Tag archives for andrew evans
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I was born in Texas. It was the Seventies, Gerald Ford was president, and my father worked for an oil company. Beyond the distinct toddler memory of my crawling on the brown shag carpeting of our Houston home, I remember nothing of my birthplace. I remember leaving, though. Our family piled into our big Dodge…
Dear @GioPalatucci, I write you from the very dry heart of Tanzania where the ground is very brown, the grass is lion-colored and the trees look like they could all use a bit of water. I tell you Gio, it is everything you imagine Africa to be: forever skies with evasive clouds, the hot, hot…
It takes nearly six hours to fly across the Sahara Desert — —about the same distance it takes to fly across the United States. Indeed, the biggest desert in the world is as wide as the continental U.S., and from high up in the sky, I was able to take in the sea of sand…
From the air, India is an immense puzzle— –a hazy puzzle of dusted field and clustered village, with broken beige roads like sun-bleached branches on a dead tree. Down below, pixelated city blocks resemble the square doodles I draw and fill in mindlessly when I am back at home, sitting on hold and waiting for…
Every day I get about fifty comments/messages/e-mails in which readers ask me if they can have my job and my short answer is, “Yes, you can.” At least . . . you can do what I do, which is to travel and share your story with the world. Long before I was christened Digital Nomad…
Your kind face makes me stop, Your eyelashes so arresting That from my bike, I hop. Rip clumps of grass in offering. You inquire with a wiggly nose With careful lips you chomp On lavender and wild rose Then take a perfumed dump. The slanted fields of Switzerland Demand a steady foot. How…
There is no such thing as the Swiss Dictionary. I know because I’ve been searching for one ever since I began plotting my trip to Europe’s little landlocked country in the middle. Yes, there are a few Swiss German dictionaries in print and even one half-baked Swiss German app that I downloaded for 99 cents,…
I live here. That’s what I tell myself as I walk the square and triangle blocks of America’s capital city: this is where I live. This is where I have an address and where I have plants that need watering. I know folks on the street and they know me. I live here and recognize…
Glaciers taste good, as I discovered in Norway. When it’s 85°F outside and you’ve been hiking for an hour, a big mouthful of ancient icepack tastes better than any Slurpee ever could. The diamond, sparkling ice is cold, wet, clean, and delicious–not to mention endless and all-U-can-eat. (Almost.) My journey through Norway continues to be…
Travel is such a personal thing: one man’s art museum is another man’s prison. Personally, I can feel highly entertained just browsing in a bookstore (though if you want to kill me with boredom, plop me in the middle of a golf course.) This is precisely why I shy away from instructing readers what to…
Hello! Goeie Dag! Molo Kunjani! Welcome to beautiful Cape Town, where I’ve landed my feet for a good little while. From the moment I stepped off my ship and ventured into this city by the sea, I’ve been amazed at how friendly everybody is. And I really mean that. Cape Town is a city of…
Welcome to Cape Town . . . again. I’m back! So welcome back to this colorful seaside port that I only just recently came to know and which I’ve been desperately missing ever since I left. Since first landing here two weeks ago (aboard the National Geographic Explorer), I have clocked some 25,000 miles by…
Sometimes I choose my destinations and sometimes they choose me. Malawi was a little bit of both: first and foremost, there were some wonderful children that I needed to meet. However, as a lifelong reader of National Geographic, I have always harbored a wish to see the great Lake Malawi for myself and if possible,…
Read the full news report from Nat Geo Newswatch. Yesterday, the President of Malawi, Bingu wa Mutharika died from a heart attack. I first heard the rumors about the president’s failing health outside a sugar ration line in central Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, where I was told that the he had collapsed and was…
In Africa, to dance is to live. Ever since I arrived in Malawi, it seems that I have been surrounded on all sides by impromptu dancing. Just clap your hands or bang a drum, and someone within earshot will start dancing. Dancing is also one of the principle education methods for Save The Children’s HEART…
I admit that my job at National Geographic is a lot of fun. One minute I am blowing up snowdrifts, the next I am dusting away the secrets of Mesoamerican doomsday prophecies, rapping in Japanese, or cuddling wolves. Every day is different and unexpected—as travel should be. But travel is not always fun. Sometimes it…
At first I saw green—a blanket of green land stretched out to the far edge of every horizon. My heart was happy and my mind took a picture. Here was a new country and my glimpse down through blue sky and broken clouds was our first real meeting. Meeting a country for the first time…
I leapt ashore across the bow, afraid to land in the waist-deep surf—afraid the driver of our rubber boat would change his mind and turn away. But I was here. I had landed on Inaccessible Island in spite of its name. Thousand-foot cliffs towered above me, so that my neck ached from the moment I…
Despite all the harm that humans inflict upon nature, nature (somehow) still survives. I know the tragic tales of lost wilderness paradise. I am often disheartened by nature’s defeat across the globe, and I am aware of how many species our species has driven to extinction — but today I’m in the mood for good…
The only thing better than achieving your dream destination is the joy of returning to a place you love. I never thought I’d ever make it to Tristan Da Cunha the first time, let alone return to this isolated speck in the middle of the ocean, but the good fortune of travel carried me back within…
A mournful call sings out on the beach, followed by another similar cry, then another. The sound is throaty and pained, echoing across a mushy landscape of tussock and glacial bog to the severe and impassable wall of rock and ice before us. With every wave, the muted sea gives birth to a new batch…
Nothing thrills quite like a great sea voyage does. To travel across Earth’s immense oceans, to feel the true size and expanse of our planet, to roll through at least a million waves, to let go of the sight of land on one side and then hope for that next rare sight of land—this is…
I’ve spent the night in four different countries this week. I went diving on Mexico’s coral reef, was interviewed on French-Canadian television, did laundry in Washington, D.C., and then flew to Buenos Aires for last night’s marvelous dinner at La Cabrera. Though the life of a modern-day nomad sounds extremely fun, it is also a…
“Let’s play death ball!” Such was the enthusiastic invitation of my 7-year old nephew, who pulled me with one hand out into the backyard to engage in this very strange and ominous game. Already, my other nephews and niece were busy tossing every kind of ball into the fenced-in trampoline: nerf footballs, beach balls, basketballs,…
Long before I became the digital nomad, I was a print nomad who wrote travel guides that cover some of my favorite places in the world. For all the joys and hard work that goes into a book, I’ve found that seeing said book appear in another language is most gratifying–especially when the guidebook comes…
