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Early on the morning of May 26th, we shoved our mighty pile of gear outside, lured in a pair of taxis, and loaded up in the icy cold before the sun rose. Coffee and go. The bus station was chaos. Umi was immidiately pickpocketed. He kept the money and returned the wallet before melting into...

The story continues! I pretty much used up all the good pictures, so maybe I'll pop some in here later? Polvo learns to run! I mean, he is a horse. Horses run, but it felt an awful lot like maybe he forgot how. The first three days back in camp, I focused hard on getting my pony to gallop...

Found this one from Mandalin's camera from really early on when he was super skinny. Can't believe how much better he got in such a short time. I guess its pretty normal here, though. Mongolian herdsmen usually have dozens of horses - they can work one half to death, then turn it loose into...

It's a crazy amount of work and learning. You get on a horse and he's good. You get on the next day and he's awful. Then you're leading a second horse and they want to fight. Or race. The more I get used to my horse, the less comfortable I am with all other horses, even though we all pretty much...

I'm in Mongolia right now traveling with a horseback caravan of people who just met on the internet. Here's the continuing story of my lil' Mongolian pony: Polvo being fat and healthy, weeks into the caravan. When I first saw this guy, he was tied up to the halter of a big, strong...

Two months in; Dirty, skinny, battered and bruised. Updates coming soon.

Our first trip out of Ulan Bator, to the town of Tsenkhermendal. We spent a night at the home and restaurant of the family of our friend and incredibly helpful contact in Mongolia, Gangi.. The town felt like an outpost on the moon, surrounded by sky and steppe, sand storms, motorbikes on wide...

This is Mongolian money. They have no coins, and nine paper bills that mostly look pretty similar. 1 USD = 2000 MNT, so the largest bill is equal to ten bucks. Cash on hand runs into the millions pretty quickly, and making change fast is an acquired skill. Anything made locally is very cheap...

The big crazy market of Ulan Bator, Naran Tool; called The Black Market by most foreigners. We spent a lot of time here, first for fancy mongolian clothes, leggings and gloves and scarves made from yak and camel wool, then for the serious gear: a cookpot for 10, halters, bridles, hobbles, a...

Man, I still don't know what happened there.

Here is our neighborhood in Ulan Bator, our borrowed Ger, and Umi attempting to use the phrasebook on the neighbor kid. And hanging around the city:

Been picking fruit in New Zealand for months. Once you are in Mongolia, everything is pretty cheap. We also have people hosting us in Ulan Bator while we get our shit together... After a few days of hardcore adulting, we have almost all our horse and camp gear together and should be heading...

A few days in now and I'm living in a Ger in the outskirts of Ulan Bator with my friends. The district is a patchwork dusty maze of square fenced plots climbing up the hills, white gers and colorful roofs, humped dirt roads. There is a community well and shower, a shop with a computer access...

After a harrowing day in Beijing, I've made it to Ulan Bator! I got a nice condenced "Welcome to China" experience, including being stacked in a bus like cordwood, groped, sent to and held in immigration, shoved around and yelled at by security, aggressively pursued by taxi drivers and trinket...

Glad to hear it man. Looks like you found a pretty great deal. Heh, the "not on a tour thing" definately gets real when people start asking where you came from and its like "Uuuh, don't know how to answer?"

So, I'm in the Wellington airport flying out of New Zealand to Ulaanbataar in about 12 hours, where I'll meet up with a couple of friends and a bunch of people I've only met on the internet. Then I'm going to buy a very big animal whose wellbeing I'll be responsible for, and hopefully will be...

Sweet post. If I ever go to Europe it'll probably be that part :D Whats ACAB?

Wait, wait... Backup there. Soil yourself as in "Be really dirty", or "Shit your pants for safety. Just keep shitting them. Ideally, you should be turd nursing like a daddy penguin with an egg"

DriDown is for real. Totally changes having a down bag. Unless it gets soaked, it will still be warm damp, and it dries much faster. I got mine heavily damp, not soaked, and it dried laid out on an airport seat for an hour. If you can afford a good bag why the fuck not? Wont be warmer then the...

Holy shit someone I actually met face to face once. Hi there.

Was going to post this in another thread, but it felt too much like dragging out an irrelevent topic. Here is the setup I'm running with now, only I've sold the waterproof panniers and made some canvas ones instead so I can downsize easier for hitching, and eventually, when I'm in a country...

Is this just an open "Where you at" Thread? Sweet as. I'm in Motueka, New Zealand working on an apple orchard.

Right now I have a folding bike and folding trailer. It's way more versilatile then at least one person here seems able to believe. I just sold my bulky waterproof panniers and made new ones out of canvas tote bags. The panniers clip on a rack on the bike like any other, by the way. My...

"They did what they had too", acceptence, compassion, so on.... It's easy to rationalize getting over it. Little voice inside of me continues to demand personal accountability.

The fuck, half baked? These are not hard problems to solve. Limit campaign donations/spendings. Impose a ban, or at least a waiting period, before cooperate high earners can hold political office. Give elected officials a liveable wage, but not too much more. No one should be in politics for...

