April 17, 2018
As we dragged our feet in the beating, desert heat, it appeared that we were making no progress at all. I turned back to see our parked truck fade out of sight from the naked eye, visible only through the zoom of my camera, yet our destination, the dunes of Panamint Valley, stood still at what had previously seemed like such an attainable distance.
February 25, 2018
I’ve been to Mexico probably upwards of twenty times, with trips ranging anywhere from week-long surf missions on the Pacific coast to afternoon tacos in Tijuana. I’ve even done a decent amount of traveling in Mexico’s wave-deprived interior, but for some reason, I had never made it to the oh-so-popular Caribbean destination of Cancun. I shouldn’t say ‘for some reason’ — it’s probably due to the lack of waves and massive crowds, but this year my family decided that the time was right to give Mexico’s Caribbean coast a shot.
January 29, 2018
For someone that has grown up with a very western background, China is a fascinating and unsurprisingly unfamiliar place to visit. If you are looking to distance yourself from home – physically, culturally, and/or mentally – there’s no other place that I’ve visited that quite checks off all the boxes.
December 7, 2017
I knew 2017 would be an interesting year as I was frantically searching for cell service in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean on a small panga in Fiji.
“These damn hot spots never work when you need them to!” I mumbled to myself.
It was election day 2016 in the United States. The fact that I couldn’t get cell service for work was an afterthought. I was anxious to see who would become the 45th President of my beloved country.
The messages started pouring in before I could even load a web page. Trump this, trump that. Was there some sort of conspiracy or massive prank being played on me? When I got a decent signal the rumors were confirmed — a billionaire reality TV star had defied all odds and been elected President.
That was a little bit of a tough pill to swallow, but hey I was in Fiji. Things could’ve been worse. That was just the start of an interesting 2017 for me, to say the least.
October 13, 2017
There’s something odd about the Japanese city of Nara.
There’s a certain magic in the air, for between the ancient temples, storefronts, and chaos of urban society, deer roam freely, unphased by the humans living among them.
October 10, 2017
Being in a new country is always a thrilling experience. Things that may seem quite normal to locals can be fascinating to an outsider. Learning how to interact with people, observing local customs, or picking up tidbits of a new language is what makes a new country a new country, after all.
Thanks to a work trip to Japan I was lucky enough to get that ‘being in a new country’ experience, which also doubled as my first time on the continent.
Now I only spent three weeks in the country, so I am not quite an expert on Japanese foreign policy, but here are some of the interesting (and possibly misinformed) quirks that I noticed during my first trip to the land of the rising sun.
July 19, 2017
I’ve been trying to write more lately, but it can be hard to find inspiration when your life becomes rather routine. The past month or so for me can be summed up by standard forty hour work weeks and weekends spent lounging at the beach. And there’s nothing wrong with that, I’m milking every second of San Diego’s excellent summertime weather that I can, but there’s just not a whole lot to write about. So for my inspiration this month, I look back at 2014, which was a year full of inspiration as I lived abroad in Chile. I’m going to highlight a trip within the trip, when my childhood friends Nate and Kenny came to visit and travel through South America with me.
June 14, 2017
It’s a glorious time to be a Warriors fan. The Dubs were crowned champs of the NBA, KD got what he came for and won Finals MVP, and LeBron continues to have a losing record in the Finals (3-5).
A large dose of revenge is just what the doctor ordered, and it feels just as sweet as I imagined.
For anyone who is even relatively interested in the Warriors, 2016 stung. We were unstoppable until a three-game meltdown of historic proportions which was not the fairy tale ending to the best season the sport of basketball has ever seen.
Since that day in June of last year, Warriors’ fans have been dying to get another crack at the Cavs.
June 11, 2017
If you ask any college student what they are looking for in their future career, I think 99% of people will say they want a job that allows them to travel. Traveling is everyone’s dream after all. I definitely fell into that ‘99% of people’ cohort and was lucky enough to find a job that met that criteria with flying colors.
