It’s easy to pay lip-service to a word like gratitude, isn’t it? To find a hundred reasons every day to be grateful isn’t a difficult or time-consuming task. It merely requires us to look around at where we live and notice the comforts, the roof over our heads, the people in our lives that love... Continue Reading →
First Time Eyes
Someone told me I should be writing stories about my travels. But the thing is, I'm not really travelling much these days. I spend most of the year between three places: Canada, my home, and Indonesia and Thailand. I've spent enough time in all three countries that my eyes have become a bit, well, immune... Continue Reading →
It’s not a perpetual summer
It's easy to believe living in a place that is summer-like all year round is fantastic. Don't get me wrong, the heat and sunshine are glorious, everything is always in bloom, and the crickets chirp every night for the entire year. But being positioned right on the equator also makes those nights come as early... Continue Reading →
How Travelling Can Make You a More Grateful Person
It’s been five years since I experienced a Canadian fall. If not for a certain special somebody I would have been long gone, back to Asia, before autumn equinox. Before the temperature dropped, the leaves started to change, and proper close-toed shoes and jackets became necessary. I usually dread the idea of staying past August... Continue Reading →
“Soil or soul”? Where is home on the road?
I’ve experienced many relationships whilst travelling. I’ve created them, forged them, negotiated them, deconstructed them, unravelled them, fought them, dissected them, systematically destroyed them, sewn them back together, acquiesced to them. Relationships with food, nature, people, myself, money, security, fear, pain, loss, and grief–dear sweet grief. That’s what travelling does. It gathers up all those... Continue Reading →
Why do we travel? Part Three
There’s an idea out there that long term travellers are constantly on holiday. I understand why it appears that way. One minute I’m in Vietnam motorbiking through the mountains and in the next moment I am in Thailand swimming in lagoons far too magical to be real and writing blogs about places I never knew... Continue Reading →
Going home
Out there in the world, Canada is like the forgotten kid on the playground, but it doesn’t care. It’s the underdog to the United States, what a friend of mine calls “America’s attic” (and can you guess where he is from?) When I lived in Indonesia, nobody ever guessed that I’m from Canada. They would... Continue Reading →