Adventures on the Other Side of the World: The Adventure Begins

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it...This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” Mark Jenkins

After numerous requests from friends and relatives, I have finally begun this blog following my experiences traveling the world as a performer. I am continually grateful that since college, I have been able to pursue my two greatest passions simultaneously: performing and traveling. These experiences have strongly impacted my understanding of both the world and of myself.

Some of the most illuminating experiences from the last 5 years include:

2008: Attending "Carnivale" in Rio de Janeiro, seeing the passion of Tango in Buenos Aires, visiting "shanty towns" in Chile and cruising past snow capped mountains at dawn in the Chilean Fjords (notice the photo background of this page, which was taken at 4:30 AM that morning).

2009: Whitewater rafting the Pacure River in Costa Rica, floating in a "Mud Volcano" in Columbia, and experiencing the culture of St. Petersburg, Berlin, and Paris;

2010: Touring Mosques and bartering at The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, visiting Gaudi art installations in Barcelona, watching sunsets in Santorini and admiring the view from the top of the Basilica in Vatican City;

2011: Experiencing the Pyramids in Cairo and The Temple of Karnak in Luxor, visiting the Wailing Wall in Israel, walking the silent streets of Venice at night and scuba diving in Dominica and Roatan.

2012 has been a year of great personal growth as I continued to immerse myself in both the challenges and opportunities of living in New York City. As I write this, I find myself on the verge of an adventure that will be the fulfillment of countless lifelong goals. In 2 days, I will be on a flight to Venice to board the Celebrity Solstice and start the performing contract I've dreamed of since my first cruise experience in 2007.

Over the next 7 months, I will travel from Venice to Mexico through parts of the Middle East, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, The South Pacific and Hawaii; After this contract, I will have visited over 60 countries on 6 continents and circumnavigated the globe.

This blog will serve as both a written and photographic record of each new country and notable adventure along the way.

For this first post, I'll share some of my favorite travel photos from these past few years. Click on the pictures to see larger versions.

There. Done. My first blog post. Updates from Europe coming soon! I hope I take enough pictures. :-)

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.” - Thoreau