Adventure, Travel and Documentary Photography
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Outdoor
Since this website’s inception earlier in the year, I have been repeatedly asked: “Why nuanaarpuq?” and “What does it mean?” and “How do I pronounce it?” and “Couldn’t you have picked an easier domain name?”
To which I reply: It’s my favorite word; it means “take extravagant pleasure in the joy of living”; nu-an-are-puk; and no. Here’s why:
I have always believed in the power of the written word. Combined with photography, I find these two mediums to be unequaled in their capacity to educate and inspire. I began this website because I wanted to share insight into places I have traveled, outdoor adventures I have experienced, and people I have met in hopes that it might spark a curiosity in readers to embark on similar journeys of their own making. What to call this website was never in question. Since first hearing this word and learning of its meaning when I was a teenager, nuanaarpuq has shaped the course of my life. Even when employed in a 9-5 office job, even while living far from Colorado and the mountains of my youth, “take extravagant pleasure in the joy of living” has been my life ethos.
I am not the only one.
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Essays
John Steinbeck once said that people don’t take trips—trips take people. He’s right, of course. I should know. South America has always had a way of taking me—whisking me away from wherever I was in life and depositing me somewhere along the Andean spine, awestruck and in love with wild people and even wilder places. […]
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Outdoor
Rafting Through The Grand Canyon
19 people, 16 days, 15 campsites, one mighty river coursing through one inimitable canyon: these are the numbers that come to mind when describing my trip down the Colorado River through the heart of the Grand Canyon. Rafting through the Grand Canyon while the sun is out, the water is green, and those grandest […]
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Outdoor
Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you: A Weekend in the Blue Ridge
There are more than six million people living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Traffic is incessant; trendy, new bars are standing room only even on weeknights—and there are trendy, new bars everywhere; politics somehow seeps into all conversation, innocuous at first but injurious to your mental health once you realize you’ve been debating fiscal policy all day. The reasons you love the city can soon become the reasons you resent the city. Escapes are essential. Nature is necessary.
Shenandoah National Park lies a mere 75 miles west of our nation’s capital, a narrow strip of undulating mountains which extends from north to south for over 100 miles. Skyline Drive runs the length of the park, bisected by the Appalachian Trail as it snakes its way back and forth over the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the fall, birch, ash, and oak trees flaunt their autumnal colors. This lasts for a few weeks, then the blacktop becomes a carpet of red, orange, and yellow leaves that flutter skyward as car wheels roll over them. It is during this ephemeral window of time—after the hills are set aglow and before leaves coat the ground—that I try to make my much-needed pilgrimage to the Blue Ridge.
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Outdoor
Hiking and Climbing in Colorado
Summer 2018 has been good to me. In typical Centennial State fashion, the warmer months can be distilled into some combination of hiking and climbing in Colorado, frequently venturing above treeline where outings are timed to experience maximum wildflower color explosion, warm temps, and long days. One objective I had this summer was to visit some […]
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People
The Omo River Valley of southern Ethiopia. Home to eight different tribes whose population numbers approximately 200,000. I spent a week exploring this ethnographically rich part of the world in October 2016 and left with two prevailing questions: What is beauty? At what point does modernization and cultural assimilation cross the line from welcomed to […]
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Urban Culture
Dishdashas for Days: Solo Travel in Oman
It was 9 o’clock in the morning, and everything in sight was bathed in the brilliant, blazing light of an Arabian Peninsula sun. I had my sunglasses on and still felt the need to hold up a hand to shield my eyes from the glare. Around me stood men buying fresh produce, men selling khat for camel feed, men chatting amiably in long white dishdashas with colorful kumas perched atop their heads. I was standing in a souk in Ibra, Oman—the lone female and the lone foreigner—surrounded by Omani men going about their morning business in a market scene so customary to them it surely felt banal. Little here seemed ordinary to me, though, and I was savoring every second. I was the Other, the outsider, the ferenji, and my senses were heightened in anticipation of the unfamiliar, my eyes wide open to novelty. Situated somewhere between the dunes of the Wahiba Sands desert and the mountains of the al Hajar range, Ibra is an old city in a very old part of the world. Not for the first time, nor surely the last, I found myself wondering how did I get here?
