Feb 21st, 2012 at 10:00AM:
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 ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
vagabondtales posts
Vagabond Tales: Winter on California's Mt. Tahquitz
Feb 21st, 2012 at 10:00AM:
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 ...Vagabond Tales: Snorkeling with irukandji, one of the deadliest animals on Earth
Feb 11th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
"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 ...Vagabond Tales: Swimming with elephants in Thailand
Feb 9th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
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 ...Vagabond Tales: Is sandboarding better than snowboarding?
Jan 31st, 2012 at 9:00AM:
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 ...Vagabond Tales: "The Governator is better, yes?"
Jan 23rd, 2012 at 9:00AM:
Crossing borders can always be a bit of a hectic experience. There are long lines, scam artists, customs officials, new currencies, people offering to expedite your visa process for a fee, screaming children, rogue livestock, and occasionally people with guns. Dirty and dingy, border crossings are never the favorite part of my trip.
Luckily, however, I was once aided through a particularly ...Vagabond Tales: The strange food of Vietnam
Jan 20th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
Apparently, there are no sharks left in Vietnam.
This is not a scientific fact. It's based solely upon the opinion of my dive instructor in Nha Trang, a trendy resort town in southern Vietnam. While you may initially think this is a good thing, the sad reality is that sharks are one of the most threatened animals in the undersea environment and the vast majority pose no threat to humans ...Vagabond Tales: Nobody plans to visit a hospital in Uruguay
Jan 17th, 2012 at 10:00AM:
About the last thing that anyone wants to have happen on their vacation is to end up in the hospital. This much nearly all travelers can agree upon.
What's even more fun is ending up in a hospital in a country that speaks a foreign language, realizing your vocabulary doesn't yet include the translations for words such as "syringe", "infection", and "spinal tap".
Luckily for me I found ...Vagabond Tales: Lunch on Guilty Beach, Cambodia
Jan 12th, 2012 at 10:00AM: Lunch on Guilty Beach was a tough meal to swallow.
If you look on a map of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, you'll find beaches such as Victory Beach and Independence Beach, but you'll find no such place as Guilty Beach. Regardless of what a map might say, unofficially, every beach in Cambodia is Guilty Beach.
Guilty Beach is not just a Cambodian phenomenon, but rather a global destination that can ...Vagabond Tales: How to roast marshmallows over an active volcano
Jan 10th, 2012 at 11:00AM:
This may sound strange, but one of my favorite aspects of international travel has to do with liability, or rather, the lack of it.
Although the age of personal responsibility seems to have gone the way of the cassette tape and litigation is now just another part of business, believe it or not, there are still a refreshing amount of countries out there where common sense and an acceptance ...Vagabond Tales: The lure of Baja's Scorpion Bay
Jan 5th, 2012 at 11:30AM:
"Rich man or poor, surf star or surf bum, Baja all equally humbles us. Baja does not care." -Anonymous-
From the dusty confines of an open air Mexican cantina, a sunburnt American man gnawing on a $4 breakfast burrito managed to ruin my day in a single breath.
"It's been surfable every day until you got here" he smugly mused, a dribble of hot sauce inching down his chin.
We had just ...Vagabond Tales: Please check your durian at the door
Jan 3rd, 2012 at 11:00AM:
I recently witnessed something strange while checking into a Bangkok hotel room.
In a city that's infamous for its sex tourism and is one of the undisputed party hot spots of Asia, there are any number of hotel activities I'm sure you would consider forbidden. Having fruit, however, probably isn't the first one you would have guessed.
While checking into a room not far from Khao San ...Introducing Vagabond Tales: A new series by Gadling
Jan 2nd, 2012 at 10:00AM:
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 ...
