About

Confessions of a Wanderer

Ngari district of Tibet Photo by Anne Conroy

I suffer from a chronic condition called Itchyfeetitus. Over the years I have consulted many an expert; they tell me this condition is incurable. It has long passed the stage of remedial help and that the only antidote is to travel. Frequently. So I do. For several months each year I wander in odd corners of the globe.

I have special fondness for mountains and a penchant for going off the beaten path. More often than not, I pitch my tent or a hammock between trees. I use local transport whether it is squashed among sacks of potatoes in the back of a truck or trundling along in a donkey cart.

I meet people – nomads and farmers in the countryside and locals in towns and cities – and am lucky enough to be befriended by them often. I am frequently invited into their homes where we share food, stories and a lot of laughter as I butcher their language. The warmth, hospitality and kindness that I encounter are among my most treasured memories and I have stayed in touch for years with those I met.

These travel tales grew out of my journals and are presented as excerpts. Some are descriptions of places that captivated me while others are stories of my encounters with people. The travels described start in 1999 or even earlier but I started the blog only in 2015. So stories from many countries remain incomplete until I have the time to transcribe tales from handwritten journals from many moons ago. Each is a true story although I have changed some names to protect the person or persons. I hope you will enjoy the places you visit and the people you meet through these pages. And I hope it will inspire you to set out on roads untrod.

When I am not wandering the globe, I am found at a campus in NY attempting to instill physics into resisting minds.

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Where These Itchy Feet Have Taken Me So Far boots_pack_resized

9 thoughts on “About”

  3. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience. I will share your experiences with my wife. It is nice to meet you at Sensi Backpackers Hostel. Thanks.

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  4. thks for share your experience please can you help me because i go in zimbabwe in june and i need to be sure we can obtain visa if we take the bus in pretoria or jbn to bulawayo and masvingo …there is bus between bulawayo and masvingo is the taxi expensive ? thks very much

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    1. Thanks for reading. Yes, you can get a visa at the border – at least that was the case in 2016. I doubt it has changed, and given Zimbabwe’s new government, chances are, the process is even easier now, but check. The process is straightforward – line up, fill in the form, pay the money and get back on the bus. You can buy a ticket from Joburg all the way to Bulawayo; the same bus stops at Pretoria on the way. For Masvingo, you may need to switch buses at the border. That is not the norm but can be done; I did.

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  5. Hi, do you remember me? We’ve been together to cross the border in Costa Rica and it was a pleasure to meet you! 🙂 Are you still travelling? Hope you are fine and enjoying your trip. Really nice blog! Valentina

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