has easy access, isn’t swarmed with camera-touting tourists in floppy hats and smells like sandalwood.

With the current crackdown on foreigners the guests did have to deal with the raging xenophobia common in China. They don’t have other “races” to deal with so they don’t know how not to be racist. Unfortunately, they project all of this on foreigners, which is a broad term that can mean basically anyone who isn’t Han. We had a hard time getting cabs, even though dozens would screech by empty and looking for Chinese passengers. Our poor guests also had several doors rudely shut in their faces. At the Summer Palace the guard told them to go buy tickets to get into a temple, they went, got in line and when they handed the lady their money she slammed the little window down on them, the guard then shut the temple doors.  The same thing happened at closing time at Jingshan park and again on their last night at the Bird’s Nest. A shame, but then it is also an accurate picture of a broad swath of people who dislike and distrust anyone non-Han. The crackdown had many other adverse effects, including random passport checks and a crackdown on foreigners riding the subway without their “papers.” This added a lot of stress and was a pain in the ass for tourists and was, essentially, a pointless campaign. Still, I doubt it ruined their experiences.

When I was in high school I distinctly remember the day we learned about the concept of a Malthusian Crisis. The teacher drew an upward bow on the black board representing population, and another bow, not as bent as the former, representing food supplies. Where those two bows intersected, the teacher explained, chaos would ensue.

Now that we have seven billion people, I’m reminded of the dread of watching my teacher run the chalk back and forth of the giant X that marked the crisis point.

The BBC is making light of this in one way by offering a “Which Number are You” algorithm to show you exactly what the upward bow was like when you were born. As someone approaching thirty, I was surprised to see that when I was born, the crisis wasn’t all that bad. Check out the slope roughly thirty years ago. I appeared where the orange turns grey.

As far as I can tell, the upward slope started around the 1950s, which would be the post WWII era. But the western world isn’t where the population is necessarily exploding. Look at the next chart:

The above chart shows that the USA has a +0.9 population growth. This is in line with what we’ve been hearing about developed nations– they produce fewer offspring and thus preserve resources. Japan, for example, has one of the lowest growth rates and is one of the most advanced first world nations. (The stats in the image above fr Qatar and Moldova are skewed by immigration statistics versus real birth/death ratios).

The BBC offers a very helpful list of ideas to reduce the global population, but I’m of the opinion that unless people slow down on their own the crisis point will get nearer. China’s one child policy, for example, doesn’t seem to be slowing it’s overall growth, and loop-holes for the super rich mean that you can “buy” the rights to another child, making children a commodity and a status symbol. Essentially, the mindset of producing more children so you have a stable, large family has to be replaced with the concept of producing one or two children to either decrease or stabilize the global population and preserve each nation’s food stock.

One of the points in the Malthusian theory is that not only will resources run out (like oil will, in my lifetime) but diseases will be more prevalent due to overcrowding, which we’re already seeing in the form of new antibiotic-resistant superbugs and diseases like SARS and hoof and mouth and mad cow. Not just overcrowding of humans, but of the livestock raised in cramped corners to feed the obese population.

Still, one of the craziest parts of having seven billion people is how connected everyone is, now more than ever, by internet and phone technology. And as the population grows and people get better connected, it’s surprising to see that the top 1% continue to thrive, mostly unopposed, despite the massive scale of the lower ranks. This current Occupy Wallstreet phenomenon hints and deep distrust and resentment on a grand scale, but also demonstrates that the system isn’t as unstable as Malthus would suppose at this point in the upward bow of humanity.

Yesterday in the bar a Chinese gentleman quipped that if we can survive the next year, as a people, we’ll be okay. He didn’t look optimistic about the markets, humanity, or its bulbous population.

Let’s hope they find that Mars rover and that all of Ray Bradbury’s space colonization dreams come true.

National Geographic released an hour-long documentary titled Stress: Portrait of a Killer. The film follows several scientists as they explain how stress is related to your position in social hierarchy, and how this position can impact your health in serious ways.

Stress is a hormone that is released when you are in danger. In the wild, animals have a surge of the hormone when in extreme danger and then it shuts off. For some reason, primates don’t have the ability to shut off the stress hormone when non life-threatening events happen. Humans, for example, are stressed for psychological reasons. This is a rare phenomenon that seems to impact only primates.

Stressed rats displayed shrunken brains. Chronic stress makes it harder for your memory to function. Essentially, the learning centers and memory centers of the brain are the first to go when the body is constantly riddled with the stress hormone, which forces all other body functions to take a back seat.

The study then moved to monkeys, and then to Brits. The monkey scientist confirms that CAT scans on subordinate and dominate monkeys displayed dramatically less brain activity in subordinates, especially in the pleasure centers of the brain, meaning they experience a duller version of life than the dominants.

