travel blog
Adventures in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, Oceania & Antarctica
Travel Amazing Places
travel blog
Adventures in Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, Oceania & Antarctica
Rostov Veliky is a fairytale beauty of domed churches and castle towers near a lake about 200 kilometers from Moscow.
Vietnam in 1994 having an entire beach (Sa Huynh) to ourselves to drink beer all day and watch the waves...
Back in June 1994, the temples of Angkor were deserted and quiet as the Cambodian civil war continued...
It stole the lives of about 8 million indigenous Indian and African slaves at "The Mountain That Eats Men" in the Spanish colonial town of Potosi in modern Bolivia.
Don't follow your David Attenborough urges on Komodo Island... or else. Also, travel advice to Komodo Island in 2023.
Journeying thru "The Land of Fire" to "the world's southern-most city" and visiting the Yaghan - the vanishing indigenous people at the end of South America.
Imagining the world from a window in China, amid the Pandemic Blues of late 2022. Ai art by MRP & Midjourney.
Memories of backpacking around Syria, talking my way into Syria by getting a visa on the border, exploring ancient sights while hitchhiking the desert, and visiting a restricted military zone on the Israeli border, and more.
Journeys of life: Adventures into the world of surreal Ai art - inspired by my global travels.
Making a prayer at the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. Careful what you wish for...
Surreal account of Cambodia in 1994, visiting the killing fields and S-21 prison when the Khmer Rouge insurgency was raging and Pol Pot was still alive.
The bleak, high-altitude deserts of Tibetan Sichuan get surreal around Haizishan with a landscape of boulders and small lakes against distant mountains.
New social comment graphic art for 2022.
Sometimes we just find plain-weird places to camp - such is the flow of van life in China.
Watching the crazy antics of whales, sea elephants and penguins in Patagonia at Valdes Peninsula, Argentina.
On an isolated road in southern Armenia - close to the Iranian border, I attempted to hitchhike from Meghri to Kapan.
Across a blistering Saharan summer, I traveled across the Adrar Plateau of northern Mauritania.
In the mountains of Vietnam, I stay with a Hmong family living an ancient lifestyle (barely touched by the modern world in 1994), which included the accepted use of opium.
The De-Militarized Zone is a 4 kilometer-wide no-man's-land, slicing the Korean peninsula in half. The DMZ is the tensest border on the planet.
Djenne is famous for its surreal mud mosque that dominates this ancient trading town, once an important stop on the Trans-Saharan route and today's Monday Market is also a must-see.
While the world saw it on TV, I was there in Cox's Bazar amid a deadly cyclone that devastated coastal Bangladesh in 1991, killing 138,000 people.
Traveling Syria in 1989, encountering classic Islamic hospitality on a bungled hiking trip to the desert ruins of Halabiye on the Euphrates River.
The 'Final Cut' of the Valli car advertisement filmed in the Litang region of Tibetan Sichuan by a Shanghai film agency.
A letter home from my time in Ainaro in the mountains of East Timor, living with a local family and working for the United Nations in 2000.
Travel Amazing Places
Whirlwind love craziness amid the ancient Sun + Moon Pyramids of Teotihuacan in Mexico.
Amid the northern mountains of Ethiopia the historic capital of castles at Gondar was once known as the "African Camelot".
On the edge of the Sahara in Algeria, five ancient fortified villages in the M'zab Valley preserve a unique Islamic culture lasting more than 1000 years.
Encountering a traffic accident in Laos gets me thinking about death and near accidents in West Africa.
An offer of a new car for 3 months to do a paid road trip - to Tibet - happens, and then it involves a film crew! What next?
Our van life across China leads us to be invited to an all-expenses-paid trip to the Valli car launch event in the mountains of Morganshan.
Road-tested travel gear list with reasons why+ what to take on a 4 season backpacking trip traveling Africa, Asia, Latin America; based on my 30 years of backpacking.
Traveling across Eritrea in 1995 it seemed like a land of peace and hope. People were enthusiastic about the new beginning after their war of liberation.
Traveling the capital of Ashgabat, with all the security and surreal architecture, I understand why Turkmenistan is dubbed - “The North Korea of Central Asia”
Road-tested money safety travel tips for carrying cash + credit cards, using ATMs, the blackmarket, and feeling safer while traveling Africa, Asia, Latin America.