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Outdoor
Three Days in the Canadian Rockies
During the waning days of June, five days after completing a 10-day trek around the Cordillera Huayhuash of Peru, I boarded a train bound for Jasper, Alberta with two of my closest friends. We piled into the narrow compartment of a sleeper car, pulled out two bottles of wine, unwrapped the prosciutto and cheese we had purchased at the Granville Island Public Market, and raised plastic cups filled with Cab Sauv in a toast to Canada.
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Outdoor
Sweet Summertime on the Coast of Maine
What do you think of when you think of Maine? I have always thought of lobster rolls and sailboats, coastal fog and thick-bearded lumbermen and the spruce-firs that line the Appalachian Trail as it snakes towards its northern terminus at Katahdin. My visits to the state over the years have confirmed this impression: Maine is a Vacationland par excellence.
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People
Peru is a country of color. There are the terraced hillsides of carefully tended crops whose greens range from basil to emerald to pistachio. There is the Andean sky built like a layer cake of ever-varying blues stacked high into the atmosphere. There are the 3,800 potato varieties plucked out of Peruvian soil whose outer skins range from canary yellow to beige to aubergine. There are the fish markets of Lima with their dark red tuna steaks, mottled brown squids, blush pink whitefish fillets, and mounds of mossy seaweed. And, of course, there are the densely crowded markets from which goods and foods explode out of tiny stalls—white alpaca ponchos and multicolored tablecloths with an orange-pink-green-blue pattern best resembling neon Sour Skittles draped along the walls; vibrant red wool blankets and hand-knit rainbow belts heaped atop chartreuse skirts and cobalt scarves; and bouquets of cilantro sitting alongside spicy scarlet and orange peppers next to mounds of purple potatoes all spilling out onto the sidewalk.
The eyes feast in Peru.
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Essays
Backpacking the Grand Canyon: Exploring the South Rim’s Wild Side
More than five million people visit the Grand Canyon each year; fewer than 5% of them descend below the rim to explore the Inner Canyon, and fewer still secure highly coveted backcountry permits for overnight trips—which is to say the Grand Canyon feels downright empty when you are exploring its labyrinthine features from 4,500 feet below the rim.
As is wont to happen when you have a healthy collection of adventurer-type friends, I was invited to join a group of women who were headed to Grand Canyon National Park in mid-April to backpack the renowned Escalante Route. Five days spent traipsing through one of America’s most iconic natural wonders with five other badass women who were certain to infuse me with some much-needed inspiration, insight, and laughter? Sign me up.
For a detailed summary of the Backpacking the Grand Canyon itinerary, see the full post in the Travel Itineraries section.
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People
When thinking back on my various travels, an inanimate object usually comes to mind to summarize the place—Florence’s Duomo, Cambodia’s Temples of Angkor, the fjords of Western Norway. Not so Morocco. I returned from that colorful country last week filled with slivers of stories of the lives of people with whom I intersected for only a moment or two as I passed through their world. The varied fabrics of their personalities left me with a fondness for the country that no dazzling riad or crumbling kasbah could similarly impart.
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Urban Culture
At the end of an inauspicious road in a sleepy Chilean surf town sits the 8 Al Mar Bed & Breakfast. You won’t be faulted if you can’t initially find the place. The boutique hotel sits in its own isolated cove fronting the Pacific Ocean, tucked amidst white-paneled houses with such little signage that you’d think the owners preferred to enjoy their property in complete isolation. And maybe they do. The eight room structure of glass and wood, designed by the Chilean architect Igor Moraga, is a befitting of a profile in an interior design magazine. Each room enjoys panoramic views of the Pacific and private balconies from which you can spend hours watching waves crash against the rocky beach while fishermen scour the coastline for mollusks washed ashore. A sun-saturated wooden terrace is populated with sunbeds and furniture carved from driftwood. Across the way, three hot tubs are screened behind wooden fences, allowing for privacy where guests can enjoy a bottle of Carménère while listening to the sonorous ocean. Is this paradise? I think so.
