By Jett Thomason “So what’s the food like in Canada?” I ask. Chris, environmental engineer and admitted Canadian, is telling me about his country at a Washington, DC winter happy hour. “Well, basically it’s pretty much the same as the States.” I knew it. “But there, we’ve got a great bar food that originated in [...]

Moscow is not the most popular destination for the Christmas and New Year holidays for foreigners. However, during this time you can see a different Moscow; everything is illuminated and Christmas trees are in every corner of the city. Red Square is a place of celebration where you can find a traditional ice skating rink and fireworks. [...]

Read Part I: On the Water in Guinea Part II By Jett Thomason We have been following the other boats. There is an art to seeing the schools of fish playing just below the water and on each boat men are standing tall, not even realizing their legs roll of the boat. There is an [...]

By Jett Thomason Part I I’ve been living in Guinea’s capital, Conakry, for six weeks now. Conakry is a city built on a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic and it has long outgrown the French planning for the town. Two million people have been living poor and densely packed for fifty years in the limited [...]

By Michael Bugno Upon arrival, I am greeted with a huge brick wall that says, “Keep Portland Weird”. I sort of knew what I was getting into when I read Keep Portland Weird: 5 Crazy things to do in Portland, Oregon. But seriously—whatever happened to arriving in a city and having a Top 10 sights [...]

This week’s Photo of the Week comes from Matt Kyhnn of BackpackingMatt.com Raglan is an epic little surf town found about two hours south of Auckland – the characterless city of New Zealand’s North Island. It seems to exist if nothing else for the fantastic surf beaches which are found just outside of town. Immediately after [...]

I did not expect to see so much street art in Portugal. Especially in Porto, I was impressed with the sheer volume of exciting, creative, and intellectual graffiti. Granted, much of it is stenciling, either Bansky or Bansky inspired, but still, it’s fun to look at and sometimes thought provoking. For four days, I walked [...]

Dear GoMad Nomad, Have you ever been to Iceland, or would ever consider making the trip?  My wife listened to the audio book Frost on my Moustache: The Arctic Exploits of a Lord and a Loafer and ever since has been hooked! How much money do we need to save?  How long would you recommend we take to [...]

This futuristic set of buildings is Valencia, Spain’s stunning Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, or City of Arts and Sciences. Designed by local architects Santiago Calatrava and Félix Candela, the project symbolizes the city government’s vision to establish itself as a principal tourist destination. On the left is the Queen Sofia Palace of the Arts, the [...]

Recently I’ve been increasingly interested in those travelers whose intense interest, hobby, or profession take them around the world. Be they surfers, chefs, farmers, artists, or hunters; they go to far off places to see how their specialty is done in that particular place. I met Ben Tobin trekking in the High Sierra of California [...]

By Stephen Bugno It’s finally safe enough The days of worrying about getting kidnapped in Colombia are more or less over. Colombia’s tourism board is telling us that “the only risk is wanting to stay”. The main tourist routes are established and travel to Colombia is the safest it’s been in years. True, the FARC [...]

Here Jews are praying at the Western Wall, also called Wailing Wall, in the old city of Jerusalem. The retaining wall and sole remnant of Herod’s Second Temple has been a site for Jewish prayer and pilgrimage for centuries, perhaps as far back as the 4th century. The Western Wall Plaza, the large open area that [...]