I’ve long claimed Amsterdam as my favorite European city, but man, Vienna’s making a strong case to try and claim that title.
It’s sometimes called the City of Dreams. And I totally see it. There’s a romantic vibe to it, but it’s also a place that manages to ground you and keep you present. It’s like a long walk around town, late at night, simply being in the moment.
A bunch of travelers have taken this trend and added their twist and so I wanted to play along. Here are some standout countries in all my years of traveling.
Of course, this was impossible to do without overthinking. Morocco could’ve just as easily been the most hospitable. The Colombian people I met were so inspiring. And those Icelandic landscapes?
I’m not even gonna start any debates about whose got the best coffee.
Twelve years later, I’m back in Vienna.
Just like that last visit, the chance to spend time in the city came as a bit of an unplanned but welcome surprise, and this time, I got to spend a bit more time… allowing me the chance to get to know it a bit better. I was completely impressed by the city this time around.
And just like my last visit, Vienna was the perfect site for me to take a few steps back from my regular life and to see it with a lot more clarity. It’s a good city for that.
My Burundian teammates did such a good job of showing me some of the most beautiful spots around the country. One of them was the Nyakazu Rift.
It’s so hard to do this place justice through photos or even videos. There’s a real vastness to this rift that is completely breathtaking in real life. I loved being there with the community of Nyakazu, too. Incredible place, incredible people.
What places have you been that photos seem to never do justice?
Part of being a storyteller is being deeply, deeply thankful to the people whose stories I get to tell.
I don’t take for granted that when people offer me a window into their lives, particularly some of their hardest and most challenging moments, and then trust me to tell that story to others, it’s a huge act of vulnerability and generosity.
I do my best with ethical storytelling and I promote having some pretty high standards when it comes to that, but I think one of the most essential parts to being able to tell a story properly is true appreciation and gratitude for that trust.
Seems like a good time for a little reintroduction for any new faces around here!
🇵🇭 I’m Philippe, I was born in Illinois and grew up in Philadelphia and San Diego, the latter of which is currently home. But! I have also been shaped by Filipino ancestry and other places I’ve lived, including: Argentina, Oregon, South Africa, and Italy.
🌳 I married my best friend from college, Deanna, and somehow it’s been 7 years already! We’re raising three kids under the age of three, so things are always pretty wild.
🏕 I absolutely love nature and travel. Basically, I love people and places. I’ve found that efforts to protect nature and preserve culture are deeply intertwined.
🌍 I’m passionate about ethical storytelling, especially for climate and social justice organizations. I’ve worked in that space for ten years.
🥭 A lot of the work I do is tied to serious and heavy topics but I honestly prefer to not take myself too seriously. I think that’s why one person I’ve really looked up to is Desmond Tutu. Dude took on apartheid while subversively giggling.
🎥 When I travel I love to make videos investigating things that have deeper origins or stories than we often realize, like mezcal, recycling, or moss! Did you know zombies originate from Haiti? I would love to make a whole docuseries on stuff like that someday.
✏️ You’ll probably see a lot of my visual art on here. I started using digital drawing as a form of wordless prayer for some of the heavy things going on in the world. I also use it to celebrate bits of culture and life.
🏔 I’m pretty motivated by how life is a pretty miraculous gift but also by how quickly it goes. I enjoy pushing myself and so at least once a year I try and do 1-2 big bucket list level things. This year I checked off visiting my 50th state: Alaska. Soon? Maybe a food-focused visit to India or getting a traditional Filipino tattoo.
🗺 I also try to ‘always be a rookie’ by always having something in my life I’m a total beginner at. Recent rookie year projects have included: boxing, Japanese cooking, and making animated maps on AfterEffects.
This felt like an old Spanish monastery mish-mashed with a day spa.
But actually… it was a Taco Bell!
A bit before going to Antigua, I did my usual thing of pre-exploring via Google Maps and letting my little street view avatar guy do some walking around for me. He walked me into this rustic alleyway that I couldn’t believe was actually a Taco Bell. But sure enough, I was able to get in there and snag a chalupa.
I know there’s the fancy ocean-view Taco Bell out in Pacifica, and then there’s the one that’s also a luxury hotel in Vegas… but this is probably my favorite of the weird Taco Bells.
You know what? As an adult it’s not just hard to make friends, it’s hard to keep them.
It’s not that we all just get nasty and dump each other (I mean, hopefully not) but with jobs and families and how much our culture prioritizes productivity over relationships… it takes a real effort on both ends to keep up with each other.
Between Alaska with friends, and then a visit from friends to San Diego, not to mention a recent wedding, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of quality time with my people lately, and my cup is full.
It takes time, energy, effort, plus mutual investment to make these things happen, but they are so necessary and worth it. Wherever friends rank on your list of priorities, think of how you want to look back on life twenty years from now, and consider sliding ‘em up a couple notches.
If you’re not familiar with CreativeMornings - its a breakfast lecture series, and a whole lot of fun. Come hear from a different speaker (in this case, me!), snag some free donuts and coffee, and meet people. I’ve seriously made a few pretty good friends just from hanging around.
I’ve been attending for the past five years, and now look… I’m this month’s featured speaker! I always thought that would be a lot of fun.
Theme for the month is depth. I’m gonna be talking about my storytelling work, and sharing some stories from my own life. Register online and let’s hang!
