Nehaveigur

Category: Travel

  • NY, NY

    The first time I came to New York, I came for the New Year. My friend’s friend had gone back to Mexico for the holidays and my friend and I stayed at her apartment on the East Side. It was the first time I’d ever stayed in a building with…

  • Mexico

    I was the only recognizable tourist in the crowd, so of course the performer picked me. He was doing balloon animals. He asked me to hold one, and then the next, and then the next, until my arms were so full I couldn’t hold any more. He then put a…

  • Little Tigers

    “What you’re doing is as extravagant as keeping a pet tiger,” said my brother. “Having three kids is unheard of here.” My wife, our kids and I were spending a month in Austria, where I’m originally from and where he still lives. He wasn’t entirely serious. Big families, until recently,…

  • Greece

    To get to my hotel in Athens, I had to pass through a crowd composed entirely of prostitutes trying to get my attention. Many of them looked like they were from North Africa. I was 23 years old and they clearly thought they had a chance. I was curious but…

  • Facts About Americans

  • New Mexico

    Santa Fe was less interesting than I had thought. The place has a lot of history but it doesn’t feel alive. Too many art galleries and souvenir shops, almost to the exclusion of everything else. In the evening, on the way to a bar, my wive and I walked past…

  • In Patagonia

    Bruce Chatwin’s most well-known work is In Patagonia. It’s a mix of travel writing, history and a fiction. It was first published in 1977. Below are a few paragraphs I highlighted. A hundred years ago, the Araucanians were incredibly fierce and brave. They painted their bodies red and flayed their…

  • Human Footprint

    Here is an interactive world map that quantifies the human footprint based on population density, infrastructure and other metrics. The truly wild places are in Canada, Greenland, Siberia, North Africa, Brazil, Australia and the Himalayas. The data is from 2020 and I wish the publisher, the Wildlife Conservation Society, updated…

  • Travel Tools

    This is a small bag I keep in my car’s glove compartment. I’ve used the tools and repair materials it contains often enough that I consider it an excellent investment. A multitool like the Leatherman would have similar functionality, but I like the idea of having dedicated tools if space…

  • Kon-Tiki

    In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl led an expedition to cross the Pacific on a raft built from balsa wood in the style of the ancient Incas. Believe, even if it’s in a weak theory, moves mountains. While building his raft, Heyerdahl was given many good reasons that his expedition would fail.…

  • Hitchhiking

    After hiking through the desert for a week, I was standing on the American side of the Mexican border. I was dusty, tired, needed a change of clothes and above all, a ride. There weren’t many cars passing on the small road where the trail ended. The first one to…

  • The Last Picture Show

    The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurthy is set in a small Texas town in the 1950s. McMurthy didn’t idolize the time or the place, which is clearly modeled on his hometown. Instead, he pulled off the seemingly impossible: Lots of shocking descriptions of sex, but without being titillating. Sex…

  • The Million Yen Melon

    A friend returning from a trip to Japan told me about his experience with the fruit equivalent of Wagyu beef: the Yubari melon, grown on Hokkaido  Those cantaloupes are sold for close to $100 each, and their flavor, according to my friend, is “life-changing.” There are reports of some Yubari…

  • Air or Earth

    A gentle reminder that, now more than ever, flying is our punishment for daring to defy gravity. Nein Quarterly (Eric Jarosinski) Air travel is the opposite of freedom. During security screening, you are told where to step and where to look, you and your belongings are searched, and everything has…

  • America!

    Chanting USA! USA! is warranted when it comes to air conditioning. Not saying it isn’t warranted for other things too, but AC is an obvious case. American AC is superior. Part of that superiority comes from it existing where you’d want it to. Subways for example. As I’m writing this,…

  • Provincial China

    This summer, I returned to a city in Heilongjiang province that I had already visited around ten years ago. It is full of crumbling heavy industry and has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. It’s located two hours by car from the Siberian border, and in some…

  • Small Gifts for Small Kids

    Small kids travelling in Europe get gifts all the time. This started on Austrian Airlines, flying from California to Vienna. Our three daughters, aged 3, 5 and 6 got a little toy and some craft books from the flight attendants. United Airlines had never bothered with this. Once we arrived…

  • Meadows

    This is a mountain meadow in Lower Austria. Comparable meadows in the Sierra Nevada have fewer wildflowers and fewer insects, both in terms of absolute count and in terms of the number of species. The advantage Sierra Nevada meadows have is their wilderness, especially those that have never been grazed…

  • Austria 2000-2025

    This summer I spent the most time in Austria since I left more than two decades ago. I’ve written about my impressions before. In this post, I’m going over what has improved and what has gotten worse. What has gotten better: What has gotten worse: What has stayed the same:

  • Dairy Products

    Milk products are a constant source of confusion when traveling. Too many times have I been asked what Quark is without having an adequate answer. This graph from Wikipedia is the solution.

