Traveling for Fun, Knowledge & Freedom
Get Energized
Electric Penguins for President - MRP ART (2004)
Guaranteed no BS. No ads. Zero agenda
Welcome to my travel journal (about 10% online) of backpacking across continents, hanging-out, and doing journeys by van . These are my personal experiences of living nomadic across the planet, since 1988.
About
Hi.
I'm Michael - from Aotearoa/New Zealand, offering you travel adventures, advice & inspiration from 30+ years of backpacking 127 countries & territories.
Michael Robert Powell in Turkey, 1989, age 23.
Backstory
Confessions of a travel addict
I'd never dreamed of a nomadic life; I just stumbled into it by accident.
You see, back in 1988 at age 21 – I was a bit of a hippy with a punk-rock outlook who’d just completed an aimless arts degree and now had no further goals or ambitions.
Except, to leave NZ for the UK to enjoy the Indie music scene.
Some months of edgy living and dull jobs in Edinburgh and London soon gave way to a dice toss, which instigated a backpacking trip around the Middle East (for 5 crazy months, including Syria and Iraq).
This EPIC journey - across Islamic lands - aroused a drug-like desire to see the world.
Everywhere was now on the map and decades of travel addiction began...
MRP in Luxor, Egypt, in 1995.
Living out of a backpack and traveling a world of vast geography, wonderous cultures, and carefree simplicity.
Years of journeys across Africa, around Asia and Latin America, interspersed with long-stays on beaches or in cities.
Always nomadic, moving fast or slow.
Then in 2014, I edged closer to 'normality' when I met my future wife in China.
Luckily, she also enjoys a simple travel life.
So we backpacked India, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, to name a few.
And by 2019, we’d begun van life around China.
MRP at the Aral Sea, Uzbekistan, 2011.
Wild Travels
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 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 taking part in a Voodoo ceremony in Togo (2007)
Stuck in quarantine while van-camping in coronavirus-hit - China (2020)
AND MORE...
Traveling for Fun, Knowledge & Freedom
Get Energized
Electric Penguins for President - MRP ART (2004)
Guaranteed no BS. No ads. Zero agenda
Welcome to my travel journal (about 10% online) of backpacking across continents, hanging-out, and doing journeys by van . These are my personal experiences of living nomadic across the planet, since 1988.
About
Hi.
I'm Michael - from Aotearoa / New Zealand, offering you travel adventures, advice & inspiration from 30+ years of backpacking 127 countries & territories.
A younger self: Michael Robert Powell at Nemrut Dagi in Turkey - 1989, age 23.
Backstory
Confessions of a travel addict
I'd never dreamed of a nomadic life; I just stumbled into it by accident.
You see, back in 1988 at age 21 – I was a bit of a hippy with a punk-rock outlook who’d just completed an aimless arts degree and now had no further goals or ambitions.
Except, to leave NZ for the UK to enjoy the Indie music scene.
Some months of edgy living and dull jobs in Edinburgh and London soon gave way to a dice toss, which instigated a backpacking trip around the Middle East (for 5 crazy months, including Syria and Iraq).
This EPIC journey - across Islamic lands - aroused a drug-like desire to see the world.
Everywhere was now on the map and decades of travel addiction began...
MRP in Luxor, Egypt, in 1995.
Living out of a backpack and traveling a world of vast geography, wonderous cultures, and carefree simplicity.
Years of journeys across Africa, around Asia and Latin America, interspersed with long-stays on beaches or in cities.
Always nomadic, moving fast or slow.
Then in 2014, I edged closer to 'normality' when I met my future wife in China.
Luckily, she also enjoys a simple travel life.
So we backpacked India, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, to name a few.
And by 2019, we’d begun van life around China.
MRP at the Aral Sea, Uzbekistan, 2011.
Wild Travels
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 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 taking part in a Voodoo ceremony in Togo (2007)
Stuck in quarantine while van-camping in coronavirus-hit - China (2020)
AND MORE...