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Urban Culture
Heaven for Bibliophiles is Called Hatchards
“Make sure you visit Hatchards,” a friend advised upon hearing that I had an impending trip to London scheduled. “Wonderful bookstore. Adjacent to Fortnum’s. They have a subscription service—you pick a topic and once a month they’ll hand-select a book and mail it to you.” It’s no secret I love books. If I have spoken with you in the last six months, I probably asked you if you’re on Goodreads; and if you told me that you are not, I probably demanded that you download the app immediately and list what books you’ve read in 2016. I really, really love books. So when I heard there was a bookstore in central London which offers a monthly subscription tailored to the bibliophile’s individual interests, passions, and reading preferences, I made it my first stop after dropping off my bags at the hotel.
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Essays
St. Petersburg to Beijing via the Trans-Mongolian Railway
“Let’s go somewhere. We need an adventure,” a dear friend once said to me. We were sitting on the couch in my Denver, Colorado apartment, digesting Thai food and drinking wine. I had just earned a Master’s degree; Nicole was slated to begin medical school in the fall. We were both feeling equally free and adrift and antsy at that particular moment of our lives. Let’s go somewhere exotic. Somewhere far away. Somewhere where we could lose ourselves for a few weeks and forget our respective realities. Let’s go on an adventure—that’s what was said, but the subtext was so much greater than that statement. It took us five minutes of naming destinations—Turkey, the desert (but which desert?), somewhere beautiful in Europe—to settle on a trip so vast it would feel more like three trips in one: The Trans-Mongolian Railway. Rather than end in Vladivostok, the traditional terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, we would switch trains in Irkutsk and venture through Mongolia to our ultimate destination, Beijing. The distance from St. Petersburg, Russia to Beijing, China via train is approximately 6,000 miles. Eight time zones are crossed en route. We would begin our trip in Europe, end in Asia, and circumnavigate the globe before it was all said and done.
“Let’s go somewhere,” Nicole said. And so we went around the world.
For a detailed summary of the St. Petersburg to Beijing via the Trans-Mongolian Railway itinerary, see the full post in the Travel Itineraries section.
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Urban Culture
Peak Bloom in Washington, D.C.
When it’s springtime in Washington, D.C. only two words matter: Peak Bloom.
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Outdoor
To Ski or to Après Ski? That is the Question in Whistler, BC
You need to visit Whistler-Blackcomb if you like any of the following: skiing; snowboarding; après ski; sore quads; shit-eating grins induced by big bowls, narrow chutes, and excess powder; sushi that tastes as if the fish was caught, killed, and filleted within the previous five minutes (and maybe it was); meeting Europeans outside of Europe; Kokanee or Molson; and stumbling upon attractive Aussies and Kiwis around every corner.
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Urban Culture
Almsgiving in Luang Prabang, Laos
As the sun rises in Luang Prabang, Laos, hundreds of Buddhist monks depart their various temples and walk in a single file procession down city streets collecting alms. This daily ritual, dating back to the 14th century, plays out today largely in the same way it has for 800 years—as a silent and spiritual river of orange moving through the still, heavy air of an early morning along the Mekong River.
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Urban Culture
From muffins to murals in the Mission District and hunting for exotic bourbon in South San Fran to walking along Chrissy Field savoring iconic views of that big red bridge, here’s a top-line guide of what to do when you have a day to spare in San Francisco.
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Urban Culture
Charmingly authentic, Sala Lodges in Siem Reap, Cambodia isn’t so much a hotel as it is a collection of Khmer homes—and while you’re there, it’s your home. The Temples of Angkor, named the best tourist attraction on the planet by Lonely Planet in 2015, are only a few miles away. Angkor Wat, Ta Prohm, and Bayon along with the markets of Siem Reap and the rice paddy-speckled landscape of rural Cambodia are literally outside your front door. But with a house of your own so perfectly representative of rural Khmer life and with a staff so impossibly attentive and kind, the question becomes not where to go for the day but rather how you’re going to compel yourself to leave this personal paradise.
