geekeasy.com · the archive
Before the blog. Reconstructed from notebooks, ticket stubs, hostel receipts, and film scans — the trips that came before I started writing them down online. Mexico as a kid, then Europe and Asia in my twenties.
The 1980s — Mexico, as a kid
A long family loop through the north. The Chepe train down through Copper Canyon, a bush flight on an Aero California DC-3 onto a dirt strip with green TAXI pickups waiting, then the pyramids at Teotihuacán and the waterfalls of Michoacán.
Chihuahua → Copper Canyon → Pacific coast → Mexico City → Pátzcuaro & Uruapan
A southern circuit: a 16th-century sugar-estate hotel in Morelos, Santa Prisca framed through a window in Taxco, black pottery and step-fret ruins around Oaxaca, parasailing off Acapulco — and getting stranded in Puerto Escondido when the DC-3 flights didn't run daily.
Mexico City → Cuernavaca → Taxco → Oaxaca → Acapulco → Puerto Escondido
The 1990s — out on my own
Eleven weeks with a Eurail pass and a bike I eventually shipped home from Barcelona. A bullfight at Las Ventas, the Dalí museum, a spontaneous detour east to find good bagels in Budapest, and Prague — "do not miss, most beautiful city," per the notebook. Thanksgiving in Paris, New Year's nearly home.
Madrid → Barcelona → Florence → Rome → Vienna → Budapest → Prague → Amsterdam → Paris → Bruges → London → Dublin
Six days in Istanbul, then up through Romania and back to old favorites — Budapest, Kraków, Prague. The train to Kraków ran through Oświęcim; I went to Auschwitz. Bulgaria got skipped — too intimidating at the time.
Istanbul → Bucharest → Budapest → Kraków → Prague
The flight turned back over the Pacific for engine trouble before it ever made it. Once there: Bangkok, lightning storms over Ko Pha Ngan, and a jungle trek in 90°/90% humidity up to an Akha hill-tribe village near Chiang Mai. Real culture shock — no English, no Roman script. The trip that started everything that came after.
Bangkok → Ko Pha Ngan → Ko Samui → Chiang Rai → Chiang Mai
New Year's Eve in Amsterdam with my brother, then a couple of quiet days in Bruges to start 1999.
Amsterdam → Bruges
Work trips — the dot-com years
Peak dot-com excess: Sapient flew the entire company to Disney World. Two teams were too buried in deadlines to go — so instead they sent us to party on the beach in Cabo. Four days, an expense account, and apparently only two photos to show for it.
Sapient company trip · Cabo San Lucas
Two months on a Sapient project, back when the lira made Italy cheap and the expense account didn't. We ate at the best restaurants in town almost every night. Weekends went to Venice for the start of Carnival, a hungover hike through the Cinque Terre in the wrong shoes, ice caves at the Jungfrau on St. Patrick's Day, and a drive into Croatia with a coworker to a "miniature Venice" on the coast.
Milan → Venice → Cinque Terre → Jungfrau → Vicenza → Rovinj & Zagreb
This one I actually photographed at the time — working, not journaling. See the Italy & Switzerland gallery →
1999–2001 — the journal years, before the photos
Three months off work, overland from Guatemala down through Nicaragua and Costa Rica — volcanoes, an armed robbery in the hills above Atitlán, the Corn Islands — then Copacabana for a million-person New Year's that danced till dawn, and up the Brazilian coast to beaches I couldn't make myself leave.
Tikal → Antigua → Atitlán → Nicaragua → Costa Rica → Rio → Bahia coast → Salvador
I kept journals for this trip, but it was too early to put photos online — film only got processed once I was home. Read the journal entries → (photo gallery coming)
Madrid nightlife, the rock apes of Gibraltar, then a ferry to Tangiers during Ramadan — markets coming alive after dark, dinner at a taxi driver's house to break the fast, three days by camel into the Sahara. Back into Spain for Christmas fire dancers in Seville and a 48-hour New Year's in Madrid.
Madrid → Granada → Gibraltar → Tangiers → Marrakech → Sahara → Ronda → Seville → Madrid
Journals only for now — same story, the film came home with me. Read the journal entries → (photo gallery coming)