I was recently speaking about the insanity of fixed gear biking, that is, bikes that don’t have brakes.  I first discovered them many years ago one memorable Halloween night on the hot sticky-duck streets of Hong Kong. More recently I discovered my unpublished article about that experience, which was used as part of the script for the Hong Kong and Macau episode of Word Travels. Fans of biking, couriers and fixed gears will definitely enjoy. It also feels good to find a home for my long-lost and wayward words.  

My bicycle accelerates into the crowd, zigzags through a small gap into the street, dodges oncoming traffic before turning sharply left into a side alley.  A brick wall brushes my shoulder as I slice across two trams, ramp over a sidewalk, and pedal towards a major intersection.   Sweat has drenched the shirt beneath my daypack, and in a city known to rush, people stare and wonder: why the big hurry?    I have just a few minutes to get to the White Stag bar, do ten push-ups in front of someone called Big Glenn, have him sign my manifesto, and shoot off into the traffic to find the next checkpoint.   I’m too busy playing chicken with traffic to ponder how many times I’ve almost tasted road burn. In a city famous for its pulse, fixed-gear Alley Cat bike challenges really gets Hong Kong racing.

A growing worldwide underground sub-culture, local Alley Cat races have their origin with bicycle messengers in North America.   In order to test local couriers’ streetwise knowledge, their speed and ability to navigate obstacles, Alley Cat races were set up in cities like Toronto, Philadelphia, Chicago and Vancouver.  Legends were born as couriers, often seen racing around these urban centers in dangerous traffic, challenged each other for titles, prizes, but most often fun.    Races consist of checkpoints to be reached, and in some cases unusual tasks to be performed on arrival. Upping the thrill factor, most couriers ride fixed-gear bikes that have no brakes, no gears, and require an expert level of control and ability.   Fixed gears are popularly used in the courier messenger community because they’re easy to maintain, and for anyone with a job requiring them to run into buildings to deliver packages, the bikes are confusing and difficult for thieves.    Hong Kong has seen the emergence of an urban cyclist community, attracted to the lifestyle and challenges of riding on fixed-gears. Amidst the choking car and foot traffic beneath the late-night neon lights of the Central district, I went along for the city’s first unofficial Alley Cat race.  When it comes Alley Cat racing, it's important to note that nothing is official anyway.  

​“In Hong Kong, you have the taxis, the cars, the trams, the mini-buses, buses and pedestrians, it’s a little crazy but we’re doing it for the challenge,” says Brian Fu, one of the organizers.   “The key is, you never stop, you run into a problem, you turn right, you keep moving,” says Jeff Welch, a native of Washington DC and courier veteran who designed the race route. “People have always looked at messengers in a special way, with a mixture of envy and lack of respect,” he tells me. “They’re attracted to the freedom and the lifestyle, but repulsed because of the sweat, danger, and dirt.”     With road rage, traffic, and pollution, it’s a high-risk game, but the money can be good -  top couriers can earn more than $70,000 a year delivering envelopes.  “You’re on the bike nine hours a day, you’re almost killed nine times a day, but you get used to it, and you begin to need it,” says Jeff, who has a few dozen Alley Cat races under his belt.    For some messengers, including some of Jeff’s friends, the job costs them their lives.   Messengers trade war stories about accidents, reminisce about fallen comrades, hold parties, and even attract groupies.

About half a dozen riders meet at 10pm outside a coffee shop.   The manifesto is handed out, including a checklist of destinations and tasks that must be reached in order before reaching the finish line.   One of them requires racers to find two girls and tells them that they are “sooo... beautiful!”  Another requires us to find a bald man named 9-Ball and rub his head.   In each case, a third party must sign our manifesto to prove the task has been accomplished.   We count down to the start, and the race is on, each contestant racing off into the crowds.   I decide to shadow a more experienced veteran, since without him I’d be lost in the traffic and spaghetti streets within seconds.    We pedal frantically, every second counts.   A policeman shouts at me from the sidewalk, but I’ve already disappeared around a corner.  Alley Cat racing is a do-first-and-ask-questions-later kind of activity.   Biking in a light drizzle at night in Hong Kong traffic is not for the fainthearted, neither is racing on a bike that, perhaps I forgot to mention, doesn’t stop with squeeze on the handlebar.  But with the wind in my hair, the exhilarating speed and the quasi-legal thrill , I can certainly understand the attraction – it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about having fun, and hopefully surviving to trade stories at the finish line.  

