True North Strong

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the delays between these posts. Simply put, I have been off enjoying life and continuing to adventure all over the place. Trying to squeeze in as much as I reasonably can without overdoing it and getting burnt out. Truthfully, I have been riding too closely to that edge and I've been exhausted at the end of each day - little time or energy to work on video editing and blog posting. I have still been taking loads of great videos and drone shots that I wi

Hi Everyone! From Rome, I rented a car - a Fiat 500 with a manual shift. Just my size, lol. Seriously though, I fit nicely into the driver's seat, and it had more than enough room for me and my backpacks. The first leg of the car journey was from Rome to a little medieval town called Siena in the heart of the Tuscany region of Italy. I had not even heard of this town until I was looking at places to stay along the road, and many search results seemed to all say that Siena was

Hi Everyone! This leg I visited what is known as the Eternal City of Rome. I loosely go by this rule for how many nights to stay in a given place (coding nerds will enjoy this - I hope): if I have never heard of the place but need somewhere to sleep then 1 night only otherwise, if I have heard of the place and it isn't super well known for sight-seeing and adventures then 1 or 2 nights at the most, otherwise if it is a known tourist destination with lots to see then 2 or 3 ni

Hi Everyone! I rented another car for this leg of the journey as that allowed me to get up close and experience fully both Mount Vesuvius and the meandering drive of the Amalfi coast. Spoiler alert: it was beautiful. Flowers flowers everywhere. Got some more awesome drone shots. There are some sections of the video that are sped up sequences of me driving all over the place so it might get a bit too much/dizziness inducing for some. There were no drones allowed for basicall

Hi Everyone! Today I toured the ancient and suddenly destroyed city of Pompeii. I have to say it was a bit overwhelming being there and getting to see the scale of it all. An entire city lost in moments. I learned (and it makes sense really), that when the volcano was erupting, the people did not realize the imminent danger that was upon them. In fairness, Mount Vesuvius does feel a long way off when looking at it - they had no clue or prior knowledge that something like a py

Hi Everyone! Florence/Firenze is often described as the jewel of the renaissance, and it sure lives up to that standard in my books. Of course, I went to go see the David and took more of those boring pictures of old buildings (yes just for you GRACE!) ;). Most of my knowledge of Florence before visiting was based on the sequel moving to The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal. Basically, a bunch of museums and people sitting around drinking espressos... and the odd cannibalistic

Hi Everyone! Venice is just like it's been depicted to me in Movie and on TV - for the most part. Only canals and narrow walkways. A handful of more open piazzas. Could actually feel a bit claustrophobic for some as it was also a weaving maze of jagged intersections and sneaky paths. Restaurants and boutiques everywhere - it was beautiful and delicious. I needed to investigate and take the water bus to get to the southern island where my hostel was, but that ended up being a

Hi Everyone! I'm officially in the Italy parts now of Italy. What I mean is, it wasn't feeling very "Italy" when I crossed over from Switzerland up in the Alps, but now it's just like what I've seen and loved from the movies. Milan is the fashion capital of Italy and where all the famous brands (Gucci, Versace, etc.) are all headquartered. This goes back 100+ years and makes some sense as this is also where the raw materials and fabrics are created. Milan is an ancient city g

Hi Everyone! After Bavaria I figured I was so close to Switzerland that I better go and check it out. I hopped on a train from Munich first to Zurich, stayed there for about 3 hours, and then back on the train reach and spend the night in Geneva. Zurich was pretty cool. I scootered around the town which was fun and a great way to see a lot in a little time. I could tell this place is used to having loads of snow, so it seemed a bit odd to be there in +28 Celsius. Geneva wa

Hi Everyone! So some of you may know a bunch of this, and others (like me) will have had no clue going into this. Neuschwanstein Castle was the place in the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang that the baron/bad guys captured and hid the children in. It's also the visual inspiration for the Disney Castle in Disneyland and in the Disney logo/intro to movies. But it's actually the last Castle commissioned to be constructed by Ludwig II one of the last, and certainly the most crazy

