It’s been more than three years since my last post! A lot’s happened since way back when, and it’s time to catch you all up on what I’ve been up to, and what you can expect in the near future from…
My my, it’s been a little while, hasn’t it? Well, I’m back!

15 Incredible Towers of the Islamic World
I’ll be honest – I’m a sucker for monuments and ruins. Indiana Jones was and still is one of my favorite movie series growing up and there’s just something about seeing some big, ruined, monumental thing left behind from some ancient…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Bukhara
Bukhara Welcome to Bukhara, where the history is just as rich as anywhere on the Silk Road. It is a city of scholars, and at one point it was the center of learning for the entire world. While the West was…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Samarkand
Samarkand Samarkand is old. Very old. As in, it is so old it could be featured in an episode of Doctor Who or in an Indiana Jones movie. This city, for many people, is the Silk Road. The minarets, the colorful tilework that…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Tashkent
Tashkent It’s really hard at first to figure out what to make of Tashkent. It’s a city of 2.3 million, with an odd blend of Russian and Uzbek influences, a growing restaurant, cultural, and nightlife scene, authoritarian Presidency, near police-state…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Kokand
Kokand You’ll see little today in Kokand that recalls the city’s former glory as a religious center of Central Asia and capital of the Kokand Khanate during the 18th and 19th centuries. Though it was at one point second only…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Osh
Osh Osh is the second biggest city in Kyrgyzstan and also it’s oldest, with a history going back more than 3,000 years. Yep, it’s ancient. However, despite that impressive age and what one would expect to be a plethora of…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Kashgar
Kashgar This is the western edge of China and one of the great market stops on the old Silk Road. For more than 2000 years, Kashgar has been an important trading post for all of western China. And it still is…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Kuqa
Kuqa Kuqa (also known as Kucha) is not a pretty place. This former Tokharian Buddhist city-state on the trail of the old Silk Road is dirty and poor. It’s divided between an Uyghur Old Town in the west and a…

A Backpacker’s Travel Guide to Turpan
Turpan Turpan is hot. Very hot. It sits in the Turpan Depression, the second lowest point on earth behind the Dead Sea, roasting in the still air. In Turpan, the summers are very long and boiling hot, the winters are short…