Some people are not aware of the fact there are mountains in Southern California. Not just brown looking hills with Hollywood signs sprinkled across them, but real mountains which feature real fresh snow. You can even ski in Southern California.

If you aren't one of the 22 million people who currently reside in Southern California, there's a decent chance this is the first time you are hearing this. Why? Because the image of the "California Dream" of sun, sand, and surf has been marketed across the country since well before the Beach Boys decided it would start selling records.

Due to the year-round sunshine, many of the those 22 million residents have relocated from elsewhere to sprawl along its trademark golden shores. During the winter months, while most of the country collectively pulls on another turtleneck, Southern California frequently basks in midwinter warmth. This is the Southern California most people know.

While there is no denying the existence of the stereotypical image, beyond the beaches, date palms, and sun drenched boulevards, there exists this other Southern California that only a handful of people take the time to experience. In order to get there, you have to shun the warm beach image and drive into the icy hinterlands where the population can easily drop to only 1.

Climbing off of I-10 and onto the back roads which lead into Southern California's inland mountains can be a relaxing, near meditative experience. The number of lanes gradually funnels from 6 down to 1, and the scenery slowly morphs from that of aggressive billboards, off ramps, and car dealerships to dry rolling pastureland and rows of solitary fence posts.

The multitude of peaks which populate the southwest corner of the state can refreshingly offer a transcendental respite from the chaos of the urban world left back below the tree line.

Sipping a succulent syrah inside of the beachfront tasting room at Man O' War winery, a quick glance of the room is all it takes to confirm I'm out of my element.

To my left, a middle-aged man sporting crocodile shoes and hair of a dubious authenticity casually flashes a credit card for $500 of the vineyard's finest vintage. To my right, a suntanned yachtie with a bushy white mustache gesticulates to an acquaintance about the strength of the new varnish recently applied to his helm station.

Then, sandwiched between the two socialites, is me, a wandering travel writer who temporarily lives in a van which was shipped to the island on a 45-minute ferry. Meekly performing a free wine tasting just trying to learn a little about Waiheke wines, the contrast is pretty black and white.

Luckily for all parties involved, however, Waiheke Island is more multi-dimensional than simply being a playground for the uber-rich. Sure, there are expensive rave-parties at vineyards, hidden beachfront mansions, and trendy, high-priced boutiques lining the island's main thoroughfare, but there is an entire other side to Waiheke which can't be invested in, can't be corrupted, and definitely can't be bought.

I am here to explore that side of Waiheke.

It's already been reported here on Gadling that Italian treasures such as Pompeii are slowly falling apart. This time, it's the Colosseum, although the recent damage has nothing to do with neglect.

A rare bout of freezing temperatures and heavy snow has crippled the Italian capital as of late, and it's been reported by CNN that the wintry precipitation is literally seeping it's way into one of Rome's most iconic monuments.

According to Colosseum superintendents, small pieces of the walls within the Colosseum are crumbling due to the effects of moisture and expanding ice. In much the same way as the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon are sculpted by water seeping into porous rock and expanding as it freezes, the same process is now taking place within the walls of the Colosseum.

European architects highlight this pattern is not out of the ordinary, just that the extreme weather as of late has accelerated the natural process of decay.

CNN also reports that buildings in the historic Italian town of Urbino are at risk of collapse simply from the weight of all the snow piled on top of them. Villagers have been reported to be adding extra roof braces to homes so as to avoid a cave in or collapse, and it's feared that many of the historic buildings which have wooden joists may not be able to handle the extreme weight.

One proposed solution? Covering the entire the Colosseum in the event of a future storm. The jury, however, is still out on the feasibility of that solution.

Photo; Flickr: Fabio Stefano Alla

The border between Canada and the United States is the longest undefended border in the world, yet, of the 60 countries I have wandered through, it's the one in which I have had the hardest time gaining entry.

At 5,525 miles long, there are over 120 official places where a traveler can cross the Canada border in a manner which is consistent with that of virtually any other border crossing in the world: Speak with a customs or immigration agent, display passport, visa, and proper documentation for onward travel or proof of funds, answer some background questions, and more likely than not you're on your way.

For some, however, it isn't always that easy.

In looking at the fine print, Canada has a trump card in their back pocket when it comes to admitting people into the country, and it all has to do with a condition of entry officially known as criminal inadmissibility. Go ahead. Look it up. It really isn't that strange. The United States has one too.

According to the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website, "If you have committed or been convicted of a criminal offence, you may not be allowed to enter Canada." Such offenses listed include examples such as manslaughter, assault, theft, human rights violations, involvement in organized crime, and driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Ok, fair enough. If you're a convicted criminal we won't allow you into the country. I can agree with that. Murder, manslaughter, trafficking. I wouldn't want that in my country either.

If you read more closely, however, according to the Wikipedia entry regarding American entry into Canada, "a single criminal conviction, no matter how minor or long ago, is grounds for exclusion from Canada."

