Many travelers spend a disproportionate amount of their time telling stories.

Regardless of if it's family members over Christmas dinner, friends around the office, or to other travelers who you swear are actually listening to you, stories are arguably the currency of travel. Whether it's that time you crashed the rental car during your bachelor party in Baja (whoops!) or scored free helicopter rides across New Zealand, there's bound to be a great travel story behind every day on the road.

Did you hop a train in Italy? Get kidnapped in Borneo? Witness a coup in Ecuador? These things all can happen in the often thrilling, sometimes challenging travels we take abroad.

Similarly, everyone travels for different reasons, and for some of us the stories that arise from our travels are the most precious thing we can take away. Some prefer photographs, others souvenirs, but for many people it's the long-lasting memories and tales of adventure which stick with us the longest after the credit card has been repaid and the t-shirt doesn't fit any more.

More than stories, however, there is an intrinsic curiosity that many travelers possess; an individual search for knowledge to see how people do things over the next hill, what type of language they speak around the bend, and an attempt to gain a greater perspective on this fascinating place we call Planet Earth.

In travel there is so much learning to be had, and such an exotic strangeness about a place that's different from our own. As writers, it's actually our job to tell stories, which is why I am so excited about "Vagabond Tales", a new series to be featured on Gadling.

As fellow Gadling blogger Dave Seminara so adeptly (and correctly) pointed out in his ongoing "A Traveler in the Foreign Service" series, "wanderlust is a romanticized concept but it can also be an affliction, a malady that prevents people from becoming settled, productive members of the rat race."

While I am currently attempting to accomplish those difficult verbs (settle, be productive, etc), what the wanderlust has provided in their place is a laundry list of travel stories and curious global experiences waiting to be shared. When you vagabond for 5 years across 60 countries, you're bound to see some weird things along the way, and similarly, some weird things are bound to happen.

So buckle up, enjoy the ride, and welcome to the quizzical world of Vagabond Tales.

Filed under: History, Learning, Stories