One scientist followed workers in the British government over a forty-year period, and found that lower-hierarchy Brits had dramatically more health problems than the higher-ups. Essentially, due to the British Healthcare System, this couldn’t be discounted by wealth status.

Aside from brain damage, you’ll find high cholesterol, ulcers, etc. This is because stress was meant as a survival hormone, but humans can’t manage to shut it off after the initial threat has passed. Thus, when the hormone is active the body’s other functions are on hold. Including the immune system. Damn.

Researchers also found that weight gain (and especially where on the body primates put on stress) is directly related to stress. Belly and rump fats are stress related while other places on the body are more related to actually overeating. This was true in monkeys and humans. And women who are stressed pass that on to their fetuses, who in turn go on to be predisposed to weight gain, depression and heart damage. Yiikes.

All signs point to two options to relieve chronic and ongoing stress. One, you emerge as an Alfa baboon, and situate yourself at the top of the hierarchy. Two, you get out of a social system that thrives on dividing people into subordinate and dominant roles, and live outside the system al la Big Labaowski style.

I think you can still be successful and be outside the cube by starting your own business, or living on a farm and growing your own sustenance, or simply refusing to care about the hierarchy if you are forced to live inside of one. Ambition and stress don’t release the same hormones. Ironically, western societies praise stress. We value people who can “do it all” but not those who have a balanced life. Asian societies value balance more than achievement, which explains the obsession with physical exercise in Asia, and the focus on stress release through bonsai, meditation, etc. Those kinds of things are ideal for creating a release from the stress hormone.

There you have it folks, medical practitioners, scientists and hormone specialists all confirm that abandoning the cube is not only healthy, but essential to happiness.

A lot of people don’t advise learning to scuba dive in a third world country. It can be a dangerous sport, and saving a few bucks isn’t worth the brain damage if your tank isn’t carrying the right mixture of gasses to sustain you underwater. And then, of course, a myriad of horrors could occur on the bottom that your guide or trainer may not be equipped to deal with. So, before you undertake a project like getting diver certified, make sure your instructor isn’t a wack job. That’s exactly what I did recently with my first every scuba dive with SinoScuba, a great organization in Beijing run by a guy named Steven (image right) from New Jersey.

We were diving in The Blue Zoo aquarium, in the shark tank. It was Shark Week in the USA, and that meant, for Steven, that people were once again thinking about sharks as the killers of the sea. “That’s just not true,” he told me. “Humans are the real killers of the sea, no sharks.” To show people just how safe they are, Steven was launching a dive to introduce people to diving and also to the friendly creatures with the bad rep.

I donned by skin-tight (read: painful) wet suit and slipped on a weight belt. My flippers were translucent and made my feet look blurry and retro. I was taught how to breath in a regulator and, for the first few breaths, had to talk myself into not throwing up. I put on a suction-cup mask, feeling my eyes pull slightly out of the sockets, and then I waddled up to the tank full of sharks and nearly threw up again.

Once in the icy water everything changed. I wasn’t afraid of the beasts, I was curious. As soon as I got in the water I released the air in my buoyancy vest and slipped like a stone down to the bottom of the tank. What was odd was that it was a tank with a tunnel through the middle for spectators, and there I saw hundreds of Chinese school kids banging on the glass and waving. Was I in the zoo or were they?– because they looked blurry and hilarious from underwater. I waved, I did the pharaoh dance, I tried to do Thriller but two problems instantly emerged: A) I don’t know the dance and B) movements underwater are too slow. It looked, I’m sure, like I was suffering a slow seizure. Eventually I turned around and watched the other divers fall to the bottom and try walking around. They looked like baby camels when they try to take their first steps.

Right away we were swarmed with cool fish. Tropical ones like from The Little Mermaid. You can toss sand up in the water and the fish think it’s food and swarm you. Even after about five minutes of this the fish kept trying for the ‘food.’ Dumb little creatures, but good for amusement. We swam around the giant, giant tank. It was so big you could get turned around and lost. There is even a sunken pirate ship in the tank, which was awesome. My first wreak dive!

We swam right up to a shark, a giant grey thing with beady little eyes that never stopped watching us. The instructor showed us how to pet a shark. Basically, the same way you’d pet a cat, but with a million times more fear of random retaliation. He told us before we went underwater that we were 95% safe and while 95% is high, when it comes to sharks sometimes I wonder if it’s high enough. Still, I pet the shark, played with his fin, shook his little fish paw and smiled into my respirator so he’d know I was a nice human. Now I was the dumb fish who didn’t get the hint, I kept playing with the shark long after the curiosity left his eyes and they squinted into little slits. He was either bored or angry. That’s me in the center of the picture above, petting aforementioned shark.

