goKonrad's Yerevan travel blog I've been fascinated by this Armenia's history and culture for a long time. It's one of the oldest nations in the world, with roots from before 1,000 B.C. It is literally and figuratively the bridge from East to West, and has been since the Silk Road. It's dealt with war, invasion, and occupation [...]
goKonrad's life lessons from travel. Travel changed me. No surprise there, it changes most people. But after nearly 100 countries, 1 million miles, and several years of my life abroad, how has it changed me? What life lessons – for both life and work – did I pick up on the road? I explored this question deeper to determine the life lessons [...]
goKonrad's Beijing travel blog For a major international city, Beijing remains refreshingly authentic, unique, and friendly. The food is as delicious as it is diverse. The city is brilliantly complex and contradictory on every corner. Chinese writer, Lao She, said it well: “filthy, beautiful, decadent, bustling, chaotic, idle, lovable.” I could stay here for years and [...]
goKonrad's Maputo travel blog (Mozambique) Mozambique is one of Africa’s last frontiers. While it can be difficult and time consuming to make your way up the 1,500 miles of coastline, it is well worth it if one has the patience and the perseverance to travel through this long and undeveloped country. I started in Maputo, the [...]
goKonrad's Somaliland travel blog (Somalia) Welcome to Somaliland, the self-proclaimed independent, yet internationally unrecognized region of Somalia. To the outside world, the region is considered part of the non-functioning state most known for its pirates, terrorists, kidnappers, bandits, clashing rival clans, and beloved I’m-the-captain-of-this-boat-now movie lines. While most of Somalia resembles a bad post-apocalyptic movie and [...]
goKonrad's Mexico City travel blog. Mexico City is one of the most underappreciated and misunderstood cities in the world. It often gets a bad rep due to the all-too-common instinct to judge a place from what you knew of it decades ago. Kidnappings, murders, and gang violence were popular activities in the past, but the city [...]
How to use alternative route travel hacking to save money and see more cities. Alternative route travel hacking is the easiest and most reliable – yet rarely used – travel hack out there. I have used it to save thousands of dollars on international flights and to visit handfuls of countries that I might not have [...]
Why you should prioritize travel in developing countries. Extreme poverty. Disease. Corruption. Crime. Civil War. These are just a few of the things people often associate with “the developing world”, which is usually just a euphemism for “thank God we don’t live there.” It’s not surprising, then, that a lot of people assume I’m either crazy [...]
What the world's top travel blogs told me about why they travel. You’ve read about how you can travel more, better, and cheaper on all the top travel blogs. But before you explore how to do anything, it’s important to know why. I had the privilege of chatting with some of the top travelers in the world and explored the question: “Why [...]
goKonrad's Dubai travel blog Dubai redefines the traditional concept of a desert oasis. Surrounded solely by desert, it’s a rich and futuristic playground that provides the biggest and most extravagant, well, everything. My travels through Dubai left me in awe as I observed the endless spectacle of human industriousness, resourcefulness and creativity. There isn’t a city in [...]