You can watch my Alley Cat race on the Season One, Hong Kong and Macau episode of Word Travels.  Here's the Prime Video link and also on Tubi TV.  

​Just as prestige television has reinvented the high concept of broadcast drama, documentaries that  investigate global issues have become vital components of civic society.  Supported by the deep pockets of Netflix, Amazon, HBO and the like, it gives me hope that we’ve transcended the overly-commercial, ratings-dependant, and largely vacuous focus of traditional broadcasters, who seldom gave docs light of day.  Important films and series are now being made that would never have been made before, and are seen by more people than would ever have seen them before.  Their impact on our world is real.    On Netflix, The Great Hack and The Social Dilemma have exposed the shocking consequences and murky mechanics of social media.  Icarus unmasked Russian sport doping, 13th clearly explained systemic racism, while Capital in the 21st Century has revealed the scale of our financial folly.  Produced by elite sports stars, Game Changers rewrote the book on veganism, while Last Dance and F1 Drive to Survive gave us wild access to wilder sports.  Becoming and Knock Down the House hold up political heroes too.   And then there’s David Attenborough.

Now in his 90’s, the legendary natural history filmmaker has grasped the potential of streaming to reach mass audiences, hosting ground-breaking series that air on Netflix as well as traditional broadcasters like the BBC.   Night on Earth, Planet Earth II and Our Planet have truly pushed the boundaries (and no doubt the budgets) of what the genre can achieve, giving us jaw dropping never-before-seen glimpses into the natural world.  Attenborough’s wise voice adds indisputable credibility and trust.  For me, he’s always been the ultimate school teacher, an inspiring voice and authority worthy of respect.  The teacher you listen to, and never forget.   Other than perhaps Morgan Freeman, I can’t imagine another voice narrating spectacular natural visuals with such wonder, gravitas, reverence and enthusiasm.  Which is why his latest film, David Attenborough: A Life on our Planet, moved me to tears.  The final card reads:  “This film is David Attenborough’s Witness Statement.  Who else needs to see it?”
Everyone needs to see it.  Absolutely everyone, and their families, friends and cousins too.

I read a review for the One World series that questioned why the show didn’t focus more on the imminent and deep threats to the natural world, why Attenborough is celebrating ever-diminishing diversity instead of hitting the panic switch.  There’s no crime in focusing on the positive, and while all his series do address critical threats to our planet’s eco-systems, panic switches have never been Attenborough’s forte.   Also, he likely knew well in advance what was coming, and exactly what his panic switch would look like.  
A Life on Earth begins in spooky, desolate Pripyat, the abandoned Ukrainian city that once supported Chernobyl.   I spent a couple days there, I’ve been in the same hallways, cracked apartment blocks and eerie streets. The world’s worst nuclear disaster has made this model Soviet city uninhabitable for thousands of years, an avoidable mistake blamed on human error.  Likewise, we are doing the same for our planet, but our destructive global meltdown is taking place slowly in real time. When Mr. Attenborough (he deserves the prefix, as do all great teachers) tells us he has witnessed the devastation taking place over his own lifetime and with his own eyes, it warrants no discussion.  For 118 minutes, everyone – boomers, millennials, scientists, corporations, politicians -  needs to shut the fuck up and listen to what this extraordinary elder has to say, and respectfully bear witness to his statement.  Accompanied by incredible images pooled from his many shows, he explains what is going on in clear, concise language so that a child might understand it.  How the oceans and jungles and forests are dying, how we’re entering the planet’s sixth great extinction event, and how every step forward is through a series of one-way doors with no turning back.  Once nature’s system is out of equilibrium, it all goes to hell.  As a graphic shows the passing of his years, the loss of natural habitat, and the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, Mr. Attenborough becomes visibly more frustrated and upset.  How fortunate we are to have shown up during the Holocene, a 100,000-year Eden of unprecedented natural stability. But like bad hotel guests, we’ve completely trashed the place.  At this rate, Earth won’t be nearly as bountiful or habitable for future generations.  The most harrowing part of the film is a projection of what the world will look like in 2030, 2050, 2080.  Wildfires, dustbowls, ocean deserts, collapsing food stocks, melted ice, displaced millions…Attenborough looks away in horror, and we feel the blackness of his despair. We had so much, and we wasted it.  How will the future ever forgive us?   
 
