The cheerful, poppy Thai music suffusing the expansive temple yard was at odds with the swelling energy in the crowd as thousands of amber lanterns were held in firm grips, groups of friends shared a last moment amidst the frenzy making urgent, unspoken wishes.
I watched in wonder as our plain white rice paper lantern, a khom loi in Thai, filled with hot air. I looked around me and my breath caught, we collectively waited for the signal to release our lanterns into the night; a sea of open-faced hope surrounded me.
Expressions indelibly etched on …

The wackiest ideas are often born from a single comment, an off-handed remark meant as a joke but then expanded into a full-fledged idea. This is precisely the case with my decision to jump around Jordan; my very first day in the country fellow travel blogger Jodi joked about my recent travels through China where I nailed a perfect jumping shot on the Great Wall of China.
And thus was born the self-proclaimed mission to jump at iconic, historic spots and wide open desert spaces around Jordan…pretty silly but it made …

A rose-red city half as old as time; though these words sound like the opening lyrics to a love song, they’re instead penned by a poet and speak of an ancient civilization that carved evidence of their history deep into the soft sandstone rocks jutting toward the soft blue Jordanian skies.

Wandering through the miles of sandy roads, the nubby domes of eroded mountains visible in every direction, I was overwhelmed the moment I stepped into this ancient civilization. How did they do it? Why did they carve such beautiful structures into the side of the towering rocks? And I wondered even more, since sandstone is so delicate, why is the evidence still here a full two thousand years later?

Like a warrior prepping for battle, I cranked the faucet on the sink of my apartment in Chiang Mai, Thailand and listened impatiently to the glugging sounds as tap water slowly filled my water gun’s reservoir. Day one of Songkran festivities were ramping up, (and a day ahead of schedule I might add!) and celebratory shouts for the Thai New Year bounced into my apartment from nearby streets.

I’ll admit, I was psyched!

Every year, Thailand and the rest of the region, including Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and nearby parts of China, welcome in their New Year with water, prayer and rituals.

The gentle vibrations from my iPhone slowly cut last clingy strings of dreams from my thoughts as I pulled myself awake. Looking at the gaps in the tent wall showed just the faintest tint of color lightening the morning sky. The dead silence surrounding me at the Desert Tent Camp in Wadi Rum invited me to curl back into my heavy blanket and claim another hour of sleep – 5:00am seems barely human for a wake up call.

My iPhone was on to me though, and just as my eyelids drifted closed the phone’s insistent buzzing woke me again. Oh yeah, a sunrise camel ride.

The first views of the Great Wall of China appeared over the treetops just as the chair lift gained enough height to crest the forested hillside.
My nerves fray into pools of anxious fear when I’m dangling over a mountainside from a dilapidated metal box , so it was a real effort to keep my eyes open for that first glimpse of the wall after the chair scooped me up from the base of the Mutianyu section of the Wall and started the rickety jaunt to the top.

The brown winter mountains …

Travel Memories:
A Glasses Switcharoo Over Chai in Nepal

Legs crossed and boiling hot chai in hand, I sat on the floor in the back of Sunil’s shop swapping stories and chatter. Sunil’s shop was popular, and not just with the backpacker crowd haunting the cramped streets of Thamel, Kathmandu, his friends regularly popped into the shop.
And as is the case with any good chai time, hilarity ensues with a cup of chai in hand. See, chai time is one of those rituals you just don’t mess with in India and Nepal; …

I’ve been home in the US for about a week now and just today recovered from an amazingly awesome case of jetlag. The moment I touched down in Los Angeles the Geek Borg (that’s what we’re calling the team :-) has been working at organizing the details of the hackathon that’s just three weeks away and we also identified three easy ways for the travel and coder communities to support GWOB.org – read on for how you guys can get involved!
On my side of things, GWOBorg (that means me too) is …