There were about seven big sharks over two meters long in the tank, and one evil-looking shark whose characteristics I didn’t notice past it’s giant freaking teeth. Once you spot something like that underwater you realize just how slow you move. If the teeth-creature turned hungry or angry or bored or whatever other array of human emotions I’m attributing to it, he could easily catch and bite off my arms and legs like a Monty Python sketch before I could even turn around. But, our instructor really knew his stuff and he waved at the fish and then pulled our attention on to what he considered a cooler attraction. It isn’t an easy think to turn around and pay attention to something else when a shark is behind you.

Still, what he was showing us was a giant sea turtle. He grabbed it by the shell and tossed it at me. I caught it like a giant Frisbee and pet the shell (like I said, it’s hard to tell who the dumb one is when playing with fish) and then shook his fin/hand thing and then poked his funny skin and tale and stuff until the instructor waved for me to toss it to the next diver. I felt bad doing all this, but who passes up the chance to poke a giant turtle? Not me.

We swam down to another sleeping shark and pet that one as well. A lot more petting goes on in the oceans than you’d think. For those of you rational enough never to have pet a shark let me describe some odd things that surprised me. 1) the skin is like old human skin, it isn’t like a fish’s. It’s rougher than human skin, but still bendy and taught and with some little hairs or something on it (how lucky you are to have this professional analysis of shark skin!) 2) You can feel their bones, and that reminds you that the rib cage is big enough for you to be curled up inside as you are digested. 3) the shark fin doesn’t look like a good ingredient for soup. I wish people wouldn’t eat it. 4) Shark eyes are tiny, but what’s more crazy is that they disappear when they shut their eyes so you can’t tell where they are. This is the creepiest part since they aren’t where the head indents at all, suddenly an eye just opens where a nose should be. It’s disarming and I think this is where Picasso got some of his first inspiration.

I survived my first dive, and got to the surface with only minor scraped and bruises (all self induced from scraping on coral or from throwing my head back and hitting it against the tank). I’m the person in the back, in the picture above.

Now that I’ve done it once I feel I’m hooked and I can’t wait to dive again!

Folks are talking about the environment in a new way. Global warming, greenhouses gasses, Co2 emissions, and our dependency on a depleting oil supply, dependency on mass produced and imported foods. While there aren’t many people out there who think how we treat the world we live in is acceptable, there are very few willing to do anything meaningful about it. Buying carbon credits to offset your usage may be the world’s dumbest idea. So, if you’ve decided to abandon your cubicle and you are looking for a meaningful way to escape from society for a while, why not consider a year in a commune? America has many independent, organic and otherwise less harmful communities where you can exchange your labor for food and lodging. Simply put, you get to escape the cubicle but also society as you know it, and decrease your damage to the planet in a drastic way.

For starters, check out Natural Communities Magazine, where you’ll find articles on natural living, health and general well being as well as environmental protection and appreciation. “As more and more people are seeking natural health, Natural Communities will be an indispensable personal resource for people on the path to a healthy, natural lifestyle, bringing positive solutions to life’s challenges.” Based in the Mid-west, this magazine is a good place to start thinking about joining a commune or at least living a healthier lifestyle.

GrowFood is an organization that connects farmers with people who want to learn about organic and sustainable farming. Their mission is to “help grow a community of 50 million new small-scale organic farmers. That’s how many it will take to break America’s dependency on factory food.” Dependency on mass produced and imported foods has caused sicknesses to increase because people are not utilizing the foods and medicines grown naturally in their area. Meanwhile, mass produced stuff is never of high quality. GrowFood can teach you all about the problems in this area and even offers the hands on chance to learn a better way.

The WWOOF, which is the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is a group dedicated to offering people around the world the opportunity to learn.  “In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food, accommodation and opportunities to learn about organic lifestyles.” This is great because the average person probably can’t identify some of the plants, herbs and vegetables they eat on a daily basis in their natural habitat. If an emergency ever occurred, would you be able to find food, grow food, or raise your own meat? Less dramatically, a self sufficient farm is a great way to ensure you always have food available, and reconnect with nature.

The Fellowship of Intentional Community, although somewhat of a cult-like name, is simply “an inclusive term for ecovillages, co-housing communities, residential land trusts, communes student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives,  intentional living, alternative communities, cooperative living, and other projects where people strive together with a common vision.” You’ll find information on whats available out there in terms of places to escape from society and reconnect with community and nature. An organized directory offers the exact information you need to get started.

Should you abandon the cube, abandon society and move to a commune? I can’t answer that for you, but I do think spending some time learning about natural living, or a healthier way to look at the world is useful. Even a day trip to a commune to see another concept of community and environmentalism would be an eye-opener. While Al Gore cries about global warming, he lives in a mansion and drives a car, uses air-con, flushes toilet paper and so on. Why not try a method of actually returning to nature rather than buying your way out of a guilty conscience?