But this is David Attenborough, a man who has seen more wonder and amazement than anyone could ever hope to see.  All is not lost, and there is hope.   “I’m going to tell you how,” he says. Once again, I sit up and pay attention, because as the film cuts to clips of Attenborough lecturing in Davos and for the UN, I know he’s not going into platitudes about recycling saving the Earth.  Using real-world success stories in Costa Rica, Palau, and yes, even Chernobyl,  Mr. A discusses the imminent approach of our peak population, with ambitious plans to protect our oceans, re-wild the scorched forests and plains, and increase vital bio-diversity.  Because, he insists, that’s what it all comes down to:  if we sustainably restore the system, our planet will breathe again, and it will be a win-win for our food security, stability, and human prosperity. 

Often, the “we all need to change to save ourselves” diatribe can feel overly simplistic and dismissive of economic and political realities, but from the mouth of Sir David Attenborough, it left me with renewed hope and purpose.  With any luck, it had an impact on his audience at Davos and UN, for those with political and economic power are the “We” that need to change most of all. 

 have entered a cage four times to stare into the eyeballs of four famously dangerous creatures that one is strongly advised – and I cannot emphasize this enough - not to stare into the eyeballs of.     Psychologists could unpack a fascinating study behind the motivations behind the people who choose, willingly and with good money, to get close to animals like sharks, crocodiles and lions.   Not that such a study has ever been commissioned, since scientists of all ilk are currently laundering lab coats for more pressing concerns.  Since we live in an age of misinformation, I may as well just invent one.   According to global peer reviewed research study (*that was neither peer-reviewed, researched nor studied), thousands of people choose to cage-dive with dangerous animals because: 

• It allows one to observe these fascinating animals up close and not end up stuck between their rather large teeth
• It provides the relative cheap thrill of cheating death
• It contributes to the positive education for conservation 
• It impresses partners and/or kids with misplaced bravura
• It is a tick on the bucket list because others feel it should be a tick on the bucket list

 
Curiously, 63% of these non-existent participants said they harboured a deep and unexplainable fear of the above-mentioned animals, and 12% said they only signed up having felt guilty for entering the booking office with the sole intention of using the toilet.   Whatever floats your boat, and that's where we'll begin, bobbing off the east coast of South Africa on the lookout for man-eating Great White Sharks. Since they are widely known for bearing progressive and egalitarian natures, the Great Whites eat women too. 

​When I entered the cage, I was still between the teeth of the shark phobia that had plagued me since watching Jaws on a hotel movie channel as a 6-year-old on his first beach holiday.   Fast forward a few decades, and I’d seen far better movies which highlighted the vital role sharks play in the eco-system, the horrific carnage behind their hunting for shark-fin soup, and their overall misunderstanding within popular culture.  Fact is (and this is a real fact): Sharks are amazing.  If they wanted to eat people, hundreds of us would be attacked every day, all around the world.   In reality, you have more chance of struck by lightning or drowning in a bathtub (this is also true).    I jumped into the cage, and had a life-changing experience with a rather large great white who could have attacked me from beneath (where the thick cage inexplicably and unnervingly morphed into a wire-hangar-thin mesh).  From that moment,  I resolved to learn how to scuba dive, and have since shared an underwater, cage-free space with sharks from Hawaii to the Papua New Guinea.  That first cage dive truly changed my life for the better.  If you insist and persist on eating shark-fin soup, please look at yourself in the mirror, then jump out a high window.  Millions of sharks needlessly massacred each year will thank you. 

​Crocodiles are an entirely different beast.  For starters, they simply want to eat you.  No curiosity here, no meeting of creatures or confusion because you look like a seal.  To a crocodile, we look like lunch, which is why they quickly surrounded me in the pool.  At Cango Wildlife Ranch in South Africa, I entered a steel cage and was lowered into a pool.  At Crocosaurus Cove in Darwin, northern Australia, I was inside a cylindrical Perspex tube with a few too many croc teeth scrapes for comfort.  The Nile and Saltwater dinosaurs that decided I looked too delicious to pass up bumped me around a bit, their large orange reptilian eyes gazing deep into my soul.  17% of our fictional survey participants mentioned they enjoyed the sensation of feeling like prey.  I, for one, did not.  While my shark cage encounter made me want to dive with (admittedly less fierce) sharks in the wild, the croc cages left me twitchy about the Crocodile Warning signs I later encountered at popular swimming holes outside of Darwin and in tropical north Queensland.   The mere thought of saltwater crocs patrolling the coast keeps locals off the beaches, and one taxi driver told me about a pet dog that ran to the beach, jumped into the water, and was promptly gobbled up by a lurking croc.   According to a BBC Report, the  best tip for surviving a crocodile attack is to avoid getting attacked.  That's one helpful report, I don't know what we'd do without it. 

