Travel

Fake News in Former Yugoslavia

Daniel 20 Comments

My traveling partner Ollie and I arrived in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on a bus from Sarajevo, where we’d spent a few days learning the history of the Siege of Sarajevo—the longest city siege in the history of modern warfare. Our friends in Sarajevo told us NATO forces broke the Serbian siege, saved the city, and the lives of every Bosnian living there. Before that, we’d been in Belgrade, Serbia, where a huge banner flying in front of parliament memorialized fallen Serbian soldiers as “Victims of NATO Aggression.”

Same story, two sides.

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20 Lessons I’ve Learned From Visiting 20 Countries

Daniel 52 Comments

2016 was a busy year for me. And beyond the calendar year, the last 18 months have taken me to 20 countries—that’s a lot of travel! It’s gotten to the point where my friends at home just automatically assume I’m abroad. When we do happen to cross paths, their first question is inevitably: where next?

The life of a digital nomad is enviable, in a lot of ways. Everyone I meet is curious about how I do it, what my advice is. Here, in no particular order, are 20 lessons I learned from visiting 20 countries:

Airplane Tickets Are Cheaper than You Think
airplne window shot

When I took my first trip, I paid something like $800 for a one-way ticket from Denver to Thailand. Now, years later, I would never pay that much for a plane ticket—and definitely not a one-way ticket. If you’re paying attention to deals, you can pretty easily get a roundtrip ticket for less than that.

And travel from the U.S. to Europe?

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Why I Share Embarrassing Stories

Daniel 21 Comments

Yesterday, I posted a story about shitting myself in Nepal. I’ve had this story in my back pocket for about a year now. It’s not the most flattering story, to be honest. I’ve never written about it. If you’re good friends with me, maybe you’ve heard it over a few beers.

The last time I remember telling this story, it was election day. I was in Budapest, drunk out of my mind. I told it to my climbing partner, a man I’ve known a long time and have a deep bond of trust with, and a person I’d just met that night at the hostel. “Maybe you don’t share that one on your blog,” my friend said when I finished the story, and the laughter had abated. “See, that’s the sort of stuff I love to hear!” the other guy said. “I don’t fucking care if you went to this city and drank these beers and took these pictures. That’s not real. Stories like that are what I want to hear when people tell travel stories.”

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