Lofted Organic Home, by Doornob Designs (image)

We get a lot of questions about how we manage different aspects of full-time travel. To answer them, we’ve put together a special Resources page on the website that will hopefully help people find out if they can Abandon their Cubicles, how to do it, where to get the things they need to do it successfully, and just some general information on traveling. We’re not claiming to be any authority on the topic, we’re just hoping to help! here’s what the new page covers:

Is It Feasible. The ‘should you?’ the ‘could you?’ and the ‘how to do’ of abandoning your cubicle. Whether you are thinking of a leave of absence to travel for a few weeks or months, or a full out Jerry Maguire storm out,t hen this will help you assess if now is the best time, and some of the things to consider before you flick off your boss.

Insurance. Lots of people need this to travel. Although we don’t personally have any travel insurance (yet) we’ve checked out some of the options and we have a few links posted that could maybe provide you with what you are looking for. Coverage for a short-term trip shouldn’t run you more than $250, so be wary of people who charge by the month or who promise you year-long coverage for less.

Visas. These little stamps can cost you big bucks, and be a royal pain. But thankfully there are some easy ways to tackle visas like nifty visa services. For some countries (Russia) you’ll have to use a service if you want it done right, fast and without hassle. For others you’re better off doing it alone. We give you some tips on the resources page, as well as at the bottom of every destination page.

Guides. Seasoned travelers always have their favorite guide books, and hardly ever deviate from those. We use a mix of our favorite guide book (which we won’t give a free promo here) and online sites like travel blogs for the area, or wikitravel. We have more info to be found about guides on the resources page!

Languages. The number one thing people ask us about is how we get around without speaking native languages. The answer is that we try really, really hard to learn. We do that with language guide books, i-touch programs, online sites and a lot more. Its important to us to try to talk to people in their native tongue, and we use a lot of different resources to try to achieve that aim.

Equipment. People get really excited about the equipment we use. We’ll meet someone on a camping trail and spend the first fifteen minutes talking supplies before we even get around to introductions. A good tent can make or break the whole trip, and everyone who travels full time has very strong, very serious views about cook stoves.

Expat and Teaching. Many people go overseas for a change of pace to look for an expat-style job or to teach English while they enjoy the local culture. We have some resources for you to do both, including how you can get your teaching certificate (which we did last year, just in case!).

Social Media & Staying Connected. We also listed some nifty travel websites, travel tools online, and ways to stay connected with your loved ones while on the road.

So, to see all that info and more, check out the new Resources page!

When ever you get to the point, if this actually happens, that you feel like there isn’t anything else you could do to top what you have already done, come look at our new page of Influential Adventurers and Explorers.  Lauren put together this list of some absolutely amazing trailblazers, some of whom are classic and some who are modern and not so well known, yet.  I want to take a moment to mention some of my personal favorites, but I urge you to check out our entire page which is complete with books and movies which were written about or by the explorer or adventurer.

Zheng He Painting

An ode to China, probably because of personal ties and interest in Chinese history – Zheng He.  There have been several books written about him recently and a lot of research about his accomplishments under the Yongle  Emperer.  He commanded a fleet of around 300 ships and over 20,000 men and possibly sailed as far as the Americas. See:  1421: The Year China Discovered America.  Moreover, he did all of this without his genitalia as he was a Eunuch.  Quite impressive if you ask me.

Zheng He and Christopher Columbus Ship Model

Not only was his fleet probably the largest of his time, the size of his ships was 10 times that of European mariners of his time period.   We were lucky to see Zheng He’s tomb in Nanjing when we visited in early 2008.  For connecting China to the rest of the world and bringing back cultures from every end of the known world, as the time, to the Emperor, Zheng He deserves a place on our list as a recently well known explorer.

In Expedition 360 Jason Lewis, a modern day adventurer, circumnavigated the globe by human power only – absolutely no engines at all.   He taught children while he traveled and raised money for charity along the way.  Hats off to such a brilliant accomplishment.  It is great to see people of our time still finding things that have not been done before and pursuing the impossible.  Jason wrote about some of his experiences in a book titled: Flightless: Incredible Journeys Without Leaving the Ground.

Benedict Allen

Benedict Allen is another personal favorite, and recently discovered adventurer of our times.  Instead of using all the fancy gadgets we have now, Allen has reverted back to the way of the original explorers in an almost necessary way.   His ability to leave his laptop and GPS behind deserves him a spot on our list.  Allen relies on embedding himself with indigenous people and learning their ways and culture and hoping they, and sometimes children, will take him in and teach him their ways.  He uses the skills they teach him to get through their terrain and survive in their environments as well as get him from A to B. Into the Abyss.

If you have any more influential and perhaps not so well known adventurers / explorers to add, please comment below and we will add them to our Influential Adventurers page on www.abandonthecube.com.