The Burmese python acting as a living sofa above was a roadside in attraction I passed somewhere in the Philippines.  Entering its cage seemed like something to do.  Once I was seated, I started questioning what on earth they could be feeding this thing.   The answer, I hoped, was not dumb tourists who enter snake cages at roadside attractions

​Finally, I should mention that I once got into a cage surrounded by hungry lions.  Inspired by shark cage dives, the Monarto Zoo in South Australia offers a Lions 360 experience, with feeding time for the zoo’s female pride coinciding with lucky tourists paying a little extra to be in a caged enclosure.  The lions, which roam in a very large space that resembles the African bush, get to walk on the cage feet above your head, and close enough for you to smell their aroma, breath, and, if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, their urine.   My daughter was five years old at the time, and the lions paid special attention to her, recognizing our group’s weakest link.  As well fed as they were, I had little doubt they would have gladly added a curly-haired dessert to their carefully monitored intake of horse (or perhaps kangaroo) meat. For further insight, here's a little video of Lions360 that I made about that experience. 
 
Lions, crocs, snakes, sharks…getting close to dangerous wild animals is always memorable, especially when you’re in an environment designed to ensure you’ll live long enough for the memories. I’ve had close encounters in the wild with hippos (which kill far more people than crocs in Africa), grizzly bears, polar bears, piranha, elephants, orca, cheetahs, baboons, snakes, scorpions, spiders, and far too many mosquitoes (which kill many, many more people each year than any of the above).  Every experience left me in awe of nature and the creatures we share this planet with.  Except the mosquitoes.  Those bastards just left me itchy.

Another year and another decade have passed, another year and another decade we won’t get back. Despite all the indicators to the contrary (I highly suggest reading Stephen Pinker’s Enlightenment Now) it certainly feels like we’re living in particularly turbulent times. Brexit, Trump, ISIS, Facebook…the 2010’s have repeatedly been called the Decade of Crisis.   It was also a decade that took us into science fiction more than one would think.  Consider arriving in January 1, 2010, and telling a person on the street:

• My iPhone takes better studio portraits than professional studios
• I was hungry but my Uber driver had snacks
• Did you see the drone firework display in Shanghai?
• According to my watch/Fitbit, I took 8,912 steps today
• I’ll pay for that by tapping my phone
• It’s included in the magazine subscriptions on my iPad
• Let’s binge watching Season 22 of the Simpsons
• I feel like instantly listening to every hit from 1992
• I swiped right and now we’re married
• Hey Siri, remind me to take out the trash at 1pm?
• It’s one of the most popular bag designs on Kickstarter
• I’ll get someone to design that on Fiver or Upwork
• I love that influencer’s selfies on insta
• Hey Google, is it a catastrophic fire day in Adelaide?
• It’s fake news
• We’ve got a Whatsapp group, but I’ll Snap you
• Elon Musk reckons his re-usable rockets, Cybertruck and Hyperloop will help us colonize Mars
• Did you see a doctor went to jail for gene editing babies?
• I’ll have a Beyond Burger please, and a pizza with plant-based pepperoni

​What the hell are you talking about?   And this is just a fraction of the global fizzle-pop martini that has shaken and stirred over the past ten years. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Charles Dickens wrote that timeless line in 1859.  There is always political, cultural and economic turbulence, although this decade frequent environmental disasters joined the party.   Unprecedented droughts (South Africa, Argentina, Australia), floods (India, Louisiana, Oklahoma), hurricanes (Bahamas, Puerto Rico), storms (Superstorm Sandy, Tropical Irene), heatwaves, wildfires (Australia, California, BC), the melting Arctic, city-sized icebergs breaking off Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.  And facing this global challenge are a bunch of world leaders not too removed from comic book villains.

