Category ArchiveEverywhere Once |

Bandelier National Monument

by Brian on January 9, 2012 in New Mexico, Travel, United States

With a cataclysm of fire and ash, the earth began preparing a home for the Ancestral Pueblo people more than one million years before they arrived. The eruption of Valles Caldera in Northern New Mexico rained cinders over a 1,500 square mile area and created ash flows up to 1,000 feet thick. The ash eventually cooled into a soft rock, called tuff, suitable for carving into the cliff-side dwellings found at Bandelier National Park.

Using hand tools, the Ancestral Pueblo people enlarged natural holes in the rock to form “caveate” shelters, often accessed by ladders. In some instances, they also constructed apartment-like facades along the cliff wall.

Everywhere Once: Around the World

by Brian on January 4, 2012 in Travel

: (c) Simon Howden

Occasionally someone asks if we’re keeping a journal of our adventures. Naturally, I direct them here, thinking this blog is a pretty fulsome account of our travels. Every once in a while I’m floored when they respond “Yeah, but are you writing it down?”

I admit that there is something unique about the printed word. It is tangible and real. Words written on papyrus 2,000 years ago are still being read today. 2,000 years from now, what will become of this? Nothing much, I expect.

But in some ways, digital media is more real than its predecessors. Eloquent prose of flowing script carefully written in a journal and tucked safely in a nightstand is absolutely tangible, it may even be beautiful; but it is almost certainly unread.

The Buddhist in me wants to ponder whether a story written but unseen has actually been told. I think the answer is no. Does that make it unreal?

EverywhereOnce, meanwhile, has gone global. This week one of the fastest growing travel brands in Asia, Take Me to Travel, featured us and our 24 Hours in Custer State Park post. Overnight, they introduced us to 150,000 of their followers, halfway around the world.

Two decades ago only the most accomplished writers could even hope for that kind of exposure. Today, thanks to the intangible vapors of the digital world, it is simply a beginning.

Everywhere Once: Central America

by Brian on January 2, 2012 in Travel

A storm brews over the Rocky Mountains

We strive to make blog posts worthy of our audience. We expect them to be more than just diary entries of where we’ve been and what we’ve done. Instead, we try to craft stories that are as interesting in the telling as they are in the doing. Sometimes we succeed and other times we don’t. But the effort usually requires reflection; it often requires research; it always requires time.

Careful observers may have noticed that our writing trails our travels. In truth, the blog is about a month or so behind us. I don’t expect it will ever catch up. We simply need that time to make each entry a worthwhile read. Normally that hasn’t presented much of a problem, aside from some mild confusion about why there isn’t more Rocky Mountain snow at this time of year.

More recently, though, people who know that we’re about to embark on a two month backpacking trip through Central America have asked whether they’ll be able to follow our whereabouts on EverywhereOnce. The answer is no, not in real time, anyway. Like all of our posts, dispatches from Central America will be delayed by about a month or so.

How to Become Fearless

by Brian on January 1, 2012 in How To, Lifestyle, Travel

In youth, the world is wide open. Life is about trying new things, pushing boundaries, discovering limits, and exploring a planet that is ripe with possibility. As time passes we surround ourselves increasingly with comforts and lose interest in discovery. Our propensity for boldness atrophies. Our longing to see around the next corner gradually succumbs to fear of the unknown. Our world shrinks.

It doesn’t have to.

Best of the Blog: 10 Favorite Travel Photos

by Brian on December 29, 2011 in Travel

‘Tis the season for self-reflecting naval gazing. A time when every media outlet in the country goes overboard with annual retrospectives. We figured we’d pile on with one of our own.

In keeping with the spirit of the season, we selected 10 of our favorite photos taken during some of the 70 different stops we made over the course of this past year. Each photo headline links back to the specific blog post where we first published the image, all of which are definitely worth checking out if you haven’t seen them before or revisiting even if you have.

New Orleans

Why we love this photo: The festive Mardi Gras beads and the classic wrought iron work set against grey skies and cast in somber tones conveys many of the contradictions we find so fascinating in this great American city.