Not many people make backtracks like we do! To make my point, our trips inside America in the last several months

Route map?

have been hectic, repetitive and somewhat ridiculous. Just look at that map! We landed on the east coast, managed to make it to Illinois, only to jump to New Hampshire and Washington, back to Illinois, then to Texas, back to Illinois, then to Washington again. make any sense to you? Yeah, us neither. And we did it ALL by land only, no air travel. If you ever want to hear our opinion of Amtrak or the Great American Road System, pleas ask. We’d be happy to monologue for you, and since Mike plays the guitar, he can even do it to song, if that’s your preference.

I have to confess, a huge portion of America has been neglected in our ridiculous travels, and that area is boring– which is why we didn’t go there (California, Oregon and parts of Nevada exempted). I’d love to see the Grand Canyon, but they located it in the middle of nowhere, so until they get some interesting side attractions out there we’ll be sticking to the more densely populated areas.

One of the amazing things about ground travel in the USA is the gas prices. It can be high in, say, Seattle and low in DC. Explain this to me, someone please? Why do the people along the coasts, where oil is delivered, often pay more?  Isn’t Canada our biggest oil supplier? Why do northern states pay more than southern ones? Check out this map of gas prices in the USA– see a trend?

Another thing that surprised me was the tax rates in various states we traveled through. Texas, for example, had an 8% sales tax rate while Arkansas was 9% and Missouri was 7%.  Property taxes is not taxed, but everything else is. Washington has a $9.00 minimum wage while Wyoming gets a mere $5.15 an hour. Some states don’t even have minimum wage standards. Emma Goldman would be sad.

Nevertheless, the trip was amazing. I’ve never seen so many MAC trucks! Ya know, America, a railway system might solve the over-congestion of the roads. I’ve also never seen so many fast food restaurants. You see a lot of interesting folks in sweat pants at the McDonald’s, or rummaging in the trash at various rest stops. We even saw one man get out of the driver’s seat of his RAM truck and finish his beer then toss it in the trash before peeing in the grass NEXT TO the bathrooms. Also, at any given interstate gas station you’ll find a plethora of items for sale that no one would, or has ever bought. Like neon pink mud flaps with a naked woman outline on them. And the gas station check-out guy is always eating or spitting sunflower seeds while you try to check out.

So, the cross-country ridiculousness went well, and we’re in Washington now. believe it or not we’ll be heading back to the Midwest soon enough– enhancing the backtrack.

Good news for travel buffs, Lonely Planet now has a program that features great travel blogs. This program has exploded in the travel community and you can now see select posts from ATC on related Lonely Planet destination pages. If you have not heard of Lonely Planet, it is a company well known to most travelers for their comprehensive guides that cover nearly 100% of the world (even Antarctica!).  For the international traveler there really is not another guide company that comes close to LP in terms of information at the country and major city level. We use LP guides when traveling abroad, and have quite a collection of their books, including some of their compilation books composed by travelers who have interesting stories to share.

Sunset

Now Abandon the Cube is part of this great endeavor to make travel information more accessible. On each Lonely Planet destination page you’ll find info on each country, including links to our blog, where applicable. There are not alot of people, for example, who have spent significant amounts of time in Turkmenistan, but we have. Thus, our blog adds new information and insight to the Lonely Planet reader. That’s how we help make Lonely Planet better.

If you found our site from Lonely Planet, welcome to ATC! Subscribe to the RSS feed for weekly blogs sent to your email, or you can follow us on facebook and twitter. Alternatively, check out the photo album, our guides, newsletters and info on the 2010 Mongol Rally.

Progreso

I suppose reading the blog might have been confusing recently for some of our more attentive readers. We posted blogs from Canada and Chicago nearly simultaneously, one praising the Olympic ski runs at Whistler, the other lauding a drive from North Carolina to Chicago. Meanwhile, posts from Mexico and Texas are also popping up. If you’ve been confused, you’re probably not the only one. Here’s what has happened since ATC returned to America:

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida- a beautiful and warm place complete with scenic palm trees and overpriced taxi rides – in early November, 2009. From Florida, we traveled by Amtrak to Columbia, South Carolina where our train arrived at the ungodly hour of 4:00am. We walked through the last of the hurricane season in Columbia while finding a hotel, and in the morning we booked it north….to North Carolina. We spent several days in the Carolinas visiting relatives and reacquainting ourselves with Krispy Kreame doughnuts and Starbucks coffee—two things sorely lacking in Serbia. No joke, the Serbians could use a few tasty treats to cheer them up a bit.

After our family time in NC, we rented a car and drove to Rockford, IL for some more family time before ATC was split as Lauren went to Minnesota and then Washington (and Canada) while Mike went to New Hampshire. Thus, the blog has postings from the slopes of Whistler, BC and the hills of New Hampshire almost simultaneously.

