If you ever hear me going on and on about some city in Uzbekistan that I love beyond reason, Bukhara is the one. I would go around shouting it from the rooftops if they weren’t so crumbly and I thought they would bear my weight. Make all the Borat/catapault jokes […]
Tag: World Heritage Sites
Ruins of Merv: the 12th Century Mother of the World
Ruins of Merv: The 12th Century Mother of the World Ancient beyond ancient, the ancient of Mary was a known settlement as far back as 500 B.C. as part of a Satrapie under the Persian ruler Darius (yes, of 300 fame). Well beyond that, though, the city was also later […]
Istanbul’s Blue Mosque
The Blue Mosque: Sultanahmet Camii Quick, think of one thing you know about Istanbul! Those of you who said Hagia Sophia, very good. You can put your hands down. Anybody else? Of the things I knew I HAD to check out in Istanbul, the Blue Mosque was tied […]
Topkapi Palace: Why You Should Skip It.
Topkapi Palace: Why You Should Skip It. There are a lot of beautiful things, and Topkapi Palace is among them. Old harem, rooms full of gold and jewels, mosques, libraries, etcetera, etcetera. Its a pretty place. It also, unfortunately, is just about the single most crowded thing to do in […]
Qobustan Petroglyphs: Drawings in the Desert
Qobustan Petroglyphs: Drawings in the Desert As disappointed as I was by the Qobustan Mud Volcanoes, I was equally pleasantly surprised by the nearby petroglyphs. After leaving Central Asia a month earlier, I’d been pretty ‘glyphed out. I’d visited so many of the things (and in beautiful setting like the […]
Qobustan Mud Volcanoes!
See that exclamation point in the title up there? Thats the most excited sentence you’ll see in this entire post. There are tons of tourist sites out there in the world, and while many of them are deservedly popular some of them are over-hyped. I really thought the near-Baku Qobustan […]
Hey there! I'm Stephen, this is my travel blog, and that's me in the poofy hat.
I'm a photographer / writer traveling since 2008, and I've been doing my best to visit amazing places.
My current focus is Central Asia, because for a hiking and camping enthusiast it's as good as it gets.