I’m escaping the noon-day heat in a little café in Taganga, a fishing village turned gringo hot spot on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. Aside from organic coffee straight from the Sierra Nevada mountains, this café, like many others here, also has free Wi-Fi. And that got me thinking about how technology has changed the way we travel. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2011 VH Media

I grew up in northern Alberta (Canada’s equivalent of Siberia), and snowshoeing was part of our school curriculum. Every winter we’d head out into the woods with traditional snowshoes made of wood and rawhide lacings — something I enjoyed far more than our square-dancing class or a game our gym teacher invented that involved whipping rubber balls at you as you ran for your life across the double-sized gymnasium. To read the full story, click here.

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I’ve always believed the worst time to travel is when you’re running away from something. It’s an emotionally charged decision based on the fight-or-flight response. And the worst part? You’ll discover that even in the most remote places on the planet, whatever you’re running from will be right there with you, in your head. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2011 VH Media

Maybe you’ve got some vacation time to kill, or maybe the Canadian winter is making you mental and if you don’t see the sun again soon you’re going to snap. You want to go somewhere — the challenge is figuring out where. Sometimes I find the best approach is figuring out where not to go. To read the full story, click here.

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Choosing a career as a freelance writer isn’t something you do for the money. In fact, you’re essentially relegating yourself to the lower echelons of the CCRA income tax scale. So, considering this, people often ask me how I can afford to travel. Nope, I don’t have a sugar daddy, and I’m not living off an inheritance. And yep, I have a mortgage. Here’s what I did… To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2011 VH Media

So you’ve booked a flight to Thailand, and now you’re hearing news reports about protests in Bangkok. What do you do? When traveling to destinations where political or social unrest may occur, it doesn’t mean you have to cancel your trip (or spend the entire time holed up in your hotel room). To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Keith Bacongco @ Flickr

Once, while camping, I slept right through a tornado. Yet snoring — or even nasally breathing, for that matter — will instantly wake me from a sound slumber. So inevitably during a long-haul flight I’ll end up sitting next to someone who’s snoring like a grizzly bear. Or a screaming baby. Or a drunken passenger who wants to show me his collection of porn magazines (yes, true story). To read the full story, click here.

Photo Credit: Phitek

I remember how, when I took off for a year of backpacking — which turned into three years — that people commented on how lucky I was to take such a long “vacation.” Aside from the fact I was still working as a freelance writer, it was hardly what I would call a vacation, and there were many times when I seriously questioned my sanity. Like one Christmas Eve I spent alone in a Cambodian village with a schoolboy following me around town on his bike, masturbating. Yeah, good times. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2011 VH Media

Pondering your wardrobe options before visiting a mosque isn’t frivolous — it’s essential. Mind you, most mosques that allow visitors are prepared for foreigners who don’t have the appropriate attire and will gladly provide it for you (though at one mosque in Delhi I recently visited, this outfit consisted of a bright-orange-with-polka-dots piece of fabric that was embarrassingly conspicuous). To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2010 VH Media

It’s considered one of the modern wonders of the world, with legions of sculptures created from junk in mosaic courtyards linked by walled paths and twisting walkways, through gorges and past waterfalls. The 25-acre Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden in Chandigarh, capital of Punjab in India, is one of the country’s most visited attractions, seeing up to 5,000 visitors every day. But it’s also one of the country’s most effective recycling programs. To read the full story, click here.

Photo Copyright @ 2010 VH Media