With the holidays safely behind us, Lauren and Mike have reunited and even managed to drive from Illinois down to Texas, where they were lucky enough to meet up with some Old China Hands (friends from Shanghai) who currently reside in Austin. Continuing on, they traveled south to find warmer weather and calmer skies on the gulf coast of Texas, where they launch mini-trips into Mexico weekly.

So, here I write from a windy but beautiful beach on South Padre Island, TX as the gulf waves crash before me and the salty sand and wind blow my hair into my eyes. The gin and tonics flow freely here, and while little on South Padre Island remains open past 4pm (this being a retirement community) I’m happy to report that this writer has finally found a quiet place to write, reflect and detangle.

Mongolians

Having done quite a bit of research on how to find sponsors for our team in the 2010 Mongol Rally, we thought it might be helpful to write about the process for other folks in the rally, or similar adventures.

Step one – analysis. We read as much information as was possible on the Mongol Rally, including the main demographic, audience, marketability, legality, etc. Once we were confident we could easily explain even the most obscure details of the rally, we moved on. We even purchased and read the only book published by a former rally adventurer.

Step two – organize. We created an excel spreadsheet and brainstormed backwards, thinking about the items our team would need on the rally and then compiling a list of companies that might be interested in sponsoring us. Our spreadsheet was broken down into sectors, like ‘camping equipment’ for example, and then companies, like ‘REI’, and then their contact information so we can keep track of our correspondence with each potential sponsor.

Step three — proposal. We created a snazzy sponsorship proposal that compiled information on the rally, our team, our charity and then listed how sponsors could benefit by helping out our team and charity. Then we sent the proposal to the companies in our spreadsheet from step two.

Step four – press. While contacting sponsors, we also created a spreadsheet for potential press and media coverage, and set about contacting local and international media about our team and the event. After the creation of the proposal, we simply morphed the same document into a mini press kit for interested media affiliates.

Step five—website SEO. While all of this was going on, we maintained the website and blog, and did a bit of much-needed SEO, including some link building and revamping the landing page and Mongol Rally page of our site, gearing them towards the rally and securing sponsorships.

Step six – phone calls. While all of these documents and online work can go a long way towards endearing the team to potential sponsors, nothing is as meaningful as a phone call. We followed up all potential sponsor leads with calls, because in the end it is about people helping people, and the human element is the most essential one.

Good luck with your own fund-raising, and have fun!

Border Crossing

Having always loved Latin music, food, clothing and culture, my first trip to Mexico was dreamt about for years before it actually occurred. Last week I was able to live that dream when we crossed into Progreso from Texas. This was supposed to be a time of intense joy as a lifelong dream of visiting Mexico was finally achieved. However, the experience was sorely spoiled by the government on our side of the border. Here’s why:

I’ve crossed some 20 borders in my day, and not one of them has required me to pay for the privilege of exiting and re-entering the country. But, believe it or not, this is exactly what happens when you cross the land border between Texas and Mexico. In order to pass you must deposit a shiny quarter into the waiting mouth of a machine before it will grant passage into Mexico. Roughly 19,750 million American visit Mexico each year. This number times .25 = $4,937,500. That’s four million bucks the US government makes on American cross-border transportation. While I completely understand that the US-Mexico border needs funds in order to operate, I have a small problem understanding why this is the only border in the world that requires this payment. Side note: the Mexican side charges .35 cents to each person exiting the country for America. They make over 6 million a year.

Many people, Texans mostly, travel to Mexico to buy cheap goods. Cheaper liquor is one such item folks will traverse the borders in search of. While in Mexico we did what many other gringos around us were doing– we shopped, ate enchiladas, had a few margaritas and then bought a bottle of booze to carry across the border to America. While in 2009 the laws stipulated that each citizen could bring back a bottle a month, untaxed, something has changed. We were stopped by rude and rough border guards who demanded $1.25 per liter of liquor. There was no explanation, just a demanding voice, a gloved palm reaching through bars and a continued barking of the order to pay up. There was no willingness to explain, no literature on why the tax was suddenly applies to each bottle entering the country. Sigh.

I don’t want it to seem like the trip to Mexico wasn’t amazing—because it was! A small mariachi band played while we sat on a balcony overlooking the main street having margaritas, children rode their bikes up and down the main drag while adults sold a sundry of baskets, rugs and other items to passing tourists. The food was good, the people were friendly and not pushy, and despite being within spiting distance of the USA, the culture was unique to Mexico and very vibrant. Hotel Del Arco Los Cabos is a great place to stay while traveling through the Cabo San Lucas area.

A god? Yes!

Bear Gryllls’ show, Man vs. Wild (Born Survivor in the UK) – Man vs. Wild – Season 1 – is a rare TV hit. What I like most about this show, despite the fact that some of his stunts are staged, is that he demonstrates how to survive in life-threatening situations across all types of terrain. This week has been productive for me in that sense, I learned how to make rope out of roots, how to wrestle an alligator, how to make a water purifier out of natural elements, how to skin a sheep then use the skin as a boat, etc. He is like a real life Macgyver!

