It took a trip to Norway, of all places, for me to learn of an American car known as the “Vagabond” — a proto-hatchback manufactured by Michigan’s Kaiser Motors in the late 1940s. One curious thrill of travel is the opportunity it offers you to see your own country through the eyes of another culture.…
Of the many pleasurable travel moments I found amid my August 2022 journey through Norway, I got a curious thrill out of the afternoon I spent dozing in this hammock, alongside a forest-fringed lake not far from Sørumsand. Over the years I’ve come to believe that the multifarious sights and activities a new place offers…
This image is the result of a free-writing exercise my wife Kiki led near the Louvre, during the 2022 Paris Writing Workshops. Kiki is a classically trained actress, and she drew on her stage skills to create an exercise where students lingered near the Louvre, attempting to describe people in their journals without using adjectives,…
My travel mindset has been undergoing a walking-oriented transformation ever since I met my wife Kiki — though my yen for traveling on foot goes back to my 2002 trek across Andorra and 2000 walk across Israel, and even the summer-camp backpacking excursions of my late teens. Below are my five favorite recent Deviate episodes about…
In addition to interviewing other people about their travels and travel-expertise, one joy of the Deviate podcast is the opportunity it affords me to reflect on my own best travel experiences – often with the very people who went on those journeys with me many years ago. My five favorite Deviate episodes about my own…
One great thing about travel is the way it forces you to come to terms with the rich complexity of history – particularly the amazing historical sites you had no idea existed until you set off to wander the world. Many fellow-travelers recommended that I visit Sigiriya when I was in Sri Lanka, but it…
Travel to majestic historical sites is, when it comes down to it, an act of creative imagination – and few things serve to remind the traveler of this fact like the task of waiting in line to see said historical sites. This image (one that is usually left out of visual travel accounts) documents me…
The day before I ascended Adam’s Peak, I formulated a creative plan to get to the ancient Sri Lankan rock fortress of Sigiriya immediately after the climb. Since the traditional Adam’s hike begins just after midnight and ends just after dawn, I figured I’d skip a second night in the trailhead-town of Dalhousie and head…
Adam’s Peak is the second-highest mountain in Sri Lanka, and (since reaching the peak is a pilgrimage ritual for adherents of the country’s four biggest religions) it is by far the most popular for hikers. Local Buddhists believe a rock on the 7,359-foot summit bears the footprint of Lord Buddha; Hindus think the footprint belongs…
After traveling classic Sri Lankan train routes across the highlands from Kandy to Ella to Nuwara Eliya, I ended up taking a long-haul tuk-tuk from Nuwara Eliya to the Adam’s Peak trailhead town of Nallathanniya. This wasn’t planned in advance; I did it at the suggestion of my driver, Suranga, whom I’d hired to take…
This is Nuwon, who oversees a restaurant named Mandala Café just down the road from the train station in Ella. Mandala Café has an unabashedly Rastafarian vibe, and pictures of reggae great Bob Marley hang in every corner of the restaurant. Though Ella is a mountain town smack in the middle of Sri Lanka, Mandala…
