Dear Havana, I’m Never Leaving

There are only two acceptable times to take a cruise ship. 1: if you are an absolute bore of a person, 2: if the destination is impossible to reach by any other means. This is how I found myself p...

The Oktoberfest That Never Was

In a world where things have come from all clear to not so much. It’s a little stressful making plans. The show you thought you would be able to see is canceled after you have been slapped, vaxed, ...

The North African American Cemetery and Memorial

Operation TORCH, the invasion of French Algeria and French Morocco by American and British forces, occurred on November 8th, 1942. This invasion was the start of the American efforts to liberate N...

Wonderland Travel Guide; Trippin’ Through Santa Cruz

Cut into the foot of the redwoods along a picturesque coastline an hour south of San Fransisco lies the Wonderland of Santa Cruz where the hippies hate free-speech and the warriors grow grass, and...

Nicaragua: A Degenerate American’s Paradise

Travel is what you make of it. Most of my generation is ignorant of the Iran-Contra scandal, the Sandinistas, bloody El Salvador wars, Daniel Ortega, and may brush off Nicaragua as just another poo...

The Gold Coast of Africa Part II: Becoming Humanitarian

Ghana is Africa for beginners. Though the country’s name roughly translates to Warrior King,  they successfully incorporated tribal leadership into their democratic institutions. The Ghanaian gover...

The Gold Coast of Africa Part I: Arrival in Ghana

My work in Africa started last-minute and completely by surprise. The year was 2015, and my mother was working for a wealthy philanthropist whose day job was running a tax empire, while building wo...

Yosemite National Park: Experiencing America’s Natural Grandeur #OAFScout

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike.” - John Muir Yosemite means “killer” in the langua...

Mr. Cokie Goes to India

A comfort zone is a difficult thing to break, particularly when it is almost purely mental. Like so many of us, much of my time overseas has been tied in some way to the government. That means...

Conquering Istanbul, Part Two: Across the Bosphorus #OAFScout

Crossing the Bosphorus toward Taksim Square was a drastic change of scenery.  Older, rushed, and more feeble tourists stayed behind in the Sultanahmet District, as did many of the hawkerswho preyed...

Conflict—A Way to Avoid and A Way to Win: Travel Tip #12

Squaring up these #OAFScout travel tips to an even dozen, today we’re going to cover conflict—that beautiful thing we either seem to live for, or irksomely try avoid when on an outing with the...

Conquering Istanbul, Part One: Sultanahmet #OAFscout

Byzantium. Constantinople. Istanbul. It has been called many names over thousands of years as the seat of empires and a bridge between cultures and worlds. It’s the richest time capsule of hi...

The Sex & Alcohol Curve: Travel Tip #11

“Pick your poison”: a term we’ve all heard. Though it originally meant contemplating one of several crappy outcomes in a dilemma, the catchphrase nowadays usually comes from that friend who long ag...

Tapping into Local Intel: Travel Tip #10

Today’s travel tip for adventuring into third world locales is being pulled from the arsenal as one of our true fundamentals.First, since the title contains the word “Intel”; a crash course in t...

Albania: The Best Budget Backpacking Destination You've Never Heard Of

I stumbled into Albania, the tiny former Communist country tucked away in southeast Europe, more or less by chance in the summer of 2015. The majestic mountains, waterfalls, canyons, castles, ruin...