Calgary has been on my Canadian hit list for the past couple years as Canada has increasingly become a place of interest to me; it’s like the United States, but it isn’t the United States,. For a travel hipster like me, that’s a cool reason to visit. So far I have visited Montreal, Toronto and Newfoundland and Calgary has been next in queue. Part of my interest in Calgary has come from the annual Calgary Stampede which is a huge, ten day rodeo in the middle of July with many other events and activities, and always seemed similar to Cheyenne Frontier Days, a comparable event in Cheyenne, Wyoming each July for ten days. I couldn’t visit the Stampeded this year owing to my friends’ wedding in Prague at the same time, but I was able to visit in August. The people I talked to while I was in Newfoundland told me how the province of Alberta (within which Calgary is situated) is different from the other places I had visited in Canada. Alberta is more western, mountainous, scenic and rural. It’s always really fun to “discover” a new sort of mico-culture in a country, it makes you feel like an […]
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My friend David is from and lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland and I visited him for the second year in a row to stay at his house and attend the annual George Street Festival. Each year dozens of bars on George Street open their doors and people stream between them as live music bands play in the street during each of the seven nights. David was again a gracious host and we had fun exploring the streets of George Street again, though I think we only made it out about three or four times. When David goes out he likes to stay out until 4 AM which isn’t something I’m so good at handling anymore, though I am proud to say I’m pretty good at drinking David’s drink of choice, Whisky diet gingers. My favorite part about staying at David’s are the afternoon happy hours that happen outside in his back yard around his fire pit, listening to a portable speaker playing tunes while we talk about work and women. I’d fly to St. John’s just for that. The next time I see David there’s a good chance he’ll be married – he met a woman from Jersey (the island) […]
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In 2004, I took my first solo, international trip to Tierra del Fuego, Patagonia, to fish for sea-run brown and rainbow trout on the Rio Grande River. At the time, I was a financially constrained, post-collegiate individual. I quickly learned that fishing access in Argentina was only possible if you paid thousands of dollars to stay at large, private estancias (similar to Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming or A-A), catering to wealthy foreigners who wanted to fish. I thought that couldn’t be right. Surely, there would be local public access for ordinary people to fish, just like in every other country in the world (presumably). However, I couldn’t find any information online, and even inquiries on the TripAdvisor web forums (lol TripAdvisor) yielded no results. Nonetheless, I ventured forth to figure it out upon arrival, and what an adventure it turned out to be! It involved, among other things, an abandoned, post-apocalyptic hostel, a ghost ship named DESDEMONA, a run-in with authorities, and help from local children. Eventually, I did locate local public fishing access and caught some truly enormous trout on salmon flies. I updated my TripAdvisor question with the fact that I figured it all out: there was […]
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I tend to avoid hyperbole, so when I claim that the Isle of Skye, Scotland, is the most picturesque destination I have visited, I’m not exaggerating. It was too difficult to pick just ten photos for the customary Instagram post I make for each destination, so I ended up posting a lot more. The selection I have here includes some of my favorites. Really, my two weeks on the island didn’t do the location justice, nor did my photos—I was so busy with work that most of my time there was spent behind my computer. When I did have time to venture forth and explore, it was limited; I would have taken more photos if it weren’t for that gosh darn obligatory need to earn money. Skye has its own distinct culture and history within Scotland. I was attracted to it by my lovely friend Michelle, a native of Portree, Scotland, who encouraged me to visit during the best time—summer. Initially, I wanted to come in September, but she said that would be too late as summer would be over—crazy, right? So, I carved out two whole weeks in July for the trip instead. I’m glad I allotted extra time—typically, […]
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I had never visited the Netherlands. My family did have a Dutch foreign exchange student my freshman year in high school but I was never interested in visiting the country, maybe for that reason. I figured I could delay a visit to Amsterdam until I was 85 years old – presuming that it would be the easiest place in the world to travel to, and probably the safest. After all, it’s flat, full of bicycles and Europeans; no point on rushing there, I can tackle when I have entered my “boring travel” mode. But then something crazy happened — I visited Amsterdam twice in the same summer. I stopped in Amsterdam for five days on the way to Scotland, the city is a convenient stop en route to the rest of Europe too and then again traveling from the USA en route to Austria. My time visiting was so great that I plan on making it a regular entry and exist destination to and from Europe, when possible. Well, as everyone else already knows, Amsterdam is a pretty great place. It has a youthful, energetic and cosmopolitan energy to its personality and its no wonder that it attracts people all […]
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Mi Czech friends, David and Marketa, invited me to their wedding in Prague on was was my 43rd birthday, July 7th. Even though I was planning to stay in Brazil for the summer, I changed my plans and ended up celebrating my birthday at their wedding. It turns out that’s a pretty smart thing to do — you get a catered event with lots of people who want to party. I didn’t even have to pay for anything, and there was a champagne truck. I hope David and Marketa get married again soon have have a wedding on my birthday again.
