Street Food

Street food is the best way to eat in SE Asia. I have an ever-growing respect and fascination with street food because of its low cost, entertainment value, and personalization.
Street food is cheap. Here, in Thailand, I eat two, maybe three times per day. Each meal costs $1-$1.50, or about $3-4/day. Not bad, right? If
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Finding Cool Stuff To Do

Quite possibly the most important question to determine, prior to traveling somewhere in particular, is what you will do when you get there! Instead of sitting in a plush hotel room all day, or skipping from Starbucks to Starbucks, do a little research and make a gameplan of things to see and do!
Occasionally I am
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Jill and Stacey Do the Roo: Guest Blog

Jill and Stacey are two girls from Canada who left the cold behind to “Do the Roo” (Travel Australia). I asked them to do a guest article telling me the best “can’t miss” experiences if I ever make my way down under. Check out videos and articles of their adventures on their blog!
Hey Brook!
Thanks for
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Bed Bugs: Stealth Vampires

Good night
Sleep tight
Don’t let the
Bed bugs bite
And if they do
Take your shoe
Beat them till
They’re black and blue.
I’ve been in denial for many months. Only in the past couple weeks have I confronted the reality that the large, welt-like clusters that have been popping up on my body after sleeping in various hotels while traveling ,
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Couchsurfing

I’ve stayed in hostels, hotels, motels, even Holiday Inns. The most interesting, funnest, and inexpensive accommodations I’ve ever had, however, have been in strangers’ homes. Couchsurfing.org is a non-profit social engineering project that uses the internet to match adventuresome travelers with willing hosts.
I first learned about couchsurfing when I lived in Europe about 5 years ago. Instead
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Negotiating Tactics for Travelers

I’m like most Americans: I pay sticker price. In our daily routines, we are so used to paying the asking price that our negotiating skills are weak, if we have them at all. Traveling to non-Westernized nations is a terrific way to hone that skill.
What I’ve found in negotiating is that there is no greater
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Reading While Traveling

One of my resolutions for this year is to replace time spent surfing the internet and following current events with time for anything more meaningful, for instance pleasure reading. Reading great mind-bending books while on the road is an incredible way to shoot an already intense experience into the stratosphere.
Reading has to be the best leisure activity for
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10 Things I Hate About Hostels

Have you ever stayed in a hostel? I have about a dozen hostel-going experiences in Europe, Asia, and North America and taken wholly, the negatives approximate the positives. Why do I continue going to hostels? They are very inexpensive and unmatched sources of traveler information! There are, however, too many negatives to ignore, and as
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Taiwan: More Than Just Factories! What?

I’ve been in Taiwan nearly a week and have really enjoyed the place. Believe it or not, there is more to Taiwan than factories making products for Americans! Who would’ve thought?
In all my travels, I look for cultural peculiarities. Many other travelers I meet are interested in shopping or in clubbing or in researching some
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A 15 Pound Pack for Longterm Travel? Here Are the Contents!

Goal: Travel indefinitely around the Pacific Rim equipped with nothing more than a 15 pound backpack.
One of the things I really take pride in, is my ability to travel light. Other travelers use suitcases, multiple bags, or gargantuan expeditionary backpacks that look like they must weigh a hundred pounds. My
Last year I traveled 4.5 months
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