[This story is based on my very brief visit to Cook, Australia in December 2004.] For a moment, I am utterly alone in Cook, Australia and it’s a little eerie. Effectively a modern ghost town, Cook looks like it was very recently wiped out in a post-apocalyptic bandit raid. Like…

[This post is based on my experience during my first trip to Mandalay, Myanmar in 2005. I went a second time in 2008.] As I was shoveling down yet another accidentally extravagant breakfast in Mandalay, Myanmar, due to a communications mishap with the server, two trishaw (bike taxi) drivers sat…

[From my travelogue archives, the re-mastered account of my visit with questionably sane long distance unicyclists touring Norway’s Arctic Circle region in June 2003.] Stupefied disbelief mixed with moderate alarm. That’s typically how people reacted when I explained my race to the Arctic Circle to intercept a group of audacious…

[From my travelogue archives, the re-mastered account of my visit to Bangkok’s Pat Pong district in March of 2005.] The mild to stern warnings issued by travelogues, a variety of barstool neighbors and my Lonely Planet ultimately did not do complete justice to Pat Pong, Bangkok’s formerly notorious, now verily…

[From my travelogue archives, the re-mastered and absurdified confession of how I patronized a Hard Rock Cafe twice in the same week while suffering an epic hamburger craving in Lisbon, Portugal in the fall of 2003.] Forgive me Father for I have sinned. It has been never since my last…

[You know about Long Reads, right? Well, this is the Longest Read – in the history of my blog. From my travelogue archives, an edited and re-mastered account of my 78 hour bus ride from southwest Spain to northeast Romania in June 2004.] The build up Some travel elitists will…

The answer, of course, is “duh!” (I’d also accept the Latin “Derrr!!”) It’s inevitable. And travel apps will likely be all the rage until they invent the retina display and cerebral interface with a global 28G data connection to the Knowledge Cloud that will download information to our brains like…

So here’s a wacky thought: should there be a central hub for travel blog reviews? On the heels of last week’s rant, I’m wondering if the travel blogging industry wouldn’t benefit from a little fear. Constructive fear, obviously. This isn’t junior high school, though some days it feels like it….

In February, Killing Batteries celebrated its sixth birthday. It occurred to me that I should post something back then, but I didn’t because, while I had many things to say, I couldn’t ignore the fact that ultimately I had no point. And “What’s Your Point?” is high on my top…

Disclosure: That even on my best day, my book reviewing skills are amateurish notwithstanding, I am good friends with Doug and have therefore opted to skip doing a book review in favor of an only sporadically serious interview on his travels and scoring his first book, Europe on 5 Wrong…