As part of my new site design (fingers crossed for a launch by the end of February!) I’m adding an FAQ page to Alex in Wanderland. Remember how I mentioned recently that after four days offline, I returned to 270+ emails? Lately I worry the quality of my replies is declining as a result of the…

Alternative Title: Am I a Superficial Traveler? When I posted the results of my reader survey, there were a few topics that were simply too complicated to address in a sentence or two. One of them was this. A few commenters were a tad critical of the level of cultural immersion I’ve managed in my travels…

I’ve sat down to write this post so many times and either stared at my keyboard blankly or typed a flood of incomprehensible paragraphs that confused me so much I would end up slamming my laptop shut. I’ve been waking up a lot lately with a heaviness that sits with me through the day. It’s pretty…

Guys, consider this my official resignation. I am formally recusing myself from the traveler Cheaplympics – I was never going to make it through qualifiers anyway. Below are direct quotes (some perhaps feature slight embellishments) I’ve heard on my travels – spend any time on the road and you’ll soon learn this is a serious sport. “Oh… you…

Where do you draw the privacy line, when you’ve made a job out of sharing your life with anyone who’s intrigued? About a year and a half ago I had my first experience with an internet harasser. While today it’s something I might try to make light of, at the time I never wrote about it…

For an event of its size, Burning Man has very few rules. It is a pretty successful experiment in letting people set their own limits, exercise their judgement, and govern themselves. There are however, ten principles – not commandments, but rather a reflection of the community at Burning Man and an integral part of what Burning…