For more than two years now I have been traveling around the globe to work at surf contests in exotic locations such as Fiji, Costa Rica, and the Azores. Since that dream of traveling has become a reality, my perception on traveling for work has definitely changed, not necessarily for better or worse, but I just understand that it has its pros and cons.
For my latest work trip I got shipped off to France’s Basque Country to work at the 2017 ISA World Surfing Games in Biarritz, the heart of Europe’s surf culture.
May 2, 2017
Anyone who remotely enjoys basketball can appreciate what the Golden State Warriors have done over the past 4-5 years. From the hard core fans to the bandwagoners alike, people enjoy watching the Warriors.
They just make basketball look damn fun.
Through the Warriors’ relatively recent run of success after being crowned champs in 2015 and breaking the record for wins in 2016, the number of Curry and Thompson jerseys you spot around the state of California (not just in the bay) have ballooned to epic proportions, and this does not bother me one bit. It actually feels awfully sweet.
April 4, 2017
Despite all the negative media attention, travel advisories, and the potential future construction of Trump’s wall, Mexico is still the most preferred travel destination for Americans. I would be hard pressed to find an American who hasn’t at least been to Cabo or Cancun. Anyone?
While I do not blame people for going to those locations (been to Cabo and loved it, guilty) Mexico is a gold mine full of amazing jewels that are often overlooked that just require you to step a little off the beaten path…
March 19, 2017
After years of extreme drought in California, we were finally blessed with a badly needed wet winter. You could say that we got more rain than we bargained for. It rained a lot, resulting in breached dams, landslides and flooding.
Despite the devastation caused by the winter storms, there is a silver lining (other than the fact that we are no longer in a severe drought): the wild flowers of California’s inland deserts have come to life, thriving after the winter’s heavy downpours. News outlets such as CNN, NPR and the LA Times have been building the hype of this excellent flower season, coining it “the super bloom.” The super bloom seems to be the hot topic at the moment, as everyone and their mother has been hastily flocking to the desert to get their new Facebook profile pictures before the heat of summer shrivels up the flowers.
March 6, 2017
Sticking with the recurring hiking theme of my blog, Half Dome season is just around the corner. I thought I would share what I’ve learned from my two trips to help people that are thinking about doing tackling this hike in 2017.
For those of you who don’t know what Half Dome is, it’s the most iconic granite dome in California’s most frequented national park, Yosemite. Half Dome is great to look at from the valley below, but it provides an even better view of the national park if you are perched on its peak 5,000 feet above the valley floor…
February 26, 2017
It sounds a little cheesy, but Patagonia stole my heart. Its wild, greatly untouched frontier of wilderness left a lasting impression on me that I can’t seem to shake over two years later. With stunning mountains, plains, glaciers and lakes that divide the icy Southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans, Patagonia is truly a remarkable place on planet Earth that everyone should get to experience.