Having spent time outdoors and traveling in places where you are literally always in danger of being stranded from civilization, this show has been a real breath of fresh, information-filled air, and he reaffirmed some of my thoughts while on the road last year.

Anyone who spends any amount of time outdoors knows that what kind of travel gear and clothing you have is essential. I had to buy two *&#*!%$ cheap bags before I finally spent the money on a nice REI backpack that will withstand rough use, varied terrain and temperatures, and 70+ pounds of rip and tear 24 hours a day. Lesson learned: don’t skimp on essential equipment! In that vain, its easy to see how Bear carefully chooses his clothing and equipment before heading into the wild. He has all quick-dry clothing and a multiple temperature jacket of gore tex. I had no jacket on the last trip (big mistake) and what was worse, I had flimsy shoes I bought at a market in China before leaving. I did have a few other items, but was missing a great deal, including a water purifier, on this last adventure. Lesson learned again: don’t skimp on essential clothing! Before the next trip (Mongol Rally 2010) I’ll be buying expedition-level shoes that breathe and can stand rough wear and tear, a multi-season jacket and more quick-dry clothing. Ah, a girl’s wish list has no end!

Final thought: on the show Bear has a special knife he had built for himself which retails at $700+ dollars. While I think it is an essential element for life on the road, I’m not about to drop close to a grand on a knife! I’ll stick with my little Cold Steel Voyager, which was a gift from my Kuk Sol Wan coach in 2006. I have only sharpened it twice and it is in amazing condition, plus the 2″ blade means its legal to cross borders with. You could literally back a truck over it and it would be fine! Also, Bear goes out into the wild without a flashlight, I keep my Smith & Wesson LED Flashlight on me at all times (no joke, its in my purse). Paranoid- no. Prepared- hopefully.

Slightly cleaner than average Chinese train sleeper car

After reading through some of our polls people have participated in throughout the site, I thought it would be a good idea to share some of the information.  A while back we found that right after food, getting around in a foreign country was one of ATC readers biggest fears.  Here is a short list of, in my opinion, the easiest countries to travel through and get around.

Keep in mind we have been through China, Mongolia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, The Republic of Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, and Puerto Rico – leaving out some countries and islands that shouldn’t qualify for either their size or the length of time we spent in them.

• Turkey – Turkey was, by far without a doubt, the easiest place to get around.  If you wanted to fly you usually could and ticket prices were reasonable.  However, what we loved the most was the bus system and local public transportation.  There were usually about 8 or 10 different companies at each station and they were all competing and therefore, keeping the prices reasonable and allowing for a variety of schedules.  Moreover, they served tea, coffee, juice, pop, and snakes throughout the drive.  Local transportation in cities was also pretty reasonable and easy to navigate.  English was usually spoken at most terminals we went through.

• China – Unfortunately, although China will always be my favorite country to travel through via public transportation I had to give them #2 because of the absolute chaos that usually ensues during every planning process, ticket purchase, and multiple bus transfers you are usually forced to take.  Most ticketing experiences were all conducted in Chinese as no one ever used English.  Also, since train and large bus transportation was state run, no one would help us so we had to push to the front of lines and speak beyond beginners Chinese to get anything done.  However, China’s has awesome sleeper trains, buses, as well as their huge network of schedules for all types of transportation as well as subway systems in the very large cities and dirt cheap taxi rides.
  

  Lauren and a Monk

• Bulgaria – Our train from Istanbul to Bulgaria  easily was the nicest, cleanest, and comfortable cabin we have ever been.  It was right on time and had really friendly attendants as well as immaculate bathrooms.  Intercity trains were easy to come by and the networked bus system was relatively straight forward and reasonably priced.

Stay tuned for – The Most Difficult Countries / Places to Get Around

Gates of Hell

Dante readers beware, the “Gates of Hell” are very real. They are located in the middle of a vast, uninhabitable desert (not unlike the Biblical desert where Satan tempted Jesus) outside Darvaza, Turkmenistan.

Locals say that someone was drilling for natural gas in the desert when the drill hit an air pocket and the friction of the metal piping exploding at massive speed out of a rock hole caused a spark to ignite the reserve of natural gas, setting it eternally alite.

Today the crater is 60 meters across and easily 50 meters deep at its furthest point. The flames burst out of the crater fueled by the natural gas, but to the casual eye it looks as if the rock and sand are simply emitting an enormous amount of heat and flame. At one point there was a thick cable circling the crater to keep curious travelers at a safe distance, but the heat of the eternal flame managed to snap the cable, melting sections of it into piles of ruble, while other sections have become fused into the landscape.

