Why I Travel
I don't really have a bucket list. I don't travel just to collect countries, national parks, high points, or checkmarks on a list.
I travel because every trip changes me a little. The places are beautiful, of course, but the people, the hostels, the weather, the mistakes, the unexpected detours, and the long conversations with strangers are often what I remember most.
Six of these road trips have been for three months or more. Somewhere along the way, travel stopped being just a vacation and became one of the ways I learned how big, beautiful, strange, generous, and humbling the world can be.
A lifetime of wandering, learning, and meeting good people on the road.
Travel at a Glance
48Lower U.S. states
10Canadian provinces
11Countries between Mexico and Peru
6Trips of three months or more
100+Hostels, campgrounds, cheap rooms, and improvised places to sleep
1000sOf trail miles, road miles, ferry rides, bus rides, and memories
The Big Road Trip Adventures
These trips formed the backbone of my travel life. Some were carefully planned. Plenty were not. Most involved a van, a backpack, a tent, a map, a guidebook, a lot of cheap food, and a willingness to follow whatever good opportunity showed up next.
The first major solo road trip, with national parks, backpacking, ocean walks, mountains, and the beginning of a long-running problem.
Because apparently three months was not enough.
Three months out west with Ricky, mostly climbing, wandering, soaking, and finding the next good place to sleep.
Another long western trip, this time with a mountain bike, canoe, and plenty of back roads.
Four months backpacking through Belize, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Panama.
Four months exploring Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Lake Titicaca, Cotopaxi, and the Galapagos Islands.
Where the Travel Bug Came From
Disclaimer: Much of the blame for my addiction to adventure travel can be placed on my parents. As a child growing up in Fort Lauderdale, some days were hotter than you-know-what. Numerous Saturday or Sunday drives along the Florida coast were an excellent, though temporary, escape from the heat.
One year Dad traded in a bunch of Raleigh cigarette coupons for a tent and Coleman stove. We stayed at a couple of State Parks down in the Florida Keys, and the rest is history. Now we could stay overnight in the Keys, or anywhere else. Soon we began traveling to Canada every year, camping all along the way. Eight people plus a dog in a 9x12 tent was an adventure. On some trips we would camp in 15 or 20 states.
After college, I bought a van, worked three jobs to save some money, and hit the road for three months. I spent a week or so at many of the National Parks out west, became hooked for a while on traveling, and eventually headed farther south through Central America and South America.
The earliest trips planted the seed for everything that followed.
Hostels Changed Everything
Hostels were a huge part of how I learned to travel. They were cheap, simple, friendly, and full of people who were out doing the same thing: trying to see the world without insulating themselves from it.
From Mosquito Creek in the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver Island, Moab, Costa Rica, the Everglades Hostel, and the Hostel in the Forest in Georgia, hostels opened doors to friendships, hikes, paddles, rides, shared meals, and adventures I never would have found alone.
Canadian Rockies
Cheap hostels, wood-burning saunas, glacier hikes, mountain scenery, and the beginning of my love for that kind of travel community.
HI Canada Rocky Mountain hostels include several hostels along the Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff, including Rampart Creek, Beauty Creek, Mosquito Creek, Lake Louise, and others.
Vancouver Island
Bulletin boards, new friends, the West Coast Trail, Hot Springs Cove, Tofino, and the kind of travel connection that changes a whole trip.
A place I returned to many times, including trips that led to canoe adventures and friendships in one of the strangest and most beautiful landscapes in Florida.
Treehouses, domes, chores, community, and a reminder that the best accommodations are not always the fanciest ones.
Between the Road Trips
Between the big road trips, I spent much of my free time hiking and backpacking closer to home. One of the highlights was hiking Vermont's famous Long Trail, a rugged 300-mile footpath that follows the spine of the Green Mountains and served as the inspiration for the Appalachian Trail.
Over the years I also worked my way across much of New England's high country, eventually hiking 66 of the 67 highest summits in New England, including 47 of New Hampshire's 48 summits over 4,000 feet. I skipped Owl's Head because the summit is wooded and doesn't have much of a view, and at some point even peak-bagging has to leave a little room for common sense.
Those years taught me that you don't always need a cross-country road trip or an international flight to find adventure. Some of the best experiences of my life were just a few hours from home, carrying a backpack and following a trail into the mountains.
My Travels Through the Years
1987First big western road trip
1990Five months exploring
1992Rock climbing, hot springs, and the West
1994More mountains, roads, biking, and canoeing
1995-96Central America
1997South America and Galapagos
2000sUSGS fieldwork and adventures
2020sFlorida paddling, travel memories, and new stories
Favorite Places and Stories
Some of my favorite places include the Galapagos Islands, the volcanoes in Nicaragua, the highlands of Guatemala, the coast of Colombia, and all the incredible places right here in the USA.
Photo Spaces to Fill In Later
These are simple placeholder blocks using normal links. They are intentionally easy to edit in cPanel. Replace the suggested file names with real photos when you are ready.
Additional Blame May Be Assigned to College
Additional blame for this affliction must also go to the professors at Fitchburg State College. Initially I was after an EE degree at ULowell, but eventually I realized it was really nature and the outdoors where I wanted to spend my working hours. So I took an intro Bio course at FSC instead.
The Bio and Geo courses kept getting better and better. Drs. Don Schmidt, Neal Armstrong, James Barbato, and all the others made learning a real blast. The Geo profs got me thinking about how lucky we are to live in a land so rich in natural wonders. Travel seemed like a natural follow-up to school, and has become a way of life.
I don't travel to collect countries or check places off a list.
I travel because every trip changes me a little.
The world is too beautiful, too strange, and too full of good people to ever stop wandering.
Travel Tools and Resources
Some of the old links from the original page have probably wandered off into the digital wilderness, so this keeps the spirit of the page while pointing to a cleaner, more useful set of travel resources.
