MY STORY

The journey, the freedom, the experience of new places - yeah, travel is addictive!

Hi. I'm Michael Robert Powell - and I'm a travel addict. 

Anyway, my story is not that cliche: "I quit my job and sold everything to travel the world".

No, I didn't even get on the career treadmill. 

You see back in 1988, after finishing a career-less arts degree, I didn't know what to do with my life. 

So, I left New Zealand for London to enjoy live music and big city life.

A dice throw led me solo backpacking around the Middle East (for 5 months in 1989 including Syria + Iraq).

That journey hooked me.

And sparked decades of traveling - alone, surviving on temp work, just going with the flow.

Subsequently, I’ve lived simple life. Having never owned a house, a car or a motorbike. Nor a permanent job. (But in 1995, I owned a TV).

Yet in recent years, I’ve edged a bit closer to 'normality' - since I met my wife (in China in 2015). 

Luckily, Wei (rhymes with 'Hey') is tolerant of my madness, and she also enjoys a minimalist travel life.

So, the trail continues ...

• Arrested in Saddam's Iraq by the military; accused of being "a spy" (1989)

• Drugged, abducted, robbed + ditched in Siberia, Russia (2005)

• Hitch-hiking the Sahara Desert, from Algeria to Nigeria (1991)

• Enjoying Carnaval; later mugged at knife-point in Rio, Brazil (2003)

• Traveling overland from England to India, via Iran, where I was caught in a deadly bus accident (1990)

• Amid a cyclone that killed 138,000 people - Bangladesh (1991)

• Trans-Siberian route, Beijing to London - overland (2005)

• Caught in a war-zone around Angkor in civil-war Cambodia (1994)

• Antarctica by ship - 14 land excursions; whisky + iceberg on New Year's Eve (2003)

• Visiting Bolivia's notorious San Pedro Prison (2002)

• Robbed by hotel staff, while suffering dysentery in Pakistan (1990)

• Swimming with seals in Galapagos Islands (2003)

• Amid riots in Israel (1990), India (1990) + Indonesia (1999)

• Horse trekking in mountains of Colombia - thru FARC guerrilla territory (2003)

• Flash-flood close call in Morocco (1991)

• Skydiving in Argentina (2002) and solo parachuting in New Zealand (1992)

• Slow boat down the Niger River to Timbuktu, Mali (2007)

• Hitching the Himalayas, across Tibet to Kathmandu, Nepal (1994)

• Escaping from Indonesia by fishing boat, hitching in an Australian Army Blackhawk to be the "first tourist" in new East Timor, on 14 Jan. 2000

• Actively participating in a Voodoo ceremony in Togo (2007)

• Stuck in quarantine while van-camping in coronavirus-hit - China (2020)

... AND MORE

P.S: Some of these stories will emerge - gradually, and others will appear in long-form in an ebook.