​There have always been high season and low season, but overtourism – best represented by  poster children like Barcelona and the Louvre, Venice and Dubrovnik -  proved canaries in the coalmine for the onslaught of travellers benefitting from cheap airfare, growing middle classes and an obsession with social media validation.  I’ve had to question my own role in all of this, as this decade saw me transform from a freelance writer and television host into the bestselling author of a half dozen “bucket list” themed books.  Not to mention a husband and father. What hasn’t changed is the core of what set me off fifteen years ago:  an insatiable curiosity, and the desire to share what I discover with others in the hope that it inspires them as much as it has inspired me.

My latest book is about the joys, trials, hilarity and wonders when travelling with kids across Australia.  Gone are the days of intense budget travel, and I’m a little long in the tooth to be sharing dorms in hostels (plus kids under six are not the best bunk mates).    But they do demand and instigate new adventures all the time.   We’re kicking off 2020 with a true bucket list road trip adventure, visiting three incredible BC ski resorts to learn – as a family – how to embrace the Canadian winter, and make it down a mountain on skis.    Having warmed up for a recent Vancouver Sun story about Whistler, we’re kicking off on the powder of RED Mountain, revving up for Revelstoke, and with any luck we will get a thumbs up from Olympic legend Nancy Greene on the slopes of Sun Peaks.  As usual, I hope to inspire other families to do the same, and at the very least, avoid visits to the hospital (my ER visit in Whistler to saw off my wedding ring was enough, thanks).
​
Whatever happens in the year and decade to come, may the weather prove fair and your health fairer.  May our challenges be met and our smiles frequent. I hope we continue to appreciate the incredible benefits of our privilege, and empathize with those who want nothing more than to share a piece of it.   Every year that passes is a year we won’t get back. Regardless of what we might be telling ourselves in 2030, let’s continue to make them count.

It was important to stay awake on the overcrowded night train to Dharamshala. If I missed my stop I would end up north at the Pakistani border, where there are enough problems without a confused hack stumbling about.     I was scheduled to arrive in a small town called Chakkebank at 3am, which, translated into Indian time, meant anywhere between last Wednesday and the coming of the messiah.   Due to a festival, the train was steaming with people, but my sticky-vinyl top bunk afforded some distance from the disjointed beggars, the transsexuals who bring luck for a buck, and the tea guy who somehow managed to get through the throng every ten minutes screaming “Chaaiiiii!!”  without inflicting third degree burns with his thermal.   I dozed off and awoke to discover two guys had scaled my upper bunk and somehow positioned themselves between my open-scissor legs. When a third tried to join them, I put my foot down.  Literally, on his head.    I made my station, waited two hours for the bumpy dawn bus into the mountains, and finally arrived in Dharamshala, home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile.   Like cigarettes, I’m convinced this journey took years off my life. 

It felt like I had arrived in another country, and in a sense I had.  A traveller today can experience more Tibetan culture in Dharamshala than they can in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet.  Along with Tibetan refugees, thousands arrive monthly from all over the world to study Buddhism, get involved in various Tibetan movements, catch a glimpse of the Dalai Lama when he is in town, or just enjoy the tranquility and beauty of the surrounding mountains.  The cold, wet narrow streets were lined with restaurants, hotels, clothing stalls, internet cafes, offices of Tibetan institutions, and too many westerners wrapped in blankets as opposed to their usual Gore-Tex jackets.     

“It’s not so much a question of ‘Free Tibet’, so much as ‘Save Tibet’,” explains Tenzin from the Central Tibetan Authority.  The Dalai Lama was in town and I was trying to arrange a camera permit, in the process learning something about Tibet’s current status.  Decades of Chinese investment and migration has fundamentally changed the face of Tibet, so the Tibetans are now focused on preserving their identity as opposed to regaining independence.  Like other world hotspots, religious and political boundaries are blurred in the conflict, and at the centre meditates the Dalai Lama himself – the political and religious head of a nation.  His non-violent “Middle Way” solution continues to make Tibet a popular Western cause.   Whatever happens, I am told it is all karma. 

​I did manage to see the Dalai Lama, and sat in on a Buddhist class. I walked the lovely Lingkhor path around the temple, spun the colorful mani wheels, chanted mantras, ate traditional dumpling-like momos, and lost my breath at sunset, staring out at the mountains and valley from the peaceful confines of the Tsuglagkhang temple complex.   In lower Dharamshala, the Indian community gathered for the annual Dusehra festival, in which giant effigies were blown up to rid the year of evil.   Huge fireworks lit up the snowy peaks, as crowds of happy Indians shook my hand and wanted me in their photographs.  I could have soaked up this atmosphere for weeks, but my time in India was just about up.   There was just one more thing needed to complete my Indian experience, and fortunately, it did not involve dysentery.

