All the comforts of home, but on the road!

    There was a time when Time Inc. was flush and when their marquee magazines had baby magazines. And so I was hired as a reporter for Sports Illustrated’s college weekly, SI On Campus. It was an adjustment. My first full-time job had been in the photo department at House & Garden. Nobody face-painted there nor, did they interview humans gesticulating in bear costumes. My second traveling assignment for SIOC was to live in an RV for three weeks with two other reporters—boy reporters—and travel cross-country reveling in March Madness. It is normally a time of year I consider holy, generally because it means I get to sit in a dark bar, mid-day, beer in hand, bracket in the other.

When I tell people (mostly my man-child friends) about this assignment, their eyes gloss over and their lips grow slack. 

“That is a job?” they sputter.

“That is something you were paid to do?” 

I nod and then explain, “It sounds better than it is.”

Here’s why. (more…)

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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There's nothing quite as romantic as a hike with your loved one.

Ten minutes after we began the ascent into the mountains of Colorado, I started getting a wicked altitude headache: a strong, sharp pain that felt like a bad hangover. Jordy - who was tall and handsome and athletic and had never had a headache in his life -  felt fine.

It took me two days to get comfortable enough to sleep, but on the second night, after only a few good hours, I woke to the very close and very clumsy sounds of something outside our tent.

“Dude!” I said, flopping over on my side. “Do you hear that?”

Jordy didn’t say anything, but I could tell he was awake, his eyes wide and unblinking.

“What the hell is that?” I laughed.

He answered through gritted teeth. “Shut up and stop moving.” (more…)

(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Here, I can finally be at peace with the Universe.

Here’s another classic narcotouristic misadventure by our friend Kevin Fedarko, in which he travels to a remote hell-hole in the Indian Himalayas called Malana renowned for its potent local vegetation and “good vibes”. Enjoy! — CDB

During any extended rainstorm in the foothills of the Indian Himalayas—the kind of biblical-grade deluge that pounds so hard and so long that the sky itself seems saturated with despair—you eventually reach a point where your wheels, both real and metaphysical, start to come off. Your parka suffers catastrophic failure. Your skin takes on the color of uncooked tripe. And the molecules of your brain seem to liquefy, slide down your spine, and collect at your tailbone in a pool of ooze.

I call this the I’d-Rather-Be-Dead Moment.

My five companions and I weren’t sure when exactly we’d hit this point. It may have been during our wretched struggle up the 12,000-foot pass—an ordeal that took most of a late winter’s week to complete. Or maybe it was on our hellish descent down a 45-degree avalanche chute on the pass’s opposite side. Or perhaps it had crept up on us amid the tempest of hail laced with snow peppered with freezing rain that we’d endured the previous night… (more…)

(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

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Running is a great way to feel healthy and alive.

I, a fat man, had been circling Portland, Maine’s Back Cove like a dog prepping its bed for most of the summer of 2007. Now intimately acquainted with every pothole, washout and linden tree on the route, I finally turned 7 miles at 9:20 per, and added longer runs of 10 and 12 miles. I was feeling reasonably prepared for my first-ever long running event until just before the race, when a telephone call informed me that I was to be without my race partner,
who I lovingly refer to as Chubby. Her plantar faciitis had put her on the back foot (pun intended) since the beginning of the summer. She simply didn’t feel ready to tackle the full 13.1 miles of running in Hanover.

“I’ve tried to run a half-marathon before I was ready, once,” she said. “I’m not going to do it again. But you can still come and stay with us, and I’ll pass you gu during the race.” Now alone in my quest, I commenced a final week of training: a solid 9.5-mile jog, a 3-mile Monday, a 5-mile Wednesday and a 7-mile Thursday. It was a beautiful week, with clear skies and temperatures in the mid-70s. My times were on target. I was feeling so good about my preparation that I left work early on Friday and promptly wrecked my motorcyle… (more…)

(1 votes, average: 10 out of 5)

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A friend from Outside Magazine, Senior Editor Jeremy Spencer, reminded us of this excellent collection of misadventures he edited four years ago. Featuring the likes of Jane Smiley and Jon Lee Anderson, it’s a ghoulish gallery of murderous hitchhikers, lightning strikes, and worse. A little something to inspire your own submissions here. The article was paired with a classic travel disaster reading list, and a rundown of the 10 worst adventure disasters of the last 200 years. Enjoy—CDB

(2 votes, average: 4 out of 5)

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