I’ve learned a ridiculous amount of things about trees over the past five years, but its still the simplest things that I’m most amazed by.
The way trees function, not so much as solitary living things, but as members of a whole community. Talking to each other, nursing each other, via fungi. Playing host to all kinds of bugs and birds and creatures.
The way trees’ lives greatly outlast our own, growing slowly, dying slowly, and being there for so much history as it unfolds.
The way trees replenish the Earth and make it more livable for people.
Proud to be part of the journey to 50 Million Trees for Plant With Purpose. From seeing a community reforestation day for the first time in Tanzania, to celebrating the milestone with Burundian friends beneath a waterfall, to planting the first of thousands of trees in Mexico in honor of a dear friend.
Huge accomplishment.
What if the thing that really makes a certain place or physical location great is how much you’d enjoy being lost there with no real agenda or plans?
If that’s the case, the ruins of temples and cathedrals in Antigua, Guatemala are great places, particularly the Convento de Santa Catalina. Spent a good afternoon just openly exploring.
Burundi has a lot going on, but poverty dominates the narrative of the country.
I tried understanding the causes for this crisis, but to be honest, it seemed to be a complicated tangle of several factors coming together.
One of my more memorable encounters in Burundi was with Enos and his family. Burundi was recently named the most food insecure country, and Enos’ experience was typical. He and his kids would eat one meal a day, usually maize or spinach without much variety. Pretty frequently, they would have to skip meals all together.
Now they eat three meals a day. As someone who has never had to skip meals, that is so easy to take for granted. And when you consider that he has a total of seven mouths to feed, this becomes even more impressive.
When you have an impression of poverty that’s based on stereotypes, it’s easy to start thinking of it as something inevitable. Inescapable. But Enos shows us that this isn’t the case. Things like this are happening every day.
A random pet peeve of mine is when people talk about middle income countries like the Philippines, India, or Dominican Republic as though they were one of the poorest countries in the world. In fact, they’re squarely in the middle when you map things out.
Why? I mean, yes, there are parts of those countries, especially in the rural areas, where you can still find pretty difficult living conditions and steep poverty, but when we make it seem like the entire country might as well be on par with one of the twenty lowest income countries in the world, we really flatten the story of a lot of good that has happened in the world.
(And yeah, I also don’t like the way we talk about lowest-income 20 countries, even where poverty is widespread and extreme, but that’s for another time.)
Over the course of my lifetime, the majority of the world has seen significant improvements to their living conditions. Most have moved from poverty into more of a middle state, and perhaps if more people saw the world through that lens, we’d be less tempted to think of poverty as an inevitability.
“I assure you, because I have met and talked with people who live on every level… the distinctions are crucial. People living in extreme poverty on Level 1 know very well how much better life would be if they could move from $1 a day to $4 a day, not to mention $16 a day. People who have to walk everywhere on bare feet know how a bicycle would save them tons of time and effort and speed them to the market in town, and to better health and wealth.”
–Hans Rosling
I really thought the Toronto Islands would just be a big tourist trap. And they’re not not a tourist trap, I guess, but they’re also gorgeous and worth spending a day at. Especially when it’s perhaps the most ideal beach and park day Toronto might see all year.
My favorite thing about it here is that the ferry ride here starts from the tip of downtown Toronto. So one minute you’re kind of in the heart of the city, surrounded by skyscrapers, and then a short ride later, everything is very quiet and calm.
Burundi is a fairly small country, which allowed us to see a large portion of it by driving around. We worked our way from Bujumbura at the top of Lake Tanganyika down to the tip where it borders Tanzania, then back up to the new capital of Gitega, right in the heart of the heart of the country.
You can learn quite a bit just by staring out the window, and the streets of Burundi gave us quite a bit to take in. Life in Burundi is diverse! I love how having a traveler’s eyes can render one person’s sense of ordinary into extraordinary.
Whenever I’m doing a trip somewhere like rural Burundi, my local partners arrange the on the ground accommodations unless otherwise noted. This often means I don’t know where I’m going to stay until I get there.
Cell signal, Wi-Fi, hot water, electricity are all question marks until I get there. Some places I’ve stayed at were basically camping. Others were surprisingly cozy.
What I love about these field hotels, especially the ones I stayed at on this trip in Burundi, is that the people running them cared for them with such pride. Some places don’t see international visitors too often, but it was amazing- moving, even- to pull out every stop in trying to make you feel welcome.
Even the most ordinary roadside shop selling basic, everyday goods has a whole story behind it if you know how to look for it.
Mariam was a farmer. Well, she still is. But she needed another source of income for her family. So she thought about starting a business.
Starting a shop like this takes an up front investment, and most women in Burundi don’t have access to that capital, or even to a bank that could lend them the money to get started. But she found that support in her community through Village Savings activities in a Purpose Group.
Now her shop has a little bit of everything and she’s not done. She hopes to further expand her shop in the near future.
Burundi has a complicated, but also kind of beautiful relationship with the sport of running.
In 2014 Burundi banned jogging.
The ban was a little surprising, since the president who passed it was a former PE teacher, a huge football fan, and a football buff.
That made me want to investigate more about Burundi’s jogging clubs. Turns out they’ve been pretty significant sources for solidarity and social support.
(Much of what I learned stems from Peter Frick Wright’s story in Outside Magazine several years ago. To my knowledge, the ban is no longer active.)