  • Walking Vienna

    Change is the only constant, but it can take a long time. This summer, I’m spending a month in Vienna. I went to high school here, and I have been back since, but never for more than a few days. Staying away gives you a new perspective. You notice what…

  • A Bold Choice

    Pandemic 2020 is the name of a cafe I encountered recently while walking around Vienna. I wasn’t brave enough to enter, which I now regret, because I’d like to know what kind of person chooses such a name for their business. Two more photos from the same trip:

  • Colloquial States of America

    I like maps, but I like this one especially. Here is something else that’s similarly juvenile and great.

  • An African Abroad

    A recently published review of a travelogue first published in 1963 was intriguing enough for me to order and read it. An African Abroad was written by adventurer Ọlábísí Àjàlá. Everything about him is interesting, starting with the name: Never before have I encountered anyone with so many diacritical marks…

  • Questions about Tourism

    A recent work trip to Barcelona afforded me some time to explore the city. I grew up in Vienna, which, like Barcelona, is a major tourist destination. The old towns of both cities feel similarly overrun by tourists and avoided by locals. However, when I was a kid in Vienna,…

  • The Sense for an Era

    A few days after graduating from my Austrian high school, I took  plane to England and stayed there for most of the next twelve years. There’s much I owe to the country. My biggest debt is my entire tertiary education, paid by the British taxpayer. Twelve years is plenty of…

  • Speaking Extemporaneously

    The conference ended on Friday afternoon and my flight didn’t leave until Saturday. I was free to spend Friday night exploring Barcelona on my own. From my hotel near the Yacht harbor, I walked north into the old town, and kept walking for most of the next four hours. Soon,…

  • Live Demos

    For some time I lived in a city in the North of England. It was full of terraced brick houses. When I wasn’t working, I went for long walks along the river or across the soggy meadows surrounding the city. The only friend I made in eight months was a…

  • Los Angeles

    The first conference I went to after the pandemic of 2020-2021 was in Los Angeles. It was my first visit to the city. I had lived in California for almost a decade, been to UC Irvine, Joshua Tree and Palm Springs, but had never had a reason or a desire…

  • Getting Spoiled

    The more money you spend of travel, the higher your expectations. The higher your expectations, the more likely they are to be disappointed. Luxury travel – business class flights, five-star hotels, expensive restaurants – make you sensitive to the slightest perceived imperfection. David Foster Wallace, in A Supposedly Fun Thing…

  • Miami Consul

    To get my Austrian passport renewed, I needed to visit one of the consulates my native country maintains in America to hand over my documents. The closest one is in Los Angeles, but that’s a roundtrip airfare and a day’s worth of travel, and also, I don’t want to go…

  • Hotel Room Monitors

    Why don’t hotels provide workstations in their rooms? A good-sized monitor, a full keyboard and a mouse would suffice. If that doesn’t fit, have a desk on wheels that contains those items and that you can order up to your room, similar to the little trolleys they deliver room service…

  • Unnecessary Backpacking Gear

    There are lots of backpacking gear lists out there, and one day I may post mine. In the meantime, here is some backpacking gear I have considered and decided against:

  • Kevin Kelly’s Travel Tips

    Kevin Kelly’s travel tips are based on 50 years of experience. Below are my favorite ones; the common theme is that they make it easier to engage with the locals and go beyond typical tourist experiences. Organize your travel around passions instead of destinations. An itinerary based on obscure cheeses,…

  • The Sorcerer II

    Around the time I was doing my PhD, J. Craig Venter was one of the most talked about scientists on the planet. At some point, he came to give a talk at my research lab and the lecture theatre was packed. Everyone knew about him, but not everyone liked him.…

  • The Blue Boat

    I recently came across the painting below. It beautifully captures what it’s like to paddle through a remote lake. A printout now hangs above my desk to remind me of canoe trips past and future.