I mention this because it's this fine print which provides the background for a rather curious sequence of events which took place in the spruce forests of the Yukon Territory.

"This guy over here has been tagged three times mate."

The dive instructor on our Whitsunday Islands cruise peels off his neoprene gloves and shows us a slight scar located just above the knuckle of his right thumb.

"Luckily every time they got me it was in the hand or the foot", he claims. "If they'd gotten me on the bloody torso I'd be a gonner."

As someone who has worked on charter boats for a number of years, I know that telling tall tales to tourists just comes with the job. True story or not, I know that the threat is real nonetheless. A dreamy island chain set at the southern tip of Australia's Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsunday Islands from November through April are home to one of the world's deadliest creatures: the irukandji jellyfish.

Similar to a box jellyfish, the tiny irukandji measure only 2.5 centimeters across and have tentacles that pack more venom than the combined amount of 100 cobras. Although actual irukandji fatalities are rare, one Australian teen actually reported he wishes he were dead during a recent irukandji attack.

For this very reason many towns and resorts on the Queensland coast have massive salt water swimming lagoons or fresh pools which serve as refreshing watering holes (and nighttime love hideouts for inebriated backpackers) during the annual irukandji season.

Yet, for some reason, I decided it was still a good idea to go snorkeling. In the ocean. In the Whitsunday Islands. In the peak of irukandji season.

A bit sketchy? Yes. But is it really that dangerous? Not really. Although the safest way to keep from being stung by a massively poisonous jellyfish is to abstain from the ocean completely, for those still harboring fantasies of gliding above a giant purple clam or catching a rare sighting of a giant Napoleon wrasse, the easiest thing thing to do is to simply don a stinger suit.

Wait. A stinger suit? What's a stinger suit?

There aren't many places where you feel the urge to wear your wedding ring around your neck and begin dodging fictional forces of evil.

New Zealand's Tongariro National Park, however, is exactly one of those places.

As anyone who has been to a movie theater in the last ten years probably knows, New Zealand was the setting for the epically popular Lord of the Rings trilogy which introduced us to the adventures of Middle Earth.

Arguably one of the best known movie series of an entire generation, the movie saga has simultaneously done wonders for the New Zealand tourism economy by displaying the country's enchanting and other worldly scenery to a global audience of millions. While Middle Earth tourism has sculpted out its own niche for diehard fans (my 2012 New Zealand road atlas, for example, points out where each scene was filmed), as a casual viewer there are only a few place names I actually recognize.

One of these, of course, is Mt. Doom, and as I set out from the campervan into the volcanic cinder of the Tongariro Crossing-one of New Zealand's most heavily trafficked walks-I found myself standing directly beneath it.

So what exactly is Mt. Doom?

Well, to begin, its real name is Mt. Ngauruhoe, it is 7,516 ft. high, and from the best I could tell there aren't any quivering, flaming black eyes located anywhere near it. While Mt. Ngauruhoe doubled as Mt. Doom, the surrounding bits of Tongariro National Park provided the scenery for Mordor, the fiery and terrifying volcanic wasteland that serves as the home of evil.

As it happens, Tongariro is actually pretty cold, even during the summer months. Lacing up my hiking boots at 6am with about 100 other trekkers, the morning dew had frozen and blanketed the campervan beneath a thin layer of frost.

"Weird", I thought. "There's not supposed to be snow in Mordor."

Anyone who has visited Thailand will recognize the word Chang.

The national beer of Thailand, the over sized green bottles are found everywhere from the markets of Chiang Mai to the bars of Bangkok's Khao San Road. In the Thai language, however, Chang does not mean beer. It means elephant. Hence the ornately drawn white elephant placed prominently on the bottle.

Another Thai word you may be familiar with is the word koh (also spelled ko). Ask anyone who just returned from Thailand about their trip, and they'll rattle the word off as if they're trying to remove a hairball.

"Oh the trip was great. We visited Koh Pha Ngan, Koh Lanta, Koh Mak, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Samui" etc.

Koh, as it turns out, is not the Thai word for hairball, but rather, it is the Thai word for island.
Put the two together, Koh and Chang, and what you are left with is Elephant Island, a nod to the fact that when viewed from the sea, the island appears to have the same profile as an elephant lying down. Therefore, it should come as little surprise that the lush and mountainous island of Koh Chang is one of Thailand's premier locations for riding elephants.

Though there are many places around the world where you can rest on top of a moving pachyderm, what's unique about Koh Chang is that it's the first place I've seen where you don't just get to ride on top of an elephant, but you go swimming with it as well.

Wait. Swimming with an elephant? This sounds dangerous. They're the largest living land mammal on planet Earth, and you want to go jump into a watering hole with them?

Though Captain James Cook was the first European to set foot on the islands of New Zealand in 1769, he was not the first European to "discover it". That honor would belong to Dutch explorer Abel Tasman who sailed past the country while navigating the Southern Ocean for the Dutch east India Company in 1642.