​The Taj Mahal is the world’s most breathtaking and romantic mausoleum, built in 17th century to honor a sultan’s second wife, who died at childbirth.  It is located in Agra, about three-sorry-four-oops-five hours by train from Delhi, and is India’s busiest tourist destination.  It took me three hours just to arrange my return ticket, but by now I had learnt the most crucial lesson for successful travelling in India.  Never be in a hurry to get anywhere!   Certainly I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to my roach “hotel” - a prison cell with a crusty Hello Kitty bedsheet, creating a colorful, if disturbing touch. So off I went to the Taj, where tourists are happily fleeced and touts, taxi drivers and beggars jostle for pole position.   When I arrived in India for my month of travel, I dreaded this scenario.  Now my skin is hardened, my wits sharpened, and it’s just paneer for the course. 

​After dealing with massive lines, corrupt guards, confiscated cameras and a hefty foreign tourist entry fee, I finally got into the complex.  The late afternoon sun glittered across the white marble of the Taj Mahal, silently reflecting in the ponds and floating like a fairytale palace.  Was the day’s journey not a symbol of travelling in India itself?  The frustration, the stress, the scams, the sweat, and finally, the magic that somehow made it all worthwhile.    The Taj Mahal is truly as magical as it looks in the photos.    
 
Back in Delhi after another completely eventful train journey (there’s no other kind in India), I packed my bags and headed for the airport.  India, this world within a world within a world,  had won me over.  I remember what a traveller told me when I first arrived.   “No matter what you've read, seen or heard about India, wherever you go, it is nothing at all like what you expect."   

You can really get a sense of place by its name.  Take Istanbul, Timbuktu, or even Bird Island (where I write these words, off the coast of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia).    Revelstoke, the BC transport hub on the way from Vancouver to Banff, certainly has a name better than most.  A town that lets you revel in the stoke?   Come on, a high-priced brand agency couldn’t have come up with something that good.  The town, population 15,000, got its name from one Lord Revelstoke, an English industrialist who rescued the Canadian Pacific Railway from bankruptcy in 1885.  In the shadow of the Selkirk Mountains, sandwiched by the mountainous beauty of Glacier and Mount Revelstoke National Parks, the town also boasts a ski resort with the greatest vertical descent of any ski resort on the continent.   Fun for another time.  We’re here for a family roadtrip in summer, driving six hours up from Vancouver to explore local activities for all ages, including another tick on my ever-expanding Canadian Bucket List.

​After crossing dramatic mountain passes and driving alongside large, scenic lakes, we pull off the Trans Canada Highway to explore The Enchanted Forest and adjacent Skytrek Adventure Park.  With various high ropes courses through the tall forest trees, the latter is catnip for kids and adults channelling their inner gibbon.  The former is eccentric and certainly bizarre.  Dozens of tiny and not so tiny fairy tale houses have been built on the forest floor, complete with a castle, a giant climbing a tree, mermaids, wooden horses, and mischievous forest elves.  A passion project that has been a popular, quirky roadside attraction for half a century, my young kids embraced Enchanted Forest with sheer, unadulterated delight.  Happy kids, happy parents, and happier still that both these attractions are less than a half hour’s drive from downtown Revelstoke, where our room at the Regent Hotel awaits. 

A town that straddles the industries of railway, forestry and tourism, Revelstoke is refreshingly devoid of glitzy retail brands, and oozes small town charm.  It is protected from being overrun by its relative isolation from a major city, resulting in the kind of place where locals greet each other at free nightly summer music concerts in Grizzly Plaza, or at the weekend street market bursting with local flavours.   Our outstanding meals at Taco Club, Nico’s Pizza, Paramjit’s Kitchen and the exceptional Quartermaster offered funky, homely and fine dining, while a visit to the Aquatic Centre (a must for young kids) made me pine for something similarly inexpensive and less crowded in Vancouver.   Toasting outstanding craft beer at Rumpus Beer Co, I admired the moxie of the husband-wife owners chasing their small town dream, and wondered, along with many others I imagine, if Revelstoke is the kind of place where I could chase a dream too.  A real sense of community permeates the town, a community that doesn’t mind living ten minutes down the road from a world class ski resort, or two and half hours from Kelowna, the nearest regional airport.

