BY ELENA SEROSHTAN Our plane was slowly moving toward the runway, passing the glass facade of the brand-new Yangon Airport—which now stood like a ghost in the shimmering hot air. I glanced at it for the last time. Every time I left Myanmar, I thought it might be the last—but this time, it definitely was.…
Read More
BY SIYUAN AW It is early evening in Singapore, and the sun is beginning to set. I lay the first brushstrokes to a new canvas in my makeshift studio. The quiet is broken by the uncanny flutter of wings. I close my eyes, and my mind takes flight. In my vision, a golden eagle soars.…
Read More
BY HOLGER HOFFMANN & SYLVIA FURRER There could not be a greater contrast between the bright red clothing worn by Kyrgyz nomadic women and their harsh everyday lives. For a long time, they lived in isolation on the high plateau at Lake Chaqmaqtin in the farthest tip of Afghanistan. Now a dirt road leads to…
Read More
BY ALEXANDER ELISCU I had been rolling in anxiety for several days. Week after week, I was told of the innumerable dangers of trekking alone in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands. At night, eyes reddening, I remained glued to the computer screen, clicking every Youtube link on the latest news since the onça-pintada…
Read More
BY BRIENNA CARTER On the way to the train station, Abdulkhamid told me he failed his English test. We’d spent the last couple days preparing for it, and he’d been nailing the new vocabulary about gift-giving and bag-packing. He could tell you what he’s going to buy his wife for their anniversary (jewelry), and he…
Read More
BY JOSEF BUERGI Mongolia, a land of vast steppes and rugged beauty, is home to a unique way of life centered around the winter migration of nomadic herders. As temperatures plummet, these resilient people lead their livestock across the frozen landscape in search of fresh grazing grounds. Battling fierce snowstorms and bitter cold, the herders…
Read More
BY KATHRYN HATCHETT We cross the final river of our trek. Not that you could call it a river yet. The winding ribbon carving out a valley for itself is a couple of feet wide and would be shallow enough to walk through on foot without boots. It trickles towards the coast, a riverbed mosaic…
Read More
BY MIGUEL NEVES I could see the red and yellow foliage in the distance as the landscape moved in synchronicity with the clanking of the train wheels on the track, making the mountains of Yamagata seem even more entrancing as they slowly passed the window giving way to more and more thickets of warm autumn…
Read More
BY MATT WHELAN “Where y’all guys from?” asks the guard with a viscous Southern twang.“Canada,” we reply from the cool confines of the car.“I knew it! I just knew it!” he says through white teeth that gleam in the desert sun.“Right on!” We say, “how so?!”“Oh, I talk to a lot of Canadians! Y’all so…
Read More
BY AARON GILBREATH On my family’s first overseas vacation, our seven-year-old daughter Vivian encountered Costa Rica’s enormous iguanas, cute howler monkeys, and iconic colorful birds, but the giant red-winged grasshopper stole her heart. Urbanites like us often struggle to love insects, especially ones with five-inch bodies and red eyes, but Vivian’s affection for Tropidacris cristata…
Read More