Then 20 years laters the parents are all "ooh don't blame me everyone was doing it and the school pressured me and the doctors said it was okay, and you turned out okay, right?" YOU GAVE ME DRUGS TO CHANGE THE WAY MY BRAIN WORKS, did you ever really think for yourself about it and what the FUCK...

People definately treat you with more respect on a bike. I camped in small town parks all through the midwest... sometimes a cop would come warn me about bad weather and wish me the best. Only ever got hasseled twice, but I must have had people bring me cookies, beer, or weed 20 times. Also got...

Love hearing about this. I sat at the roseville yard for two days, with a foldy bike and trailer, trying to get south, but those colton trains like to pull in at least three strings deep and nothing was staying still... Ended up just helping other tramps find their trains, then hitching...

Nothing actually happened that was too bad, but....A night in bakersfield. Ugh. Dude follows me around screaming "WHOOOORE!" until I lose him. Gas station guy freaks out when I ask for water. Buses won't pick me up. Watching guys being slammed around and cuffed by cops with dogs next to my...

Actually, I'm not done yet. A folding bike is GREAT for long distance travel. Its the best of everything. You can hitch easily, but you can also explore backroads with no traffic. You can ride through town, or load it up on public transit. It fits into a large home depot box, which counts as...

Folding bikes can be great, just fine, or shit for long distance travel. It depends on the bike. I have a Bike Friday with 20" wheels. It felt kinda twitchy for about two hours, now it just feels normal. As long as the gearing is set up right, its just like a normal bike it most ways. The only...

Hey welcome here. I get what you're saying. I lived on a bike for three year, and have a folding bike with me now, and even if I don't see it as my main form of transportation anymore, I still see it as them ost reliable... also kinda puts you on the outside, in a way. Most people I might have...

Whitefish cracked me up so hard. Here I was, trying to be low key... meanwhile these three drunk as piss, facetattoo'd kids with dogs where just openly scoping out rides, spanging, sleeping, puking in the trackside park... FOR THREE DAYS. At one point a farmers market set up around them and...

"What do you do when it rains?" "I get wet." This exact exchange HAPPENS SO OFTEN. Also... "Do you have a tent" People are forever eyeing up my pack or bike trailer and asking if I have a tent. Only, they say tent kinda funny like it confuses them and I'm not what the question really...

Stuff that turns me onto a town: Public spaces. They don't even have to be nice.... I mean, full of shit and trashed isn't good, but otherwise rundown parks and open spaces are nice hangouts, and sometimes more chill then better maintained parks. Activity! Movement! Some kinda sense of people...

Okay, my ealier post was crap, so I'll do better. This question is hard to answer, even when I kind of want to. In the last year I've started to identify as asexual. Mostly just in my own head. The minute I did so, I started to worry that giving it a name would make me stubborn - I mean...

Oh man, I just got up and walked out to the street in the middle of the night to get cell service cuz I can't sleep without posting "wait, actually, how about built to roam by shakey graves?" But apparently I can't have original thoughs. All roads lead to nowhere would be pretty cool too...

All roads lead to nowhere... also rail yard ghosts and I was already going to post it before Haysack! :D

"The near miss": when you give up on a train and thumb it... then just so happen to get a ride from an engineer or conductor. Srsly. "My other car is a....": Vehicle stops going the wrong way, but really he's offering to bring you to his boat/helicopter/airplane/bus/giant motorhome, which is...

Love that run I can almost smell the snow and pines well done

I'm asexual because I.... don't feel like doing otherwise? Masturbation is great. Cool thread.

Well done, man. Kinda fun hearing first impressions of my country from other travelers :D Me arriving in New Zealand: Holy fuck everything is so clean, why is everything so clean?

Aye, this is still a bit in progress. I am planning to add more as I go. Right now I'm getting ready for a hunting/fishing/mining/boat trip on the west coast, so that'll be the next chapter. I see what ya mean about it kinda cutting off though. Thinking about it

Weather station

The orchard I was at picked for about five weeks. Some orchards are less, some more. Some do color picking. Most people picked more then 50 a day. About the helicopters... yeah thats what I said. Big money in cherries.

The bugs: Sorry, they're pretty bad. There are mosquitos, but so far I've not hit awful mosquitos. I've been told they can be pretty thick. The universal, persistant biting insect is the sandfly. It is the size of a gnat, and swarms like one. Sometimes they comes in ones and twos, sometimes...

Poopin' in a chipbag. Some people ain't got no delicacy with cameras....

Interlude for... hedgehogs! Otago is thick with 'em. Every night stealth camping they come snuffling at my tent. When they ball up instead of fleeing, it's hard to resist poking at them a bit.

Arriving at Cromwell felt like Hayfork in November. Small town, absolutely bursting with young travelers. Dozens sat in front of the grocery store using the rare free wifi. Parking lot clustered with battered campervans. Lots of dreadlocks and people speaking french. En route to Cromwell By...

The rail trail led me to Ranfurly, and one of the great chance encounters of life. I meant to go to the bakery, but walked past it and started a conversation with this fellow named Mark. I honestly don't remember what about, but he invited me in for tea and he gave me some advice on access...