A long time ago Jillian and I discussed the idea of posting about some of the people we meet that have different, special or compelling stories. We’ve met plenty of these people, but have never written about any of them specifically. Martin, we feel, makes a good person to start with.
We met Martin at our hostel in Istanbul when we first arrived in Turkey. He had been there for about 10 days because, as he said, he had hurt his foot while walking. He seemed a nice enough guy but I found it odd that a grown man would be able to bear such an injury while enjoying museums and such and so I decided he just liked Istanbul and …

Danny’s experience in Ethiopia underscores the need to stay healthy on the road.  In case you missed it, take a second to read it before you continue.  Although we’re pretty well prepared to handle basic first aid and stomach illnesses on our own, we were caught out in Harar and frankly that was our own stupid fault. We carry everything with us that we needed, we just didn’t bring it with us for the short weekend. Mistake #1.

Here are some travel health tips to avoid “the worst day ever”:
Basic First Aid. Both of us are certified in basic and wilderness first aid. We chose to take a wilderness first aid course because of its emphasis on improvised …

Everyone on the Internet has come up with their list of the most important iPhone applications and travel bloggers are no exception. We have come to completely depend on our iTouch for everything from a quick check of the email when we can find free WiFi to portable storage and use of all of our guidebooks which we have in PDF form. As much as I may dislike the way in which Apple controls its products, these are good projects whose power and portability add dramatically to our ability to log-in and log-off that much quicker.
The applications below are ordered from most important to least, obviously skipping over many (Facebook, Gmail, Tweetdeck,Kayak, etc) that we have and use …

If you think something small can’t make a difference in life, think of a mosquito. One sleepless night, ruined picnic or one sore arm, a single mosquito can be the cause of so many of life’s displeasures. Unfortunately for travelers and many in the developing world, it is a little more serious. Mosquitoes carry two serious vector borne diseases: dengue and malaria. While there’s no vaccine or cure for dengue, there are chemical prophylaxis to help prevent malaria.
We’ve gotten a lot of questions over the last 16 months about malaria medications and we’ve asked plenty ourselves. Here’s how we came to our decision.
To drug or not to drug, that is the question.
The ever growing global discussion on vaccines, use …