If you haven’t already been, you need to add it to your bucket list. Let me tell you about my experience in Patagonia in hopes of convincing you to go too…
February 7, 2017
As 2016 came to a close I could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. A few work trips jammed between the traditional holiday trips made for quite a busy few months. I’m not complaining by any means but lots of travel, work and few days off takes a toll on you…
January 22, 2017
Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you’ve probably heard that the Women’s March swept across the world yesterday, demonstrating the world’s resistance to the progress and human rights that are at stake with Trump in the White House. Certainly more people came out to protest Trump’s presidency than the meager crowds that came out to celebrate it, which doesn’t come as a surprise given that he lost the popular vote by 3 million votes, but then again that’s probably just fake news from the media (joke)…
January 10, 2017
The second half of 2016 flew by in the blink of an eye. Between logging enough air miles to fly around the circumference of the Earth, sleepless nights, vicious bed bugs and torrential thunderstorms, next thing I knew it was 2017…
November 30, 2016
Two weeks in Fiji sounds pretty dreamy. I can sure think of worse places to spend two weeks. My latest adventure for work brought me to this small South Pacific island nation, where I would spend the majority of my time at places that I had seen only in surf videos, Cloudbreak and Tavarua…
October 1, 2016
When I told people that I would be going to the Azores for two weeks in September, I got asked “Where are the Azores?” so many times that I gave up and started saying that I was going to Portugal. While it is the truth, it doesn’t really tell the whole story…
August 25, 2016
Everyone dreams about going to Costa Rica, surfers and non-surfers alike. For such a small country, its coastline is riddled with world-class waves and of course, pristine beaches. I was lucky enough to be shipped off to the tropical shores of this Central American nation for three weeks this August, two weeks for work and one week for personal vacation. After dipping my feet in the pura vida lifestyle, all I can think about is my next trip back…
July 29, 2016
For the month of July, I was able to return a favor to a good friend of mine from Chile and give him a place to stay in San Diego. Sergio was coming to the US for the first time with his buddy Carlos, ready to live the Californian dream as seen in American Pie and American Pie 2. I was more than happy to host them and be a guide of sorts. Sergio had given me a place to stay, taken me snowboarding and helped me integrate into Chilean culture when I had just moved to Chile, so it was the least that I could do…
June 21, 2016
My heart felt like it was going to leap out of my chest as I watched the Warriors and Cavs trading off blows for nearly the entirety of Game 7 of the NBA Finals. We were the defending champs, the record holder for most wins in a season, and we had the back-to-back MVP, yet we were on the brink of letting a comfortable series lead slip out of our hands. We had everything to lose and with most people having already written off the Cavs after Game 4, they had nothing to lose. I am sure many Cavs fans had already booked their summer vacations to the Bahamas…
June 9, 2016
Us surfers are a slightly different type of human being. Anyone who has converted can attest to this. Surfing really does drastically affect your priorities and goals. It shapes the way you think about life as a whole…
June 4, 2016
The reason I go backpacking is to disconnect from reality for a few days and get in touch with Mother Nature. Cooking over a fire, drinking from rivers, counting stars, and putting that whole hygiene thing on the back burner…
May 9, 2016
Every year has a summer, right? No matter how cold or how warm it may be, there is a period of the year when the hours of daylight reach their maximum point, sweatshirts and jeans find their way to the bottom of your dresser drawer, and suddenly it’s impossible to find parking at the beaches that you have been frequenting yearlong. We all know this time of year – summertime…
April 24, 2016
After this El Niño winter of non-stop swells, most of my weekend mornings, if not all, were spent surfing. When the waves are good I have a moral obligation to take advantage of them, knowing that come the flat spells of summertime I am going to regret every second that I did not do so. As a result, non-ocean-related activities suffered a little bit this winter, not necessarily the worst problem to have…
April 11, 2016
In 2014 I studied abroad in Chile for a full year. With a full load of courses in Spanish, understanding the language was essential. I was pretty confident in my Spanish abilities acquired in class and speaking with my Mexican friends, however when I arrived to Chile I discovered that I was quite ill-prepared to converse with Chileans in their vastly unique dialect. After a rough first few weeks, I caught on pretty well and began adding these new Chilean words to my arsenal…
April 3, 2016
I’ve been to Mexico a solid 15 or so times now, almost always due to a surf related vacation or day trip. Trips to Mexico trigger memories of all-day surf sessions, exhausting heat, uncountable mosquito bites and the hassle of dragging a board bag around on public transportation. So for this short five-day vacation I decided to discover a different side of Mexico, one that is far from the ocean driven trips that I’ve grown so accustomed to, a trip to the heart of Mexico, Mexico City…
March 15, 2016
It is quite a shock when you become an adult and enter the 40 hour+ work week. The first few weeks of a professional job can have phases spent brainstorming ways to get out of office life and watching clocks like a third grader anxious for recess. However, that time passes and you get used to the work day routine as you find your purpose and fit in the workplace…
