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I haven’t always been a solo traveler. The idea was first enacted by a friend, who deferred college to work and pay for a solo backpacking trip across Europe and the Middle East. We have similar interests and perspectives. As children we were more comfortable with books than with people and spent school delinquencies visiting museums instead of at furtive school yard hangouts.

Along the rocky bluffs in the 90-acre Fort Williams Park sits one of the most recognizable lighthouses in the USA: the historic Portland Head Light. The iconic Cape Elizabeth lighthouse is nestled just south of Portland, Maine, which also boasts the new light of my life: a “palace of poutine” must Maine eatery, Duckfat. 

Picture the American Midwest and the image is probably one from Utah. Mountains, plateaus, red-sand deserts, twisting spires and hoodoos. The variety in the natural landscape is seemingly endless.

My 2020 Halloween spent in a clawfoot tub in the middle of rural Utah was surprisingly not my first spent in a bathtub. But the naturally heated spring water pouring out of impressionist painting looking, rust-colored mounds ensured the experience wasn’t a reductive one.

It was a birthday trip to remember. The milestone age of 30 in the midst of a pandemic. The older I get, the more I subscribe to the ‘faraway is not a place’ mantra. But for this particular hallmark birthday, I wanted actual perspective. The kind of existential life-lived-thus-far rumination I had planned needed both physical and mental distance from my near-militant daily routine.

Coming down the mountain, we were struck by this startling cloud formation. Once back in cell reception territory we were floored to discover that what looked like a supernatural Greek mythology creation was actually an extreme manifestation of a cumulonimbus flammagenitus, also known as the pyrocumulonimbus cloud, a fire-aided or caused convective cloud.

Elephant seals, bobcats, bear tracks, oh my! The King Range Wilderness is all that…wild. And remote. Add sea otters, starfish, crab shells, rocks of all sizes and sand in every array of solidity and you have the Lost Coast. A spectacular trail along one of the few pristine coastlines along California’s Pacific Ocean.

Dear Amsterdam, I’m sorry Guillaume doesn’t like you. He insists you are elitist, snooty, and tall. I agree with him on the last point. You are, unnervingly, tall. I wonder what it’s like to experience the world from such heights. You also serve dry toast with chocolate sprinkles for breakfast…

Did you know you can survive on Belgian waffles? You absolutely can. I’m not saying it is a balanced way to live, but sometimes it’s nice to reassert your personal autonomy. Like the Lonely Island in their comedy-rap track “Threw it on the Ground.” Screaming “I’M AN ADULT” at a child is a nice way to remind them that, once you reach a certain age, you take full responsibility for your life decisions.

I can’t speak to when the allure of libraries struck. But for me books themselves are reason alone. Enough, even, to overlook the 70s-era buildings of my hometown, with their grayish yellow carpet and exposed pipe ceilings. Minus a handful of major metropolitan libraries, the USA is no competition for the grandeur many other parts of the world have constructed to house their most beloved manuscripts.

I’m a romantic, though I try my best to hide it. Occasionally, I can’t help my own inclinations — like the time I started bawling so uncontrollably during the first 10 minutes of Life of Pi that I had to excuse myself from the theater. The trope of the rich man taking the ingenue to the opera to assess her potential plays out over and over again in film, television, and books; especially if you are at all inclined to romantic plotlines.

Every day is like a Sunday. So goes the Austrian saying on the national imperative to eat, drink, and take general leisure in cafes that are as sumptuous in their décor as they are in patisserie. Now, a literati culture bolstered by chocolate cake and bitter coffee is a lifestyle I can really get behind; even if I have to re-label a day of the week’s character to something a little more rose-tinted.

The best time to visit the Grand Canyon just may be in mid-Fall. On my longest out-and-back backpacking trip to date, I trekked vertical miles through riparian, desert, and subalpine climates. Montane meadows, conifer and ponderosa pine forests. Every habitat variety from Canada to Mexico was represented; as well as every season. Winter on the North Rim. Fall in the base of the canyon. Summer in the river corridor.

Spanning the Danube is Budapest, one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. Perched atop ancient Celtic ruins and a fault line feeding more than 100 thermal springs, to me the Hungarian capital seemed like the very best of Paris, New York, and Berlin rolled into one.

Budapest has many hidden delights, but none more unique than the city’s homage to the neglect of its historic Jewish quarter. Ruin bars are the new phenom of café life in District VII. Combining the post-war Metabolism architecture trend with an oversupply of abandoned buildings, stores, and lots, ruin bars are a cornerstone of Budapest’s nightlife now twenty years in the making.

An interest in rock climbing feels like a Silicon Valley staple, not so dissimilar from the long distance running crowd in Boston. Here, as in many places around the world, the growing demand for the sport has engendered awe-inspiring books, podcasts, and even movies. My particular favorite follows legendary climber Alex Hannold in National Geographic’s Free Solo. (AKA the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.) A fascinating scene in the film shows Alex undergoing an fMRI scan, revealing the physiology of his brain may partly explain his success with the sport: his complete lack of fear.

Mt. Shasta, at 14,162 is an active volcano, made even more stunning as an isolated peak you can see from 150 miles away. Shrouded in glaciers, mysterious legends, and a fast-closing eruption window, of course I wanted to climb it!

The Eastern Sierra Nevada. North America’s mountain range of geothermal intensity, gold-encrusted foothills and doomed Donner family-fame boasts the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States: Mt Whitney. It’s one of the most popular trails in the country.

You can’t visit Berlin without hearing about currywurst. This cold war sausage is an icon of German culinary culture and frequent guest feature of traveling foodies. Literally “curry sausage,” its basic form is a triumph of multiculturalism and post-war rationing — a pile of fried pork sausage (Germany), covered in ketchup (America), seasoned with spices and topped with curry powder (Britain and India).