Get Petra-fied in Jordan “The Treasury” Photo: Bill Wiatrak It’s one of the most impressive archaeological sites I’ve ever seen. After being featured in “Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade” and then being named one of the seven wonders of the world, the ancient Jordanian city of Petra was catapulted into international fame. Mobs of tourists started...
There’s few places in the world that rival Utah’s natural beauty. Copper-colored sandstone arches, jaw-dropping gorges and dramatic geological wonders make up a good portion of the lower half of the state. At the moment, I’m visiting my fifth and final park in The Beehive State”. “Wow” is really the best way I can describe these natural wonders. Each vast preserve...
I was taking a selfie outside Jon Bon Jovi’s childhood home in New Jersey. The place looked like all the other houses nearby, except Jon had grown up there, learned to play the guitar and had later given the house away in a rock and roll contest. I felt a little like George Carlin’s character in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure when he pops in to check...
Abu Dhabi has a mystical sound to it’s name. Like “Zanzibar” or “Singapore”, there’s something exotic about it and one can’t help but feel like James Bond while recounting their adventures in this part of the world. In spite of its cool moniker, this emirate has always played second fiddle to one of the world’s most popular destinations, Dubai. However, Abu Dhabi...
I’m going to Mongolia. In a couple of weeks I’m hopping on a plane to fly to LA at the crack of dawn and lingering for 12 hours in California before I catch a flight to Shanghai. A couple days later I’ll jump on the Maglev high speed train and travel 800 miles to Beijing. From there I’ll catch another flight to the border of China and hire a taxi to...
Some of my friends think that I live the Life of Reilly when it comes to travel. They see my Instagram photos and read the highlights of my adventures and because I focus on my positive experiences, it might seem that everything goes according to plan. Nope. In fact, I probably have more travel setbacks than the average person because I am traveling all the time...
It’s the number one country in the world for potassium and number two for prostitutes. The residents drink fermented horse urine. You can thank Borat for everything we know about Kazakhstan, which is nothing. The only things that Sacha Baron Cohen’s 2006 film parody got right about the world’s 9th largest country, is it’s flag and place on the map. Even the...
I first saw a picture of Antelope Canyon on a Windows screensaver. I wondered if it was even a real place since it looked more like a CGI image than something that could actually exist on our planet. As I looked up more information about this remarkable canyon, I realized that I had a growing list of beautiful places in Arizona that I never knew existed. Two weeks...
I had been traveling in Asia for the last 2 weeks with a friend of mine. We were booked on all the same flights except for getting to and from Kuala Lumpur from Los Angeles. On our return segments we were traveling alone but both had long stopovers in China. My friend had 11 hours in Shanghai and I had 10 in Shenzhen. We both had almost run out of US...
I had just checked into the Grande Colonial La Jolla and everything seemed as normal as it could be. As I turned toward the elevator, the man at the desk stopped me. “You don’t want to forget this” he’s said as he passed a small attaché case across the counter. “it’s your ghost hunter kit. It comes with the ‘special rooms’.” I’d played a ghost hunter in a small...