Traveling for Fun, Knowledge & Freedom
just going with the flow
About
A younger self: Michael Robert Powell (MRP) at Nemrut Dagi in Turkey - 1989, age 23.
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According to my father - my life is an accident; the condom broke.
And my life of travel also, just happened.
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Hi.
I'm Michael from Aotearoa / New Zealand, offering you inspiration from over 36 years of perpetual nomadic life - traveling overland across remote regions of the world, including 130+ countries.
Backstory
confessions of a travel addict
At age 21 back in 1988, I was a punk-hippy who’d finished an arts degree and had no further ambitions - except to leave NZ to the UK to revel in the Indie music scene.
And so I did... But later, a dice throw decided a crazy solo adventure around the Middle East (including Syria and Saddam's Iraq).
It left me addicted - for more.
For more travel.
MRP in Luxor - Egypt, in 1995.
What followed grew into decades of solo off-the-track travels.
I owned nothing. Nothing much beyond a backpack.
I was free. I was lucky.
And everything I earned, I spent on traveling.
Life was a swirl of overland trips across Africa, Asia and Latin America, blending with slower moments of hanging out or working somewhere.
Then in China in 2014, I met Wei.
I took her backpacking to India, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Ukraine, UK, etc, and then we married.
During 2019-21, it was van life around China, but then the pandemic hit hard.
Come 2023-24, we're backpacking again.
Maybe, see you out there?
MRP at the Aral Sea, Uzbekistan, 2011.
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 knifepoint 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)
Robbed by hotel staff, while suffering dysentery in Pakistan (1990)
Swimming with seals in Galapagos Islands (2003)
Amid riots in 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 taking part in a Voodoo ceremony in Togo (2007)
Stuck in quarantine while van-camping in coronavirus-hit - China (2020)
AND MORE...