  • Go Ahead, Talk with Strangers

    I don’t remember anyone ever telling me not to talk with strangers. As a result, I’ve never avoided it and it has been fine. In turn, I’ve never told any of my daughters to avoid strangers and I don’t intend doing so either. I believe that this sort of warning…

  • Kolkata

    A few years ago, I took a short trip to Kolkata to go to a wedding. I didn’t take any photos, but the trip is more vivid in my memory than most others I’ve taken. The airport was crowded, old and chaotic. My friend was picking me up but he…

  • Travel Hesitancy

    Whenever I have to catch an early flight and get up at 4 am, I wonder, why I’m doing this to myself? Why don’t I stay home, sleep in and read a book? The dread peaks as I brush my teeth, glancing at my phone every few seconds, wondering if…

  • Geocaching

    Geocaching isn’t as popular as it used to be. Google Trends shows that interest peaked in 2011 and has been at 25% of the peak since then, with a downward trend. Doesn’t matter, lots of things have had more adherents in the past but are still just as good. If…

  • Malmö

    Crossing the Öresund Bridge that connects Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden, I knew a new part of my life was about to start. Most of the time, I recognize the transitions between phases in my life only retrospectively, but sometimes I’m aware as they happen. I had previously…

  • Brixton

    Emerging from Brixton tube station for the first time and stepping out into the street, I entered a world I hadn’t experienced before. It was loud, multiethnic and crowded but also drab like only London can be. Brixton market was in full swing, the fruit vendors were shouting, buses were…

  • On Not Going Home

    This essay by James Wood expresses something that I’ve been feeling myself for some time now. I left Austria when I was 18, and I’ve lived in England, Sweden, Germany and California since. I can go back to Austria at any time, but I can’t go home any longer. The…

  • Yearning From Above

    I’m on a plane. This morning, I woke up in a Sheraton hotel room and this afternoon I’ll be in a corporate office with a glass wall on one side, a white board with week-old diagrams in blue and green on the other, and my desk in between. Looking out…

  • What My Father Did Wrong

    On my desk, I have a picture of my father together with a four year old girl. They both look at the camera. She’s not happy about having her picture taken in the way little girls sometimes are but my father looks more relaxed than on any other photo I…

  • Involuntary Explorers

    I don’t find Jungian archetypes compelling, but if I did, I’d be drawn to the archetype of the Involuntary Explorer: Men who, due to events beyond their control, stranded in faraway lands, having adventures. A big part of the appeal is that the adventures are involuntary, which removes the suspicion…

  • Klaus Dierks

    While doing some searches on Namibia for a previous post, I came across the website of Klaus Dierks, a civil engineer and politician during the first years of Namibia’s independence. His life appears to have been adventurous in the best possible sense. He was born in Nazi Germany, grew up…

  • Two Good Lakes

    I like people but I don’t like crowds. I don’t actually mind crowds either if they don’t cause congestion. Some crowding in a subway station is fine as long as it doesn’t result in me not getting on a train. I don’t mind busy city streets as long as I…

  • Blitz Tourism

    We were vacationing in the Austrian alps. Our cabin was at the end of a small, winding road, on the edge of a pasture with views of the valley and the mountains beneath. When we were not learning how to milk a cow or how to use a scythe, we…

  • Brutal Journey

    The Narváez expedition departed Spain in 1527 to explore Florida. Things went wrong and only four out of 600 men made it back to Europe after trekking through what today is Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Mexico for eight years, much of it while being enslaved by Indian tribes. Paul Schneider’s…

  • Gangerl

    Off the dirt track crossing a deserted mountain pass in northwestern Namibia, we encountered an ancient Land Rover stuck in the sand. Next to it stood its three passengers, desperate for someone to find and rescue them. Even before I was born, my father had taken every opportunity to go…

  • To See The Land I Love

    Now as the train bears west, Its rhythm rocks the earth, And from my Pullman berth I stare into the night While others take their rest. Bridges of iron lace, A suddenness of trees, A lap of mountain mist All cross my line of sight, Then a bleak wasted place,…

  • Trains

    Trains are different in America. Like so many other things (people, portion sizes, cars, ambition), they’re bigger here than they were in Europe. The part of the United States where I live and that I’m most familiar with, which is California and the western states, the most frequently encountered kind…