Blown off course by a strong easterly wind, Abel Tasman first sighted the northwest reaches of the South Island of New Zealand and thought he may have stumbled upon the bottom part of Argentina. Confused but intrigued, Tasman decided to make the most of the discovery and arranged an expedition party to be sent ashore to gather fresh water.

Unfortunately, the expedition was met by a band of native Maori people curious of the tall ships which had suddenly appeared off their coast, and after a hostile skirmish which historians have attributed to multiple cultural misunderstandings, Tasman sailed from the area with four fewer men than he had arrived with. As a result of the incident, Tasman saw it fitting to label the area as "Murderer's Bay".

360 years later, I ruminated on this violent turn of events while stand-up paddling above a gray stingray languishing in the tidal shallows of Murderer's Bay.

On a brilliantly sunny and calm morning in which it was possible to stare straight through the turquoise waters, I found myself paddling in nearly the exact same spot where Tasman's men had met their fate so many centuries ago. No longer referred to as Murderer's Bay, with the discovery of gold in the region in the 1850's it was prosperously renamed Golden Bay, and the name has stuck ever since.

Located in the sunniest region of New Zealand, Golden Bay is still somewhat of a secret when compared to neighboring Abel Tasman National Park. Although the Tata Islands--rocks that sit just offshore of Golden Bay and are covered in fur seals--are technically still part of Abel Tasman National Park, Golden Bay offers the same South Pacific setting as it's crowded counterpart, yet for some reason there is hardly anybody here.

Except, of course, for me and the stingrays.

Gallery: Welcome to Golden Bay, New Zealand

Contrary to what you may believe, the ocean in Peru is not very warm. In fact, it's not warm at all. It's freezing.

Other than desert outposts in the northern reaches of the country where it's still possible to surf in boardshorts (Mancora, Vichayito, etc.), the Humboldt current--which swings northward from Antarctica--renders the water in Peru so cold that much of the coast is a seascape of lonely gray populated by neoprene-clad surfers suffering from ice cream headaches (surf slang for intense pain in the temples felt when diving beneath a frigid wave).

For this precise reason there was little part of me which wanted to surf in Peru.

But wait, Peru has some of the best waves in the world. Chicama, Pacasmayo, Cabo Blanco? These places are legendary. What's wrong with you?

Standing on the rocky shores of Huanchaco, a beachfront suburb of the colonial city of Trujillo, the thought of removing my warm flannel and thrusting my ceviche-laden body into 51° water held remarkably little appeal. That, and the waves simply just weren't that good. Admittedly, a fair weather surfer I will be.

Having already toured the ruins of Huaca de Sol and Chan Chan, ancient cities of the Moche and Chimu people who began inhabiting this coastline around 400 AD, my wife and I were simply going to have to find adventure elsewhere.

How about sand boarding?

For years I had seen photos of warm-weather renegades riding down sand dunes from Morocco to New Zealand to here on the coast of Peru. Still, I was skeptical. It's sand. Not snow. Or water. How fun can it possibly be?

"The chowder isn't the type you have back in the States" I am warned.

The brunette woman working the oceanfront seafood cart has detected my accent and is concerned I won't like her steaming bowl of mollusks.

"There isn't much cream, just freshly made broth mixed with massive chunks of crayfish and mussels."

Facing the kelp strewn waters of the Kaikoura Peninsula, a popular hamlet on the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island, this is exactly what I was hoping for: Massive chunks of crayfish and mussels. After all, it's only appropriate for a place whose name literally translates to "meal of crayfish".

Regardless, eating anything else in Kaikoura would just feel wrong, because Kaikoura is not a processed, pre-packaged type of town. It's a place where the smell of sea salt wafts on the breeze and surfers recount that morning's early dawn session. Storefronts advertise seal swimming, whale watching, and guided eco-walks, while local scuba shops display the current water temperature and visibility on outdoor chalkboards adorned in smiling blue dolphins.

This, I realize, is what separates Kaikoura from all of the other adventure destinations and photo opportunities which lay scattered around the South Island of New Zealand. Kaikoura is different from the gorges of Franz Josef glacier or walks such as the Routeburn Track in that it has been a long time since I have traveled through a place that refreshingly feels so alive.

Sure, there are pubs with drink specials and tacky New Zealand souvenir stores like any other tourist haunt in the world, but in Kaikoura there seems to be an intrinsic harmony the town has with nature that gives it an energy not felt in other parts of the country.

Nowhere is this more apparent than ambling over limpet covered rocks beneath the peninsula walkway on Kean Point. Aside from the sandy strands of kelp which give the walk a malodorous yet authentic aroma, the shoreline teems with nesting red billed seagulls and dozens of southern fur seals lounging contentedly on the warm rocks.

Gallery: Kaikoura is alive