Greetings, everyone – For those of you who don’t follow me on Facebook or on Twitter, you probably haven’t heard the news: At 2:17 AM on Monday, March 28, my Perama “Hunting Komodo By Camera” cruise shipwrecked off the coast of Komodo Island in Indonesia. Everyone who was on board is alive and safe. It [...]

One reason why I returned to Sihanoukville is because I loved it – my ultimate backpacker beach paradise, the land of all-night parties and 50-cent beers and awesome backpackers from all over the world. I also realized that I was running low on cash and had to start living a lot more cheaply if I [...]

They are the cutest kids you’ve ever seen, they can swear their heads off in multiple languages, and they can get you to buy anything. They’re one of the symbols of Sihanoukville, Cambodia – the child vendors selling bracelets on Serendipity Beach. You will grow to love these kids, who spend their days selling overpriced [...]

I love Phnom Penh. I’ve been twice on this trip so far, and I keep feeling the urge to return again and again. Before arriving in Phnom Penh, I had the image of it as this dirty, dangerous city in the middle of an extremely poor country, with trash everywhere, crime on every corner, flooded [...]

In Southeast Asia, the line between prostitution and dating is often murky. Especially between young local women and much-older Western men. In Chiang Mai, east of Tha Pae Gate, you’ll find dozens of bars where local women wait for Western men to arrive, hoping to become their girlfriends and have access to their money. In [...]

“Number Nine Guesthouse is not open right now.” I laugh.  ”Yeah, right.”  After four months in Southeast Asia, I’ve heard that one a thousand times.  Tuk-tuk drivers will tell you anything to get you to a guesthouse where they can earn a commission. “No,” the driver tells me.  ”Number Nine Guesthouse is gone now.” “No, [...]

I think I need to give my friend Ste a regular column on this site, because he instigated so many of our adventures! Our Vietnam group, sadly, had just broken up. Dave and Mike flew back to England.  Sander and Jitske went on to Cambodia.  And since I had no place to be, really, I [...]

When you’re constantly on the road, you make a lot of friends – and because of that, you end up saying a lot of goodbyes. For the most part, these goodbyes aren’t so bad.  You hug, you find each other on Facebook, and you spend the next few months laughing at each other’s status updates [...]

For our final night together after traveling through Vietnam for nearly a month, we decided to do something special: finally go to karaoke in Saigon! Karaoke is a big deal in Vietnam — as it is all over Southeast Asia. You can find karaoke rooms and studios all over the city, including our neighborhood of [...]

Despite the fact that I was born and raised in America, the land that romanticizes guns more than anywhere else on Earth, I had never fired anything stronger than an air rifle before this trip. There’s only one time that I’ve ever harbored the desire to fire a gun. I was 23 and had just [...]