TRAVEL

The black islands rising from the sea
April 2017 – BBC Travel
The little island of Valsörarna in the middle of the Gulf of Bothnia feels like it is 1,000 miles from anywhere. The Finnish mainland lies to the east, but when I was there on a hot August day, it was just out of view behind a thin bank of clouds. West, towards Sweden, blue water sloshed lazily, bathtub-like. Read >>

The inspiring resourcefulness of daily life in Cuba
July 2016 – Matador Network
When I was a kid I had , for some reason, the following quote from the Czech historian Konstantin Jireček written on the back of my door:
“We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” Read >>

Mesa Vista's Surprising Story
The culture that once thrived at Mesa Verde National Park was rich, complex and far-reaching — and it didn’t mysteriously disappear.
September 2016 – BBC Travel
Most visitors peek into the towering masonry ruins of Mesa Verde National Park and imagine a society on the edge. Not Ernie Atencio.The 60-year-old Colorado native and anthropologist spent several of his formative years working in the park’s backcountry and most of his life exploring the Four Corners region of the American southwest, arguably the richest archaeological area in North America. Read >>

The Boundaries of the Sacred – A Visit to Zuni Pueblo Part 1
April 2015 – Vrai Magazine
On a breezy late-June morning, Tom Kennedy, the Director of the Zuni Tourism Program at the remote western New Mexico Native American pueblo stands atop the remains of the ancient Zuni town of Hawikku, about twelve miles southwest of the main Zuni village of Halona. The wind is gritty and the sky tinted orange from the dust; a Lesser earless lizard races across his feet. Read >>

The Boundaries of the Sacred: A Visit to Zuni Pueblo – Part 2
April 2015 – Vrai Magazine
Tyson Nequatewa and Alfred Poncho sit outside the Visitor’s Center. Nequatewa is a soft-spoken man with glasses and many little tattoos up and down his arms and on his small hands. Alfred is his opposite, massive and bear-like with huge dark hands. Both artists set up their work on tables under a shaded overhang built by the tourism office. Read >>

Eating Around the Wild Coast of Norway
May 2014 – Vrai Magazine
The island of Sandhornøya sits near the mouth of the Saltstarumen Sound in the far north of Norway. The shape of a squished heart stabbing into the Norwegian Sea, Sandhornøya is a wild and craggy rock guarding the entrance to some of the dramatic fjords that cut deep into the Arctic Coast. Back in the boulders and there in the few copses of trees that could get a hold on life that close to the Arctic once lived the huldrafolk or hidden people. Read >>

That One Time When I Nearly Got Runned Over by a Damned Old Train
June 2014 – Vrai Magazine
I nearly got myself run over by a 150 year old train a few years ago. It was a woman’s fault. Kind of. Ok well, not really. But kind of. Ok. Not really…. I guess it was really my fault. I walked out of Chama, New Mexico with a small backpack and the book titled “Blood Meridian”. I set camp up in the pines and aspens during a rain storm. My sleeping bag was soaked through. Dinner was beef jerky, M&Ms and the book. Read >>