Hi Everyone! I'm putting some miles on for this next one. Travelling from Dubrovnik to Split by ferry. Don't worry, it was a safe and barf free journey. Spent the night in Split and then I was back on the main train network. From there I went to Zagreb the capital city of Croatia. The train was very slow and winding. It was beautiful countryside, but it took about 8 hours which felt about 6 hours too long. As you will see in the video, I stayed in what looked like the s

Hi Everyone! Dubrovnik was amazing. Great views of the city, good food, very friendly people. I first went to the nearby Lokrum island to get some good clips of views across to the city and to explore. Lots of outside scenes for Game of Thrones were shot on this island and that TV show has become a major part of tourism in Dubrovnik and on this island. The island had a nude beach but nude only - if you had clothes on you weren't allowed to go and creep on people. From my

Hi Everyone! Sorry for the delay. I've ramped up my speed touring this next bit before Italy and as a result I had little time for editing movies and writing blog posts in between exploring, booking, renting, laundry, being seasick (spoiler for today's video), training, and oh yeah... sleeping. I've finally got some down time now so I am going to try and push hard to get a few of these ready and queued up for you all. Milos, the bits I saw anyway, was very quant and quiet - c

Hi Everyone! Left Mykonos this morning and got to Thira (Greek name for the island of Santorini) at a decent time - about noon. Santorini in my head and the real place were not at all the same - but in a good way. I had always pictured little white buildings each with blue domes/roofs. Yes there were a few of those iconic houses, yes mostly all white, but all sorts of other colors and randomness going on. Actually, Mykonos had more of a consistent theme going on I would ha

Hi Everyone! This is the start of a 3-day adventure through some of the islands of Greece. I have booked the fast ferries along the way and let me tell you... they are FAST! Everything about them is fast, not just the speed (35-40 Knots), but getting on and getting off. It's a wild circus each time. People pushing and shoving, cars and motor bikes whizzing past. Ferry staff yelling and blowing whistles telling everyone to move even faster yet than the already crazy hussl

Hi Everyone!   This leg of my adventure was perhaps the most action packed and was certainly included stops at some of the most historic and impactful locations in all of Greece and perhaps within human civilization and advancement.   First stop was the ruined city of Delphi. Home of the Oracle of Delphi and once the religious, political, and diplomatic capital of Greece, Delphi even to this day holds a place of great mystery and spiritual significance to the Greek people. Al

Hi Everyone! I've always wanted to go and visit Greece. I have such a fascination and affinity for the ancient culture, god, myths, and actual real life legends. Athens... simply exceeded my already high expectations. The Acropolis was stunning. There is rich history and story seemingly on every street corner and hill top. I learned something that may or may not be obvious to most people - they mix their Ancient Greek letters in with mostly the rest of the roman alphabet a

Hi Everyone! I've been having several action packed days and I have given myself very little time to work on putting together these videos - sorry about that... only a little bit though ;) Istanbul is HUGE - about 16 million people. It took me 1.5 hours on the subway just to make it in from the airport alone. What a sprawling ginormous place. My hostel was right in the heart of the ancient city of Constantinople and just 2 minutes away from the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosq

Hi Everyone, I had a little down time and some legal paperwork stuff to do so I was laying low for a few days. My totally awesome and amazing friend Cristian let me stay in his apartment in Bucharest - beyond being such a large and helpful gesture, it was so needed and used. I had the quiet time needed to focus on the things I was working on and to just relax and unwind. Truly cannot say thank you enough Cristian for your generosity and hospitality. I even included a spec

Hi Everyone, I've made it to Romania... specifically Transylvania. I took a night train from Budapest to Brasov. Luckily there were only 3 of us in the 6 person couchette - 6 would have been impossibly uncomfortable I think. 3 was just fine. It wasn't the best sleep but it was fun as a first time experience. I got into Brasov at 9:00 in the morning and my hostel check-in wasn't until 3:00 PM so I decided to hop right onto the bus taking me to Castle Bran, the former home