Kang village climbs the mountain in a stack of earth walls, balconies and roofs and this settlement, in northeast Iran, has been inhabited for over 3000 years.
Travel advice + inspiration for horse trekking in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan to the high altitude Ala Kul Lake.
Fake police travel scam in Nairobi, Kenya. But were they fake police or corrupt cops? Read this crazy story and decide for yourself.
Visiting the Mother Russia statue at Stalingrad war memorial, site of one of the longest and most brutal battles in modern history, which saw Nazi Germany defeated.
Van camping amid the peace and tranquility of the Pu-erh tea plantations in Xishuangbanna in China's southern Yunnan province.
Hiking in northern Laos to stay in an Akha Hill-Tribe village near the Chinese border.
Dominating the plain of Saqqara is King Djoser's step pyramid. It's a place you can ponder the ancient past in silence and get away from excessive tourism.
Exploring the desert mountains of Gansu and meeting Yugur nomads while van camping a few days at a waterhole used by their flocks of sheep. In this wilderness, I celebrated my 54th birthday.
Black & White photography featuring people in their environment. Going for a retro printed paper look, evoking texture, fades, softened images.
An overnight stay at a high mountain pass on the Tibetan Plateau reveals a stark, monochromatic landscape the next morning.
An ancient city lured us – but the isolation seized us. Exploring Ganjia as winter approaches. From an ancient fortress and snow mountains to a living goddess temple and a sacred Tibetan cave.
Looking at the women of Minab Market reveals the ancient trading routes that once connected southern Iran with the Arabian Peninsula, Pakistan, and beyond.
Lazy beach days are always good. Some pictures and advice for enjoying 4K Beach on Koh Rong Island - away from the party scene.
In 400-year-old Yongtai Ancient city - a ruined frontier fort on the Silk Road - remains a village of soldier-descendants, herding goats and sheep amid the arid surrounds of this turtle shaped fortress.
Some days on the road travel takes a nauseous turn. My rant about dumb tourists and mass tourism in Cusco, Peru in 2002.
To escape slave-grabbing raids by the neighboring Benin kingdom in the 17th century, the people of Tamberma Valley built these fortified houses.
Staying at the cave house village of Lijiashan during winter 2011 and a revisit there in summer 2020.
A series of montage photo-art that I began while traveling in Ethiopia during 2013, but never finished.
The arduous journeys of traveling or rather, paid hitchhiking by truck across Northern Kenya from Ethiopia - Moyale to Marsabit in Kenya. My second time!
This collection represents my early artwork, created in India in 2004 and in Cambodia during 2005-06.
The freedom, the beauty and the irony of van-traveling the mountains of Yunnan in China as the world stays locked-down with the coronavirus. But there's still a few issues ...
Traveling to the open-pit diamond mines of northern Sierra Leone, once land of civil war, brutal warlords, and "Blood Diamonds".
Following the gorgeous Swahili Coast of Kenya, visiting beaches and islands, ancient Islamic ruins and Portuguese forts. Plus encounters with naughty monkeys.
First impressions of traveling in Tehran - Iran, in 1990. Racing across the city in a taxi amid chaotic streets that seemed asking for accidents every minute.
Part #2 of story heading into outer Indonesia to Papua in search of my GF -Erica's, long lost father that she hadn't seen for 30 years.
Back in 1989 ... I simply walked into the entrance of Petra, Jordan, paid my fee, and wandered in with a sleeping bag under arm.
Hathor is a goddess of many things within the ancient Egyptian story. To visit this amazingly preserved temple at Dendara, alone, is wondrous.
I'm no diver and not much of a swimmer - but if you're like me, have courage and follow this advice for sately snorkeling the Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt.
Visiting the ancient stone towers of Mestia - lost amid mid-winter snow, drinking with locals, surrounded by the high peaks of the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia.
Crossing the deserts of Baluchistan in western Pakistan is a wild adventure, encountering nomadic tribesmen amid desolate spaces.
A volcanic eruption left haunting ruins of human occupation at Whalers' Bay on Deception Island in Antarctica.