I’ve done a lot of hiking in Peru. I’ve gone on the Inca Trail, done the Salkantay Trek, and just finished up a version of the Lares Trek. But the hike that made me the most uneasy is one that up to 400 people a day set off to do: heading to the top of …

Sure, the famous citadel on a mountain is worth seeing sometime in your life and Cusco is a great city that still feels special despite the hordes of tourists. To really get how great Peru is though, you have to take some time to explore and soak it all in. A couple months ago I …

Picture a place where the only way to access the town is through a narrow one-way tunnel more than two kilometers long. Where when you wander around it, you find abandoned, empty buildings around each corner and the loudest sounds are the braying of donkeys. There’s electricity, but the internet speed is crawling, even by …

It has been quite a while since Istanbul was anywhere close to being the cheapest major city in Europe. It can still be a great value though if you do it right. Turkey has come a long way since I lived there in the mid-90’s as a young English teacher in the midst of backpacking …

I’m currently at Mexico’s annual tourism conference and they’re a happy bunch these days. They’re back in the top-10 worldwide for the number of visitors after receiving 29.1 million in 2014. This is an increase of 20% from 2013 and more than 24% from 2012. This set a new record, one that had stood since …