“Goin’ down to the freight yard / Just to meet a freight train / I’m gonna leave this town / Work done got hard / But now she’s gone / And I don’t worry / Because I’m sittin’ on top of the world…” — Howlin’ Wolf, traditional
MURMANSK, Russia — As the train rumbled north [...]
TBILISI, Georgia – The Greek border guard’s unibrow contracted in consternation and then annoyance as he thumbed through my well-worn blue passport. “What is this? This isn’t a passport! This is shit!” He spat out the words as he held the threadbare document with the tips of his fingers as if it had some communicable [...]
GOTHENBURG, Sweden – I’d been warned that hitchhiking in Scandinavia would be no picnic. Despite expensive buses and trains, wide roads with plenty of traffic and lots of empty cars it’s simply not in the culture for people to solicit rides from strangers. In Denmark it had been relatively easy to hitchhike with a (partially [...]
TÓRSHAVN, Faroe Islands – Provided you’re not a schizophrenic sociopath, those little nagging voices should be heeded. For every so often there’s a nagging voice in my head goading me to head in a certain direction, usually defying common sense and logic. Often I am rewarded by following this advice, other times it’s folly and [...]
SEYDISFJORDUR, Iceland – My approach to travel is to keep minimal expectations. However with Iceland I couldn’t help myself: I wanted to idyllic natural hot springs carved out of rock populated by supple valkyries. Nothing less! So after spending too much time on a work assignment at a fish festival seeking out these natural treasures [...]
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia – The secret to stress-free travel is to keep logistics from getting complicated. So I kept the plan to leave the country simple: Canoe 300+ miles through the Adirondack Mountains, across Lake Champlain, upstream eastward through Vermont, Quebec, New Hampshire into Maine. Then ride my bicycle to Edmundston, New Brunswick and [...]
KODIAK, Alaska – My finest writing seem to stem from admitting illegal activities whether or not the law happens to catch up with me. In this case they did; I was swiftly brought to justice and it was this very blog what gave me away.
The Alaska State Troopers log tells the story [...]
DILLINGHAM, Alaska – The story begins in Bangladesh. For the past week it had been a game of hide-and-seek with poodle-sized cockroaches: I would hide, they would seek. I was learning a lot about myself. One such lesson is that I scream like a damsel-in-distress when confronted with an insect larger [...]
DILLINGHAM, Alaska – When the voice at the other end of the line said he was a police inspector curious about my activities in Bangladesh, I can’t say I was too surprised. I had been warned by foreigners and locals alike that poking around the country would attract suspicion from the authorities and that surveillance [...]
CHITTAGONG, Bangladesh – I had been waiting a half-hour in the police superintendent’s dingy office, a greasy photocopy of my permission in hand, when the woman with a toddler on her hip appeared. I had gotten as far as the administrative capital Rangamati. My entry had been smoothed over [...]
