travel-writing

History is rich knowledge. In your travel, learn brief history of the place visited.

...That's the difference between backpackers and holiday makers. The former can't help but invite hassle whilst the latter pay to escape it.

Define your path and travel on this path.

After all, one travels in order for things to happen and change; otherwise you might as well stay at home.

Wandering is not limited to geography. Also an altered state of consciousness, it allows a disembodied self to drift on currents of collective awareness with minimal attachment to the physical world. This state of wander tapped imaginative faculties that opened me to a freedom of being only previously experienced through travel.

Then I__ go home, return to a pattern of worry, unable to tap the surrender core to travel__ inspiration. What was different?

Alone, I relished the bird songs, the drone of hushed conversation from neighboring tables, and the gentle lapping of waves sliding on the shore. I didn't feel the passage of time. There was no destination propelling me forward, no past and no future. Each glorious moment was replaced by the next.

Somehow, we were passing the boundaries of language and finding clarity in shared thought, even if we were just talking about beer!

The answer is neither job, nor paycheck; it is authentic, holistic work born from states of awareness and being. Through the coalescence of joy, wonder, enthusiasm, appreciation, experimentation, perpetual curiosity, exploring new avenues, welcoming surprise and wandering, I have begun the next leg of my journey; I have brought the spirit of the traveler home.

Embrace those parts of yourself that you've skillfully avoided until now. That's your true adventure.

In these pages, traveling __olo_ does not necessarily mean __lone._ The absence of other people often suggests regretful isolation. __olo_ by contrast, is a willful decision to be the architect of our own experience.

Driving down deserted early morning roads. Round and round. Round downtown. Through naked streets. Lips pursed on two litre bottles of beer, but pursuing the lips of freedom's night. Swapping cars. Winding up at karaoke bars or Bolsi- the best place in town. For the food. For the folk. For the service. For the crema de papaya. And for that late night dawn's whiskey coffee.

Consulting maps can diminish the wanderlust that they awaken,as the act of looking at them can replace the act of travel. But looking at maps is much more than an act of aesthetic replacement. Anyone who opens an atlas wants everything at once, without limits--the whole world. This longing will always be great, far greater than any satisfaction to be had by attaining what is desired. Give me an atlas over a guidebook any day. There is no more poetic book in the world.

Foolish acts and bold adventures almost always appear, especially in the beginning, to be the absolute same thing.

I want to board a train, and leave my books behind. I want to be so caught up in writing about the journey, that I forget that fiction & fact are not the same. The destination does not signify.

. . . it's part of the adventure!

Putting the dream in motion involved significant personal downsizing, moving three times to trim housing expenses and continuing to freelance. I sold one piece to The New York Times Magazine, many more to The Courant, and another to The St. Petersburg Times.

I guess the lesson is you can__ go everywhere. You should still go everywhere you can.