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This was my second time in two years in Fortaleza. I came back for a month to train at a local gym that I really like, work and chill on the beach. Increasingly I find myself returning to locations where there is less to be explored, and more that supports a comfortable life while I am there and Fortaleza is the perfect place for that. My favorite part of Fortaleza is the upscale gym where I train. It’s located a block from the beach in Beira Mar (“seaside”), and much fancier than the gyms I typically go to. It’s expensive too, but everyone is really nice and happy to see me there, and there are yoga classes too. Even though nobody speaks English (and I don’t speak Portuguese), everyone is really kind and supportive. There’s an attached cafe at the gym that sells me post-workout tapiocas, which I just can’t get enough of. I always make performance improvements while I am training there, and each time I leave Fortaleza I am excited to come back again, for longer. I like staying in Beira Mar, a central downtownish place alongside the beach. A long esplanade runs along the beach for about […]
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When I spent time in Fortaleza, Brazil in 2022 I learned about a small beach town 45 minutes west of the city called Cumbuco. Locals apparently traveled there on the weekends for great beaches, live music concerts and parties. It is a famous destination for kite surfing (it seems like I am always traveling to famous destinations for kite surfing). So this time around, on my way to visiting Fortaleza again, I spent a week in Cumbuco first to do a reconnaissance trip to get the vibe and feel of it to see if it would be a place I’d like to stay again for longer in the future. Such reconnaissance trips are my modus operandi for sustained livability on the road and serve the purpose of scouting locations without a big, upfront investment. It’s better to spend a few days figuring out a place before I commit to spend a month, or longer there, sight unseen. In this way I can also get a beat on the neighborhood I want to stay in if I return which would be otherwise more difficult to do without being there first. Cumbuco is pretty cool. Well, actually it’s very hot during the […]
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There are a million places to visit in Brazil and João Pessoa is one of them. I had never visited before, but when the opportunity presented itself to stop by for a week on my way to Fortaleza, I did. I rented an apartment right on the beach (a nice beach) with a balcony overlooking it. In the mornings and afternoons I would sit outside and watch and listen to the wind blow through the palm trees as the light slowly faded. I found a big gym nearby that was ideal and only a five minute walk from my apartment (in Havianas). The gym was always packed with people exercising (my favorite type of gym) and though I don’t speak any Portuguese, everyone was friendly. They do this weird thing in Brazil inside the gyms I’ve been to where they have full-time trainers who want to suggest you exercises or workouts to do. They really want to help you but the idea of going to a gym and then having someone tell me what I should be doing is strange. I don’t work for you ma’am! After my morning workout I would eat my favorite Brazilian gluten free sandwich/omelette thing, […]
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Like some other destinations, Sao Paulo has become a regular destination during my yearly migration. Alongside Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo is an international hub for flights into the country from the rest of South America. It also accommodates this loop I’ve been toying with between Colombia, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil each year as the city is a 3 hour direct flight from Buenos Aires. Twenty years ago I never would have predicted that I would come to find such large, monstrous cities like Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Seoul and Bogotá some of my favorite places to stay. I grew up in the Midwest and West of the United States and always had plenty of space around with lots of access to nature. Mega cities certainly have provided other amenities. I suppose as a nomadic travel hipster, I’ve often been attracted to atypical appeal of destinations while being also insulated from many discomforts. I avoid traffic by walking or summoning a car service like Uber and I don’t have to commute to an office to do my job. I reduce my exposure to crime by staying in nicer neighborhoods and going to bed at a reasonable hour; I don’t go […]
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