Revelstoke Mountain Resort is famous for the highest vertical run on the continent, but is embracing its four season possibilities.   This means world-class mountain biking, and for my bucket list, the longest alpine rollercoaster in Canada.   Taking the gondola up to mid-mountain, my family soaked in the stellar mountain views and fanning Columbia River, before hopping into yellow go-cart like contraption connected on a narrow single rail. My wife and I each put a kid in our laps and strapped in for a thrilling 1.4 kilometre descent.   The Pipe Mountain Coaster twists, curves and whoops its way 279 metres down the mountain, through forest and breathless dips at speeds of up to 42 km/hr.  A simple mechanism allows us to brake and go at our own pace, and most first timers will take it easy.   Get the three-ride pass (or more) and you’ll soon dispense with the brakes altogether, hitting the hell-yeah! controlled maximum speed that ensures it’s safe and fun for the whole family.    “Faster Daddy!” yelled my daughter, and who am I to argue? 

Feet away from the exit point of the coaster is newly opened Aerial Adventure Park, where you can easily spend two hours navigating fifty different balance and height obstacles, rising four stories above the ground.   Graded like ski runs into green, blue and black difficulties, climbers are safely harnessed throughout the entire contraption. Watching brave little kids take on swinging rings or a knee-shaking four-story jump should add some pep to your steps.   Fortunately, great food and craft beer awaits the victorious in the village regardless (and for the kids, ice-cream). 

​River rafting is another popular summer activity in Revelstoke, with various companies offering grade three runs.   For younger kids, consider Wild Blue Yonder’s River Pirates Tour, complete with pirate costumes, face paint, bush battles and fun tales of yaargh!   Downriver from the impressive hydro dam, we drifted on the glass mirror of the Columbia River, listening to Captain Jack’s brogue as he recounted the myth of the man-eating moose.  My daughter - made-up with face paint, bandanna’d, and now known as Jolly Lips Sue - had a blast.  Nobody got wet, and foam sword battles continued back in our comfortable family suite at the Regent.    

​Fortunately the sword stayed behind when we checked out the old world Railway Museum, although the knives came out when my three year-old had his thermonuclear meltdown when we told him it was time to leave the large, warm wading pool at the Aquatic Centre.  We packed a lot into just three days, and could have easily spent a week exploring this underrated wonder of the BC interior.    It’s all right there in the very name of the town, where families can revel in the stoke of it. 

​My cabin is as comfortable as any you’ll find on a train, the bed adorned with soft sheets and pillows, and still I cannot fall asleep.   Too much on my mind, too much to process from a day exploring remote underground homes in the world’s opal mining capital, too much fun at the open bar aboard The Ghan. I typically read before bedtime as a way to put my mind to rest, but tonight my eyes are too tired to stay open, and my brain too wired to close.  It would be great if someone could read me to sleep, with a safe and soothing voice.  As for the story, it should be deliberately and delicately crafted to avoid anything too exciting, and take me on a peaceful journey to Sleepland.   Just so happens that Phoebe Smith, soon to be the official sleep storyteller-in-residence for the Calm mindfulness app, is in the cabin right next to mine.    I’m sure she’s sleeping like a baby.
 
With over 40 million downloads, 200,000 5-star reviews, and Best App of the Year Awards from both Apple and Google, the Calm app has hit a cultural bulls eye with sharpened z-shaped arrows.   It’s loaded with meditations, ambient music and soundscapes, and dozens of sleep stories narrated by folks like Matthew McConaughey, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, and The Wire’s Clarke Peters, who has richer Morgan Freeman voice than Morgan Freeman himself.   Millions of satisfied subscribers swear that Calm does exactly as its very name suggests: it calms you down, whether you set-up an easy 15-minute Focus or Anxiety meditation, a fiction or non-fiction story to lull you to sleep, or soothing sounds to massage your ear canal.  
 
“Two million people a month listen to my stories, it’s mind-blowing,” Phoebe tells me.  “I admit I was sceptical, until I listened to one of my own stories and quickly fell asleep.”  A year has passed since our Ghan adventure across Australia, and she’s in Vancouver on her way up north to explore the Khutzeymateen Grizzly Bear Sanctuary.   Since we ran about Alice Springs trying unsuccessfully to get an epic author photo for my next book, she’s been called the JK Rowling of Sleep Stories, has been profiled in major media, and fine-tuned her craft.   We’re in the lobby bar at the Hotel Vancouver, and having just flown in from Brisbane that morning, Phoebe looks like she could use a little sleep herself.   Isn’t a 14-hour flight and 17-hour time the enemy of the well rested?   “Honestly, travelling with my own pillow has been a game-changer.  Your brain associates the scent of your pillow with sleep, and it really works!”
It pays to listen to someone who makes a living devoted to sleep.    

