GoMad Nomad Travel

One of the most popular ways to soak up the scenery of Guangxi Province is to take a bamboo raft down the Li River.  Yangdi is the preferred starting place and the new fee structure starting January 1st, 2012 requires a 118 RMB (US $19) fee which includes a spot on a four-seat bamboo raft. [...]

A few years back I had a week’s layover in the UK and bee lined it directly to Wales. It was the only country of the United Kingdom that I hadn’t already visited. After a couple days in Swansea I boarded the famous Heart of Wales Rail Line. After about three hours I had arrived [...]

To many people, Macau means one thing: casinos. This little special administrative region of China that was both the first and last European colony in Asia, makes more money from gambling than Las Vegas. It’s a hot destination for rich mainland Chinese. To me it was about visiting an anomaly: a territory with a curious [...]

Chi Lin Nunnery is an elegant wooden temple built without nails in the Tang style. Adjacent to the temple is the tranquil Nam Lian Gardens, a reconstruction of a Tang-era garden. Stroll on a curving walkway past pavilions, ponds, hills, and sculpted pines. It is a fine example displaying the rich culture of the classical [...]

One of the iconic images of all of Asia, the Hong Kong skyline is certainly one of the city’s highlights. There are a few ways to go about getting the best view. I’ll give you my top four picks: 4) From the ICC Tower in West Kowloon. This is the tallest building in Hong Kong [...]

Walking in Your Footsteps On the forest floor, little light gets through, even in the middle of the afternoon. There isn’t much underbrush.  The air temperature is cool and a little bit damp. What I notice most is the quietness. Prehistoric quietness. I am walking through a redwood grove. It is the biggest contiguous old [...]

  Quebec City has long been a destination I‘ve wanted to visit. Old Quebec, or Vieux-Québec, has a well-known reputation of rich history being the only city north of Mexico that has retained its fortified city walls. I would further say that along with Guanajuato, Mexico, Quebec City is the most European of cities in [...]

I didn’t quite grasp the magnitude of the temples of Angkor until I witnessed them for myself. Guidebooks cannot prepare you enough for the massive scale of which this site encompasses. Before I visited I imagined I would only glance at the most well-known, Angkor Wat, and then be on my way. But Angkor Wat [...]

In March, 2010 I went to Rio de Janeiro for a UN conference. Not without reason this city is so often selected for world meetings. I spent about one week there, staying with a couchsurfer at Jardim Botânico District. The district got its name as it grew around the city’s world-famous Botanical Garden, which is very beautiful as [...]

Almost 7,000 years ago, the 12,000-foot-high Mt. Mazama blew its top, caved in on itself, and eventually formed the United States’ deepest lake. Today it is known as Crater Lake, although technically it lies in a caldera. Crater Lake is the crown jewel of the Northwest’s Cascade Range. Its depth of 1,943 ft. (592 meters) [...]

The Cinque Terre or The Five Lands are five villages in the Liguria region of Italy: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. I recently visited two of them, Manarola and Riomaggiore, during a short vacation in Tuscany and Liguria. These towns are incredible; they have a special atmosphere of small medieval seaside settlements that have kept their historical face because of the surrounding mountain landscape. Over [...]

In all my travels, Turkmenistan has been, by far, the oddest place I’ve visited. Culturally, the Turkmens are “cousins” of the Uzbeks, and I found many similarities in the everyday lives and customs with their Central Asian neighbors. The languages are also similar, both routed in Turkish. These are not the reasons I found Turkmenistan [...]

  When I visited Egypt four years ago, I expected frustration and annoyance. I supposed I’d be hustled by street urchins and harassed by touts. I thought it’d be a junior India of sorts. I was wrong. Granted, you’ll get annoyed if you follow every seemingly friendly Mohammed to his cousins souvenir shop. But if [...]

A few years ago I spent a couple months in Israel and the West Bank. For one of those months I volunteered in the city of Nablus for a month, teaching English and participating in other community projects. Living in the region was an invaluable way to understand the current events in the region and [...]

People say you’ve got to see Vermont in the autumn, when the fall foliage is spectacular. But I think the state is gorgeous in the summer, when the mountains are green, just like their name suggests. Some would argue that winter in Vermont, with alpine and Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, and other winter sports, is the [...]

It’s not just betting on horses. It’s an experience. Saratoga Springs, New York is one of the best places in the United States to watch horse racing. There is definitely a horse racing culture around Saratoga Springs: not only in the breeding of race horses but spending the day at the track watching them race. [...]

This week’s Photo of the Week come to us from Berit Renser who blogs at avantourists.com It was in October of 2010 when Merapi of Central Java, Indonesia, erupted again, this time bigger than it had in over 100 years. Now the danger zone has been removed and the villages are welcoming for a visit. Small boys [...]

Despite the serene beauty that proliferates  from the battlefields surrounding Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the 6,000 acres has witnessed one of the most horrifically violent episodes of human history. But 148 years after these battles of the United States Civil War, orchards have been replanted, hay is still grown and cut, restored cannons stand facing the enemy [...]