Hitchbiking the Pamir Highway: Dushanbe to Khorog

I cycled several kilometers out of Dushanbe and held out my thumb. Almost immediately, a Hyundai Porter⁠—something halfway between a pickup truck and a flatbed, very common in Central Asia⁠—pulled over, tossed my bike in the bed, and we set off. For the next hour and a half, the driver Continue Reading

Tajikistan’s lesser-known paradise

After a month in the hot flat deserts of Uzbekistan, crossing the border into the Panjikent region of Tajikistan felt magical. Ahead of us lay a perfect asphalt road winding up a mountain valley with the snow-capped peaks of the Fann Mountains in the distance. This was the place that Continue Reading

Skiing in Armenia

Tsakhkadzor, Armenia. 7 March, 2017. Tsakhkadzor is Armenia’s biggest and least impressive ski resort. With 4×2-person fixed-line lifts and one non-functional 4-seater, the resort cannot handle large crowds, but that’s okay, because there’s no reason why a lot of people would want to go there. The slopes range from so Continue Reading

The Life of a Trimmigrant

. While hitchhiking around Northern California and Southern Oregon recently, I encountered dozens of nomads thumbing rides on Highway 101, pitching tents under bridges or parking their vans in unused parking lots for the night, cooking organic vegan food on propane stoves, and wandering around towns with small scissors hanging Continue Reading