About

THE CANDY TRAIL represents my nomadic travel life, and this site is a journal of these experiences – but hopefully also, it’ll inspire you.

Hi.

I’m Michael from Aotearoa / New Zealand, and for nearly-4 decades now, I’ve been a global nomad – living and traveling across the world, focusing on Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Backstory of THE CANDY TRAIL

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 for the UK Indie music scene.

Had a wild time …

Then a dice throw decided a trip to the Middle East (including Syria and Saddam’s Iraq).

That, left me addicted …

Travel was my big new buzz.

So decades of off-track travels began.

Meantime, I owned nothing.

Nothing much beyond a backpack and travel gear (but once, I was given a TV).

I was free.

A care-free, nomadic bachelor on the road, and everything I earned – I spent on travel.

Life was either trips across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, or hanging-out somewhere scenic, or working in a foreign country.

Then in 2014 I met my wife – Wei, in China, and she joined the trail, (exploring India, Cambodia, Egypt, Ukraine, Türkiye, Tunisia, New Zealand, etc, together).

Also amid these travels, we enjoyed van life around China during 2019-21 and so in 2026, we returned to this road with a new RV campervan.

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Want to know a bit more? – then read this: MRP 2026 Travel Interview

Travel Highlights & Disasters

Some favorites:

• 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)

• 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 Jerusalem (1989), 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)