TobyPortugal has made it onto just about every top travel list this year, and with good reason. I loved the month I spent there in […]
Latest Blogs
Give Me Loneliness (a poem for travelers and dreamers)
Sagres, Portugal, early May. This past weekend, after a few wonderful weeks of travel and adventure with friends and family, I gave myself the gift of […]
The Girl Who was Afraid of Everything—Fiction
The Girl Who Was Afraid of Everything. (A break from the usual—story time!) *** Once there was a girl who was afraid of everything. She […]
When You Don’t Want to be Friendly and Open and Curious
That’s okay. It’s normal. Go ahead and hermit. I stare resolutely out the window of my Uber at the windy Cape Town day, quite […]
The Rough and Wrinkled Side of Adventure
Sunday, 23 April. Porto, Portugal. Welcome to the world of unplanned adventure. It’s messy. It’s unphotogenic. It’s wild-ish. It’s kind-hearted French tourists warning you that […]
Some Things I Like (About Travel)
Lisbon, Portugal. Saturday afternoon, somewhere far from the city center. I like this cafe, edged in fading sunlight, that flanks a nondescript park. I […]
The Strangeness
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” — Robert Louis Stevenson Sorry, Robert Stevenson, on two counts. First, […]
An Artist’s Statement, Kind of
In addition to the travel, culture, and adventure writing I focus on here, I also dabble in poetry, fiction, and other creative writing. Through these […]
How I’m Overcoming the Tension of Teaching Storytelling in Africa
In my first workshop meeting, I share a TED Talk by Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and she discusses how throughout history those in power—especially […]
The Wild-Tame Peculiarity of Safari (and 10 Wild Photos)
Sabi Sand Game Reserve, Mpumalanga, South Africa A male leopard wakes from his nap and stretches lazily. Three safari cars—Land Rovers, I think—have parked just […]