When I’m feeling sad, I like to do a few things. The first thing I do is nothing—meaning that I don’t believe you should always try to “fix” the state of feeling sad. It just happens sometimes! It happens to everyone, or at least to most people, even if you aren’t prone to depression or another clinical diagnosis. The next thing I do is ask myself a couple of questions: 1. How am I feeling?* 2. What do I want? *Well, obviously I’m feeling sad, but it can be helpful to get more descriptive than that. I often emerge from that thought process with something to do, which is nice. It doesn’t mea ..read more

Friends and readers, I’m happy to announce my first book in three years, GONZO CAPITALISM: How to Make Money in an Economy That Hates You. It comes out on August 22nd, and you can pre-order now: Amazon (US) Barnes & Noble Bookshop iBooks These links are (mostly) for readers in the U.S. If you live elsewhere, pre-order from your local bookshop or Amazon site. And yes! There will be audio and ebook versions. Pre-orders help authors a great deal. If you’ve enjoyed my work in the past, please reserve a copy!  What It’s About Here’s how my publisher describes the book: Welcome to the a ..read more

If you check into a Marriott hotel as a Platinum or higher member, you’re supposed to be given a nice room. There are various restrictions to this benefit, and of course it all depends on which rooms are actually available—but most of the time, if a suite is for sale, the hotel is supposed to assign it to elite members. That’s what’s supposed to happen. In principle, many Marriott hotels ignore the promised benefit and simply leave the suites unsold. If you have the right status level and you know how this works, you know to inquire about the room type at check-in. When the associate informs ..read more

I used to write a lot about travel hacking, the creative use of frequent flyer miles and points to see the world. For a while I even had a business that recommended the best cards and opportunities. I still keep up with the industry and earn lots of points, but it’s less of an obsession for me these days. Partly I’m just traveling less than I was, and otherwise exploring other topics. But there’s one other reason why I think about it less than I used to: it’s because more than any other strategy, the best travel hack is to be able to go anywhere, anytime. Just think about it: if you were able ..read more

Long ago, perhaps on my first book tour or at some other early event, I took a risk in a public conversation. It was during an audience Q&A, and someone began their question by mentioning that they’d recently lost their job. In these situations, of course, most of the time the other person will offer their condolences. But I had a sense that something else was better, so I went for it. “Congratulations!” I told them. “That’s great.” Ever since then, some version of this interaction has repeated itself many times over. I know, it might sound like a terribly insensitive response, but I assu ..read more

What if you wanted to walk across the United States, or perhaps some other large country—how would you do it? For such a massive project, you might want to do some research in advance. It could be helpful to get advice from other people who’ve done such a thing. There are, after all, lots of write-ups of exactly that experience. You might want to prepare a packing list, spend some time thinking about the optimal route, and get in as much training as possible before your day of departure. Even if you’re in good shape, most of us aren’t used to walking twenty miles a day or more, day after day ..read more

On a surface level, being different is valued and prized. Many popular TV series, from Wednesday to Stranger Things, demonstrate the benefits and “cool factor” of being different. Yet these shows (and books, songs, games, and so on) point to a curious distinction: we like the idea of difference, but we don’t usually want to be different ourselves. The fact is that to truly be different is hard. By the time it’s cool to be different in any meaningful way, whatever is involved in “being different” has become ordinary. People form opinions and make judgments based on what is commonly accepted an ..read more

There are two ways to plan an outdoor run: in a loop, or out-and-back. You could also call these methods by their practical names: quit early or keep going and see it through. Nine times out of ten, when I run more than a few miles, I try to do out-and-back. Why? Because I know myself, and if I give myself an escape route, I might take it. If I’m running six miles, I run three miles in one direction, then three miles back. For longer runs, I especially want to do it this way. An eighteen mile run consists of two parts: one way for nine miles, and then the other way back for the second nine. B ..read more

When I think of “how travel changed me,” most of what comes to mind is fairly typical. I learned more about the world, I gained a wider worldview, I felt more creative, and so on. I don’t mean to dismiss those things at all. They are real benefits! They matter. Still, if I think about the unexpected benefits of world travel, specifically my eleven-year quest to visit every country, two things stand out more than any other. These benefits affect me every day, even now that I’m not traveling as far afield and as often. They are: increased empathy for others, and increased confidence in myself ..read more

We often hear statements like “time is money,” or “time is your most precious resource.” How, though, does this translate into action? I’d suggest the following: many of us will say that time is important, yet so often we live otherwise. Of all the gaps between belief and behavior, this has to be one of the greatest. Over the past year I’ve been writing a book about money. One of the starting points for the book is the principle that money isn’t real. (And that’s just the starting point: the more interesting questions begin with, “Once we accept that money is a social construct, what do we do ..read more