For roughly a kilometer in every direction the earth is grey and lifeless, inhabited only by beetles, spiders and perhaps a wandering lizard. A strange coral reef looking rock sticks up from the grey sand in stalactite-like formations. All attempts to identify the rock online proved futile, though I’m no geologist. The remnants of a now unidentifiable machine rest all around the perimeter, and as I circled the area I found lizards and other creatures warming themselves on the hot metallic surfaces of various engine parts presumably belonging to the unfortunate drilling device that started the whole saga.

Oh…My….God!

The wildlife around the dead ring of sand becomes more intense and is reminiscent of the creatures in Storm Troopers. Walking out to the crater at night with nothing but a flashlight and, naturally, a giant flaming crater to indicate the way, I managed to hit an angle with the flashlight just right so that in the distance I saw two tiny green gem-like lights glistening in the distance in the sand. I walked over to investigate and leaned in really close. The two gems turned out to be the curious blinking eyes of a spider the size of a golf ball, with his eight hairy legs extending out from there like so many reasons to run and hide. I slowly backed away and shined the light at the same angle across the landscape. All around me pairs of little green lights blinked like lightening bugs and panic rose in my whole body as my arms, thinking on their own, attempted to fly me out of there. I ended up with two flashlights, one scanning the distance for green gems to avoid, the other aimed at my toes so that if one came near my I could scream my farewells as my heart stopped.

50m deep crater

We decided to camp out at the crater, obviously this decision was made before I knew an army of giant spiders inhabited the warm sands around the crater. We set up our tent, started a fire of our own, and cooked a simple meal while drinking beer from the cooler. (We are Americans, after all, why not tail-gate the gates of hell?) In the distance, the crater raged seemingly out of control, the flames licking the sky as if to snap the stars right out and gobble them up. We danced around our own little fire to the tuns from the portable iPod, and listened to Mike play the guitar with the fire from the crater cracking the percussion in the distance.

Morning came slowly as the sounds of the desert kept me wondering and imaging what was happening outside the tent. We boiled water in the morning for coffee and were on the road again by 9am. Twelve kilometers from the natural gas crater lies a crater of greater depth but lesser width that is filled with water. The water emits bubbles, indicating heat, but there is little information on the spring, or why the crater is so deep (at least 70 meters). All attempts to find a boiling miniature mud crater in the vicinity were in vain.

Despite the giant man-eating spiders (that get bigger each time I tell this story, naturally) and the bubbling water that could cook you alive, or the crater of fire that form the gates of hell, I still find Darvaza one of the nicest and most interesting natural wonder I’ve ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

For more information on Darvaza and Turkmenistan please see read about our Second Trip to the Gates of Hell and our Turkmenistan Destination Guide.

Merche Ruins

We decided to take a weekend trip out to the Caspian Sea from Ashgabat.  Leaving mid-afternoon on Friday we planned to stop in the small village of Nohur in the heartland of Turkmenistan – the Ahal Region.  Located between the Kara Kum Desert and the Kopet Dag Mountains to the South, the Ahal Region boasts a long Silk Road history as well as ties to Alexander the Great.

On the way to Nohur, we passed the ruined city of Murche that also holds the tomb of Zengi Baba – the patron of cattle breeders.  Zengi Baba comes, most likely, from the Zoroastrian reverence toward cattle.  The ruined city of Murche, crumbling mud walls, spreads the distance before the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains in the background.  Murche was eerily silent but one of the more interesting attractions around Murche and the Zengi Baba mausoleum are the assortments of fossils.  Surrounding the mausoleum and small tree grove, sit several fossils of choral, amphibians, and even what are said to be dinosaur eggs.  Many people argue that they were cannon balls put on display.  However, one was cracked in two and the central of the fossil had what could be argued to be a yoke.

After walking through some of the ruins and picking through the dirt at the hundreds of pottery shards, we got back in the car and proceeded towards the turn off for Nahur.  Another hour or so farther down the road, we passed Archman and missed the turnoff.  Luckily, the Brandt Guide mentioned a really small green sign that marked the turnoff to Nahur.  Eventually we spotted the sign and bounced down the bumpy road toward the mountains.  We climbed from sea level to about 1000 m and saw some amazing landscape.  The people of Nahur claim to be direct descendants of Alexander and his army.  We noticed more pale blue eyes in and around Nahur than anywhere else in Central Asia.

The dusty desert slightly gave way to more mountainous terrain.  Strange mountains were widdled down to sand dunes or piles of shale.  Large lizards, only a little smaller than a coffee table were visible on the rocks.  They would dart out of view just as the jeep would round a turn or bend.  Farther up the mountains, we could see small areas of green leading us to believe there were hot springs other geothermals in the area.  After about 10-15 km we reached the city of Nahur with ancient stone buildings and homes.  It was an eden in the middle of the desert mountains.  However, we had no idea how much farther we had to go to get to the Caspian.