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Outdoor
Skiing in the Land of Fire and Ice
In northern Iceland, more than five hours by car from Reykjavík, exists a mountainous jut of land called Tröllaskagi—the Troll Peninsula, home to the tallest peaks outside of Iceland’s central highlands. In this fairytale land of fire and ice and trolls, the maritime moisture content and the long, dark Arctic winters make for a surprisingly stable spring snowpack, which allows skiers to carve turns long after chairlifts have stopped running in the lower 48. Even into June, when the midnight sun is in full effect (the Arctic Circle is a few miles north), you can often ski down to the ocean’s edge. Sounds perfect, doesn’t it? (It pretty much is.)
Arctic Heli Skiing, the premiere ski touring and ski mountaineering operator on the Troll Peninsula, offers heli-skiing and ski touring packages that can be crafted to suit any whim, whether that’s skiing down couloirs or cruising across broad bowls covered in a spring corn snow so smooth and consistent you would have sworn it was groomed the previous night. All you need to do is get yourself and your ski gear to Iceland in one piece, and Arctic Heli Skiing will take care of the rest.
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Urban Culture
Searching for a place to habla español outside of the U.S. that emphasizes authenticity and altruism with a little bit of adventure thrown in for good measure? Check out La Mariposa Spanish School, located in La Concepción, Nicaragua, where $480 gets you a week’s worth of lodging, three square meals a day, 20 hours of one-on-one Spanish language lessons and a serious appreciation of Nicaraguan culture and history. La Mariposa promotes ecotourism and volunteerism and offers a wide array of activities, such as hiking and horseback riding, with a schedule any college student would envy—study in the morning, adventure in the afternoon.
Go for the Spanish but realize that a better understanding of verb conjugations is the least of what you’ll acquire during your Central American sojourn.
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Outdoor
Best Backpacks in the Mid-Atlantic
Looking for a weekend escape that involves hiking boots, a tent, and no cell phone signal? Check out the following five mid-Atlantic backpacks that feature stunning vistas, hidden swimming holes, waterfalls and—most importantly—solace.
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Urban Culture
Road Tripping the Emerald Isle
1,813 kilometers, seven days, six hotels, untold pints of Guinness, countless castles and innumerable sheep—that’s what a counterclockwise road trip around Ireland looks like. I’ll admit it was an aggressive itinerary we envisaged: from Dublin to Belfast, Belfast to Ballymote via the Giant’s Causeway, Ballymote to Galway via the Connemara Peninsula, Galway to Kenmare via the Dingle Peninsula, Kenmare to Kilkenny via the Ring of Kerry, and then Kilkenny to the Dublin International Airport. Sleep would be sacrificed for sightseeing, and sightseeing would be sacrificed for driving onward, ever onward, around the Emerald Isle.
But sometimes, particularly when you are compelled to see as much of a country as possible in a limited period of time, a frenetic pace is required. Prior to heading off across the Atlantic, I read an article in a travel magazine that encouraged its readers visiting Ireland to take the opposite approach. Go visit the Ring of Kerry, the author advised, but be sure to spend five days there. Maybe you can squeeze in a drive around the Dingle Peninsula, but be careful you don’t overdo it. Soak up Ireland slowly, leisurely, and contemplatively in one setting.
Of course, that’s sound advice for a certain type of person who wants to experience a certain type of trip. But that wasn’t going to be us—not this time, at least. My traveling companion and I were going to try to hit all of the highlights in one fell swoop with Guinness, beef and Guinness stew and Guinness-battered bread to sustain us. It was only during the final night of our trip, while cozied up in the corner of a Kilkenny bar as a band sang a lively rendition of Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” that a Galway native, upon hearing me recount all of the places we had seen the previous six days, looked me in the eye and said: “You’re crazy.”
For a detailed summary of the Road Tripping the Emerald Isle itinerary, see the full post in the Travel Itineraries section.
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Outdoor
Backcountry Skiing in the Sawtooths
Tired of lift lines and balking at the astronomical cost of lift tickets? Looking for an off-the-beaten-path ski adventure to share with some of your best friends? Ready to explore a new mountain range whose very name evokes the image of something wild, rugged and beautiful? If so, look no further: The Sawtooth National Forest in the heart of central Idaho is calling your name.
