When you live on the road for months or even years at a time the whole Minimalism decision kind of gets taken out of your hands. Or perhaps, rather, it’s put directly in your hands because you can own as much as you can carry. You are Minimalist by default. It’s a lifestyle that makes…
Life as a relentless art and history nerd gives you strange proclivities. You pour over the collected letters of obscure writers and artists; the lower echelons of your bookcases become heavy with thick volumes of memoirs from generals whose names most people have forgotten or never learned to begin with. You find yourself awake at…
On December 17, 2010, a Tunisian street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in an act of desperate protest that not only changed Tunisia, but would spark revolutions across the Arab world. The day after his self-immolation, Tunisians outraged by corruption, poor living conditions, and a lack of free speech took to the…
When I was a kid I loved stories by Hemingway and songs by Neil Sedaka. When I was thirty-three I was a writer staying in the best suite in Hotel Piranesi overlooking the Piazza del Popolo in Rome. My first night there I went out on the balcony with a whiskey soda and I heard…
When I first launched a life of travel some ten years ago, to say that I was in poor shape would be an understatement. To put it simply, I was scrawny, possessed an abhorrent diet, and was pretty much drunk all the time. As a consequence, the need to lug around my oversized bag and…
Amnesia is abrupt. One moment you have a name—you are sure of it—and in the next you cannot remember who or where you are or what you do for work or if you have any friends or if your parents are still alive (though you assume you either have them now or once had, the…
The waitress was explaining that the spaghetti dish came with a sheep-cheese that tasted something like parm—“No I don’t want that.” My cousin shook his head. “Do you have normal cheese?” When our food was served a few minutes later, he frowned. “It’s not even red. Why is it green?” “You asked for spaghetti with…
Visiting Belgrade is like coming to at the end of an all-weekend blackout and realizing that you’re in some relic of a punk bar that used to be famous back in the 1980’s. The decor varies from nostalgically beautiful to grimy, and the people range from instantly amiable to despondently depressed. Everyone is drinking cheap…
Wherever I go, I try to spend at least one or two months there for reasons financial and cultural. Not only does it reduce travel expenses, but it allows you to really get to know a place. Another benefit to this slow travel pace is that you’re around long enough to join a gym for…
My apartment in Belgrade was irreversibly booked when I realized that I’d made a terrible mistake – the city’s castle was not within convenient running distance. You see, whenever I have the option, I prefer to live near a castle so I can run and occasionally perform other exercises within its grandeur. If this sounds…