I’ve got this horrible White Snake song stuck in my head. You know the one that goes “here I go again on my ooooown” followed by some clunky power chords? It’s been on a seemingly infinite, really short loop (I don’t know the rest of it) in my head since Sarah dropped me at the bus bound for O’Hare on Monday. It’s Tuesday afternoon in Scotland as I type this on the Glasgow-Aberdeen train. I’m still traveling. On my own. Again.
It’s a great cosmic irony that a homebody like me is trying to make it in the world of travel writing/blogging/what have you. Especially as a solo traveler. Still trying to figure that one out. But I’ve traveled a lot in the last six months: five weeks in Argentina, three weeks in Scotland, one week in San Antonio, and now I’m on the front end of another five weeks in Scotland. Read more...
This Wisconsin winter has had its moments: bone-shattering cold, neck-deep snows, weeks without sun, and then 50-degree thaws like a crack of summer light lancing into inert, frigid dark. Just enough warmth to keep the joints moving.
It’s an apt comparison for my state of mind since returning from Argentina. Perhaps throwing myself into the unknown just as the northern USA entered the meteorological equivalent of a blackhole wasn’t the best timing. I’m reminded of that moment when I flung myself out of the Cessna at 11,000 feet – confronted with such an alien feeling, I blacked out. My tandem instructor and I rolled through thin air… Read more...
I’ve had this topic stewing since well before I left for Argentina, but I decided to take the trip and analyze the packing list afterward to provide details on what worked well, what didn’t, what was lacking, and what was just adding to the strain on my endoskeleton.
When I prepare for a trip, whether I’m flying to San Francisco for the weekend or Europe for six weeks, I try to fit everything into the same two bags. This means that while I’m not exactly a disciple of the one bag travel philosophy (or Rolf Potts’ no baggage challenge) I’m also not pulling a baggage train behind me. Read more...
It’s hard to believe my month in Argentina has come and gone. Seems like just yesterday I wrote a post thinking through my options, and now I’m writing a post-mortem for the trip.
My month in Salta (with a few days in Buenos Aires) was an intense learning experience filled with many challenges. This is not to say I didn’t enjoy the trip: I met incredible people, ate delicious meals, and experienced unique cultural events on a near-daily basis. But this first trip of Traveling Savage will be remembered as the journey that tested my solo travel resolve, mental toughness, and ingenuity, and the one that set the bar and measuring stick by which future trips will be devised and judged.
I’ve distilled a few overarching observations from the month abroad below. Read more...
The gauchos of northwest Argentina sing their hearts out to Salta. I asked Ana, the guide I’ve met up with on a couple of occasions here in Salta, the meaning of some of the folklórica songs we’d heard. She smiled, turned a bit red, and said, “they sing about their love for Salta, how they’re leaving their hearts behind when they ride away.”
There was no need for embarrassment, I understood exactly what she meant. The process of travel is the great distiller of life. The dislocation of your self from the everyday grind is polarizing. The meaningless elements disappear in the shuffle, perhaps never even considered. But the important parts, the heart, stick in your mind and gain prominence. I remember feeling this way after a six-week trip Sarah and I took in 2006. By the end, we knew we needed to spend more time with family and friends. That’s what was important after being outside of our workaday routines. ESPN and TCM, games and drinks out at the bar, trips to big box stores – all this crap really didn’t matter. Read more...
A hunter, oft-stubbled and bleary-eyed, driven by an insatiable hunger for exploration and experience - and perhaps a chance to thin the herd of caffeinated and alcoholic beverages. From the highlands and islands to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and the Borders, I explore Scotland with a pen in hand and a fire in the belly (which could be partly from the whisky). 