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Urban Culture
One of my favorite times to explore a city is at sunrise, when the streets are empty and normally bustling squares are silent save the errant garbage truck collecting its daily haul or the shuffling footsteps of a resident on their way to work. On a trip to Italy last spring, knowing that it was only a matter of hours before the narrow alleyways would be thronged with tourists and school groups, I set out to photograph the early morning light as it hit the iconic structures of Florence.
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Urban Culture
Room With A View: Hotel Stari Grad
Dubrovnik. The name alone is enticing. It’s alluring—conjuring up visions of red-roofed buildings set atop rocky outcrops where a hungry Adriatic laps at their feet. It’s historic—the massive stone walls that encircle the city were first constructed in the 12th century. And it’s multifaceted—reminding you of the military siege that befell the city for seven months in 1991 during the break-up of Yugoslavia.
The city has long been a popular stop for cruise ships navigating the Mediterranean where, in summer months, throngs of tourists sporting sunhats, shorts and flipflops flood the narrow streets. The Stradun, the main thoroughfare running 300 meters through Dubrovnik’s Old City, transforms into the Autobahn where young and old alike race to buy ice cream cones and Croatia-themed beach towels. But as the afternoon fades and the day trippers depart, the city quiets down.
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Urban Culture
It only takes five minutes of walking through Valparaíso to determine that this place is more contemporary art gallery than city. Sure, there are cars and trolleybuses, sidewalks crowded with pedestrians and street dogs, restaurants whose patrons spill outside to have a cigarette and talk about the national football team, all of which are active participants in the city facade. Dig a little deeper, though—which is to say, feel your quads ache and your lungs burn as you purposefully lose yourself on the steep and winding streets—and your eyes will soon feast on a series of murals which transform city blocks into an urban canvas.
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Outdoor
Sunburned, Overserved And In Need of Seafood
I’m not going to say I based the location of a friend’s bachelorette on a beachside, no-frills seafood joint I once read about, but I will admit I had margaritas and fresh ceviche on the mind when I reserved a house on Soliman Bay in Mexico’s Riviera Maya. Located 12 kilometers north of Tulum down an unpaved road that first leads through a mangrove swamp before turning to run parallel with the water, Soliman Bay is a tranquil slice of paradise in an otherwise overdeveloped section of Mexico’s Caribbean coast. Which is to say, you wouldn’t stumble upon it unless you went looking for it.
At the end of this unpaved road, after the houses tapper off and the mangrove swamp increasingly appears as if it is going to overrun the path you are on, you’ll find Chamico’s.
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Urban Culture
Room With A View: Hotel Ibrahim Pasha
For a first-time visitor to Istanbul, determining where to rest your weary head in the sprawling metropolis of nearly 15 million can be a daunting task. Neighborhoods once considered too gritty and underdeveloped for tourists are now saturated with coffee shops, boutique hotels and art galleries—waterfront Karaköy near the Galata Tower and Kadıköy located on the Asia side of Istanbul being two of them. But if your visit is going to be UNESCO World Heritage site-centric as mine was, then there’s no better choice than the Hotel Ibrahim Pasha located a stone’s throw away from the Blue Mosque in the heart of Sultanahmet, Istanbul’s historic old city.
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Essays
Have Land Cruiser, Will Travel
Age-old problem: You see a picture of an inconceivably beautiful and incomprehensibly remote locale and/or read an article about the best places to visit this year in a travel magazine and/or stumble down an internet blog rabbit hole that leads you to some list about things to see and do before you die and, in all three instances, it’s the same place you keep reading about—somewhere you need to go and need to go now—and so you think: OK, but how do I get there?
This happened to me as I was trying to figure out how to get from San Pedro de Atacama, Chile to Uyuni, Bolivia while ensuring I would see the quintessential sights of the Bolivian Southern Altiplano: the rusty waters of Laguna Colorada, the jewel-toned lakes that are sprinkled across a desolate landscape, the ever-present flamingos, and the vast white canvas of the Salar, the world’s largest salt flat.
