I have been travelling the world compulsively for most of the past 30 years. My travels have taken me to 133 countries so far on all 7 continents. My love is for adventurous, physically challenging travel, often by bicycle or on foot, through mountainous, wild parts of the world. Some of my more memorable expeditions have included cycling from Pakistan to Western Tibet in 1998; climbing Aconcagua in 2000; cycling from Singapore to Darjeeling across Tibet in 2001; cycling the length of the ancient Silk Road from China to Turkey in the summers of 2002, 2004 and 2009; cycling through Ladakh and Kashmir in 2005; cycling the length of Vietnam in 2006; exploring Mongolia by bicycle in 2007; riding through Ethiopia in 2010; pedalling from Tbilisi to Tallinn in 2011; riding through Iceland in 2013; visiting Antarctica in 2015; and exploring southern Africa in a 4x4 off-road camper from 2016-2018. I also spent most of a year diving and photographing underwater creatures in Indonesia in 2017-18.
I was born in Ottawa and grew up mostly in Thunder Bay, Ontario. I started out my adult life studying mathematics, physics and astronomy, but in 1994 I won on Jeopardy and used the proceeds to start travelling the world. Between travels I have worked as an English teacher, tour guide, software engineer, dive instructor and high school mathematics and science teacher in countries such as France, Switzerland, Egypt, Myanmar, Japan, Chile and Georgia.
In addition to travelling, I try to make time in my life for sports such as tennis, skiing, cycling, squash and running. I enjoy chess, reading, playing the piano and guitar, juggling and unicycling. I read compulsively, and love photographing and identifying wildlife both large and small, on land, in the air and under the waves.
My fellow Canadian travel writer Bill Arnott (author of the successful Gone Viking book, whose sequel will appear in November 2021) recently published an interview with me in his Artist Showcase newsletter. Click here to read it; it's a light-hearted introduction to me and my writing.