The Ogasawara Archipelago is located about 1000 km south of Tokyo. The entire area is administered as a single rural municipality, Ogasawara Village, which itself is a subprefecture of Tokyo. The archipelago consists of four island groups: the Mukojima (Bridegroom Island) group, the Chichijima (Father Island) group, the Hahajima (Mother Island) group, and the Volcano […]
#300 Jeju Island
Three years ago, when the Travelers Century Club added Jeju Island to the list of countries that I had to visit to achieve my goal I was a little annoyed. I had already spent some significant time in South Korea proper and Jeju wasn’t exactly the easiest place to get to. You really had to […]
Road Trips
The Road Trip. Few things garner as much excitement and romance as this age old institution. As Americans, we are always told about great roads trips across the country. We’re led to believe it can change your life and is a highlight of growing up, and almost a right of passage. I agree that driving […]
The Language Barrier
The language barrier is one of the biggest fears for most people when they travel to new and foreign lands. It can be very intimidating and cause some headaches and surely some stress. It can take seemingly forever to accomplish a simple task because you cannot figure out what to do either from written or […]
African Overland Trucks
Nouakchott, Casablanca, Timbuktu, Arusha, Khartoum, Lilongwe, Swakopmund, Freetown, Bujumbura, Conakry, Fez, Lalibela, N’Djamena, Mombasa, Sfax, Ziguinchor, Laayoune, Brazzaville, Yamoussoukro, Abu Simbel, Harare, Lubumbashi, Mbabane, Ngorongoro, Douala, Ouagadougou. These names sound made up. They sound like a fairy tale that parents tell kids about far, far away lands and other dimensions. They sound exotic. And truth […]
Study Abroad
Most people say that college is the best time of your life. That can certainly be true if you make the most out of the experience. As far as I am concerned, there is no better way to do that than by doing study abroad. It was the best thing I ever did. It changed […]
Solo Travel: Absolute Freedom
Traveling alone, whether you’re a man or a woman, is one of those taboo things for some people and is the most adventurous way to travel for others. It can be the single most rewarding travel experience that you will have or it can be lonely and depressing. Solo travel can make it easy to […]
7kg or Less! Packing 101
Packing seems like such a simple thing. You put some things in a bag that are essential for your trip and you go.That is if you have already decided a bag and bought one which will suffice all the things you will need for the trip — not taking into consideration the toiletry bags which […]
Antalya and Kemer
Southern Turkey is the unknown part of the Mediterranean. Most people don’t think of Turkey for beach holidays and certainly not for Mediterranean style resorts and partying that is unmistakably European with loud music, blaring techno and pool dancing aerobics. Antalya is the biggest city on the Southern Turkish coast. It is pretty quiet by […]
A Week Around Romania
Romania is an interesting place. This was my second time visiting, the first was in August 2007 and I only got to visit Bucharest, the capital. This time, my friend Mike and I got to see most of the country aside from the Black Sea coast. Romania is a surprising place for Eastern Europe. It […]