On travel
Writing about travel, place, movement, and making sense of the world while in motion.
- Where are you from?
A taxi driver's simple question opens into the complicated geography of identity: Oklahoma, Oregon, Texas, California, America, Greece. Months later, the same question asked with a sneer in an airplane exit row shows its sharper side, and how quickly ordinary friction can become prejudice.
- Istanbul airport on Victory Day
Passing through a revived Istanbul Airport in August 2023 meant seeing Russian ruble signs, Turkish Victory Day flags, and the layered history beneath a holiday marking both independence and the aftermath of empire.
- The horizon
In August 2020, a beautiful place to isolate could briefly expand the horizon, but markets, crowded beaches, and every conversation about the future kept snapping life back to two meters and right now.
- Languid
A languid travel day from Toronto to Berlin stretches through U.S. border queues, a long JFK layover, runway delays, a missed Amsterdam connection, and the small mercies that make an overlong itinerary bearable.
- It’s not really about immigration, is it?
A London cab ride in 2018 turns from Trump’s visit to immigration in America and Berlin. The conversation lands on a familiar double standard: being white meant I was not treated as one of those immigrants.
- Coping with jet lag
Jet lag is the price of rapid global travel, and there is no magic cure. The best approach is symptom management: reset your food clock with timed fasting, protect sleep on travel days, use naps and light intelligently, and be kind to your body while it catches up.
- On being an expat right now
Written from Berlin in 2014, this short essay reflects on watching Ferguson, surveillance, militarized policing, and US politics from abroad. It is less an argument for leaving than a sad admission that, for the moment, not missing America felt unexpectedly easy.