How to quit your job and travel around the world

When I returned from India last June, I thought the “travel around the world” portion of my journey was over. I stopped posting blogs and pictures because well, I thought you wouldn’t be interested in my state-side life. But then – lacking a 9 to 5 job – I started traveling this summer. No where too far geographically and almost all invitations from friends. But that’s the thing – travel doesn’t have to be far away and strange. My friend Calvin told me about “psychogeography”, which is basically the practice of being conscious of where you are and your environment; interested in the context and the how and why the place exists. Kind of like being a tourist, but in your own backyard. So I have decided it was my summer of psychogeography. Here are some hightlights from places I went …


Late June: Geyersville, Calif. – I went with my dad to visit my uncle in their now-deceased parents’ ranch house. We had to clean out the house as it had been sold and would soon be razed. It was bittersweet to say goodbye to a place that holds a formative place in my childhood memories. But we cleaned out the house – I nabbed my grandmother’s Lamoge and an antique Singer. The Alexander Valley is beautiful in the summer and when I was a child we would sometimes go swimming in the resovior at the end of the vineyard. This oak tree is on the property line next to the resovior. It’s a Heritage Oak and something of an endangered species in California.


Late July: Amagansett, Long Island – This is the fruit stand at the country market. It is very beautiful and very expensive. We felt shocked at the time that a dozen corn ears cost $6. My friend David invited about 7 of us to his house, where we cooked steaks, drank wine and swam in the pool and ocean both.

Mid August: Rehobeth, Delaware – This is one of my bestest friends, Dorothy (right) and Jess (left), walking down the boardwalk. We ate crabs, drank Miller Lites and soaked in the sun.

Late August: New Brunswick, Canada – When I was a kid, my dad had a friend named Jock who had a small Cessna and would fly us to Santa Barbara occasionally. Since that time, the freedom and proximity to air and space that you get in a small plane has been a secret obsession of mine. So as you can see I am quite happy to be flying over the vast forests of New Brunswick on my way to the northern coast on the Bay of Chaleur. I visited my friend Jamie, who lives in Saint John, and we in turn visited friends of his up in the Acadian region. This is a church shot out of the car window near Pokeshaw, New Brunswick about 7:30 p.m.