Every January, I do a recap of the things I want to remember about the previous year. It’s always a jumble of obsessively documented and hoarded memories that I scribble in illegible lists and notebooks and iPhone notes. I list…
12 Best Books I Read in 2022
The 12 Best Books I Read in 2022 This year was a strange year for reading. Before starting my trip, I imagined that I’d read more books than ever because of all the hours I would spend on trains and…
Anxiety and the Extreme Sport of Balkan Bus Travel
The anxiety I’ve felt for 2 and ½ years during the pandemic has largely disintegrated since I’ve been traveling. I’ve always said traveling is the surest cure for my anxiety, and it’s proven true again. Even the worry I had…
Kotor, Montenegro, and the Ethics of Tourism
After seeing Bosnia, I thought that the rest of the Balkans would be similar to it—a wilder and more foreign version of the Europe I’d seen before. We were solidly in the land of mildly-sketchy public transportation, cash-only establishments…
War Scars, Sarajevo, and Falling in Love with Bosnia and Herzegovina
When I was in elementary school, I read a children’s chapter book about Scott O’Grady, a US fighter pilot who was shot down in Bosnia in 1995 over enemy territory and survived it. I must have read it just a…
Bad First Impressions and the Impossible Complication of Serbia
The entire idea for this trip started several years ago with a plan to backpack the Balkans. If you don’t know much about the geography of this region (and why would you if you don’t spend your spare time playing…
