Road trips are one of travel’s great forms of adventures. From the Griswald’s cross-country family vacation to Wally World to my own explorations of Eastern Cambodia to design tours for international visitors, the road trip is a time-honored tradition. Nowadays, one might imagine traveling by camper-van to Mexico or Central America, or even renting a car in the north of Japan and driving it south from island to island, but who would ever imagine taking a road trip by car from Myanmar to Holland? Well, our guest Edwin Briels did just that, and today he’s going to share how it all went down. Buckle up!
Continue readingThis Talk Travel Asia podcast interview with Joe Cummings discusses Joe’s trip to Mount Kailash. Mt. Kailash, located in western Tibet, is considered sacred by Hindus, Bons, Buddhists, and Jains. It towers at 6,638m, represents Mount Meru to Hindu and Buddhists, is central to Buddhist cosmology, and is a major pilgrimage site for various worshippers. One of the religious traditions of pilgrims involves trekking 52km around the base of the mountain, clockwise for Buddhists and Hindus, in order to attain good luck and future fortune along the way. The trip passes through remote lands, over a 5,500m pass, and typically takes about four-days. Today we’ll chat with legendary traveler and writer, Joe Cummings, about his circumambulation of Mount Kailash in 2015.
Continue readingOn this episode of Talk Travel Asia, we’re going way off the beaten path to discuss some of the best mountain biking in Asia. We chat with former Bike Magazine Editor in Chief, journalist, explorer, and all around adventurer Brice Minnigh, about his mountain biking expeditions in Asia, including a recent film he made, The Kora, where he and some friends spent 10-days circumnavigating Himalayan peaks in Sichuan province, China. So put on your biking kit, strap on your helmet and headphones, and get ready for an exciting ride ahead!
Continue readingNepal is famous for having the world’s highest peaks, the Himalayas, and most travelers know the country is a hotspot for trekking, and likely have such a trip on their bucket list. But Nepal and trekking is much more than just big mountains. This ‘small’ Himalayan nation on the map would actually be about the size of the US if flattened out – it’s huge! In just 230km the country rises from its southern border at 70m to 8,848m in the north. That’s some serious vertical gain! The country has pretty much every climate covered and a lifetime of walking to be done. Our guest today, Robin Boustead, has been working on what must be one of the world’s longest walks for more than a decade, the Great Himalaya Trail. Going through Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet, it’s over 6,000km long and looks incredible. We chat with him about how the Trail came about and how travelers can enjoy it.
Some of the towering beauty that rests along and astride the Himalayan trade routes