I love people and have traveled all over this planet of ours for more than 30 years. On my often solo journeys, I have trekked among ancient Sri Lanka sacred temples, beaches and indigenous Veddah culture, explored remote post-tsunami Aceh Province, Batak culture, orangutans, komodo dragons and the origin of the best coffee on earth on Sumatra and Flores Island-Indonesia, walked through the jungles and vibrant city of Paramaribo, Suriname. I've lived alone for ten days with the Waorani native tribe in the Amazon Jungle of Ecuador, traversed the lemur-filled rain forests and baobab jungles of Madagascar, rock climbed Hat Raileh, Thailand on amazing jagged limestone cliffs that rise above the Andaman Sea. I've stood at the edge of the biggest single-drop waterfall on earth, bathed with native Amerindians in remote swimming holes and drank great rum in the remote Rupununi area of southern Guyana, journeyed around wildlife-filled Tanzania, listened to bizarrely beautiful music on a rooftop in Zanzibar and sipped mint tea and shopped for rugs in chaotic medinas in Morocco.

I've ridden many hours riding rickety buses on bumpy roads and hiked steep mountain paths to meet (and be tattooed by) a 102 year old living legend traditional tattoo artist woman in a former headhunter village deep in the mountains of Northern Phillippines. I've hitchhiked just for fun from Sapporo to Shiretoko National Park in the far north of Hokkaido, Japan, played beach volleyball with locals and watched matches at the biggest soccer stadium in the world in Rio de Janeiro, canoed in to live with the Embera Tribe in the Panamanian Darien Jungle, had a solo walkabout for one month in remote areas of Ethiopia where I went to the hottest place on earth, stood on the edge of a bubbling lava lake, slept on the ground with 3,000 other locals at the ancient Timket celebration in Lalibela.

I've traveled alone to prehistoric cave paintings, vibrant camel markets and went swimming in the Gulf of Aden in peaceful Somaliland (a self governing area that almost no one has ever heard of). I've gone off the grid with the Kogui indigenous tribe of Colombia, trekked without a plan across isolated parts of Bangladesh and Assam and Meghalaya, in Northeast India. I've traveled solo to the amazing High Himalayan Mustang region of Nepal and taken rickety buses to little settlements and islands on the Mozambique Indian Ocean coastline. I speak Spanish to some real estate clients, and discuss trips to Africa with others. These annual walkabouts continually recharge my spirits and help me have genuine and interesting connections with people I work with.