Back in the UK where she lives, Phoebe is known for her books and stories about sleeping in unusual, extreme and wild places.  I quite like the fact that Calm didn’t hire a scientist or psychologist to methodically bore you to sleep, but rather a storyteller. “Storytelling is such an old tradition, it’s how knowledge and wisdom has been passed down throughout history,” says Phoebe.  But hang on, aren’t you essentially writing stories so boring it puts people to sleep?      “As a kid, you didn’t want a boring story, but there’s definitely a technique involved.  There can’t be too much action or excitement, and it should take you on a journey, which is why trains, boats, rivers and forests work so well.   Feedback suggests that most people fall asleep within five to ten minutes, but I get lots of emails from people around the world wanting to know more about the places I write about.”    Places like the lavender fields of Provence, the jungles of Madagascar, the Mississippi River and the forgotten forests of Morocco.  There are travel stories about oceans and deserts, safaris and night skies. 
​There are train journeys aboard the Orient Express, the Trans-Siberia, and yes, our adventure aboard The Ghan.  We both agree that stories are a far healthier alternative to medication and sleep aids.
 
“These days, we often treat sleep as an inconvenience,” Phoebe explains.  “There’s so much going on and instantly available that we can’t switch off, which only adds to the anxiety.”   It’s why she turns off her devices at least an hour before bed, keeps her bedroom free of distractions, and is passionate about sleeping in the wild.  “When it gets dark, you sleep, and when the sun rises, you wake up.  It’s the natural rhythm of our bodies, and it makes you feel calm and rested.”   Unlike Phoebe, the very thought of sleeping outdoors, exposed and alone on say, a mountain top, freaks my poor brain out.  So I’ll ignore her advice and keep my iPhone handy, ready to load up a Calm sleep story, and let her words inspire a blissful lullaby. 

You can follow Phoebe's extreme sleeps and wild camping here. 
Learn more about Calm here. 
​

​In a tiny room, crammed with gadgets and monitors, sits a small button.  24 hours a day, an officer monitors the equipment, awaiting a single phone call.   On orders, he places a key into a slot, and turns clockwise.   Punching in an access code, he takes a breath, and pushes the small white knob.  In just over half an hour, a missile carrying a payload of ten thermonuclear warheads hits multiple targets in the United States.    In the ensuing carnage, each warhead vaporizes an area of 200 square kilometres, along with every living creature inside it.   Millions die instantly, millions more slowly from the release of deadly radiation.   Life as we know it ceases to exist, as thousands of similar missiles criss-cross the skies seeing their targets.  All it takes is one push of the button, located in a control room 33-metres below the Ukrainian countryside.   My finger draws near.   My hand starts to shake.   

Before its independence in 1991, Ukraine had more nuclear missiles than any other country outside the United States and Russia.   Strategically and secretly distributed throughout the countryside, missile units were surrounded by armed guards, 3000-volt electric fences, and protected from attack in deep underground bunker silos built to survive a nuclear war.   With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the newly autonomous nation of Ukraine chose to become a nuclear-weapon free zone, and with US support, dismantled its missiles and bases.   Today, just three and half hours drive outside of Kiev near the town of Pervomaisk, the legacy of Armageddon is open to the public inside one of the world’s most bone-chilling tourist attractions. 
 
The Museum of Strategic Missile Troops is a former Soviet nuclear missile base that has been opened to the public by the armed forces of Ukraine.   Under the guidance of former officers who once operated the base, visitors are led on a tour explaining how large-scale nuclear missiles were managed, maintained, guarded, and later dismantled.  Other than several missiles and engines on open display, the location appears innocuous – a few low-rise barracks, a tall radio tower.  Massive green transport trucks customized to transport thermonuclear warheads hint at something more sinister.   Deep beneath the surface lie the control and missile solos designed to destroy the world.    As a thick iron door locks us in, I descend into a long tunnel towards the command silo.  Immediately, the atmosphere becomes dense, cold and heavy.  Slightly hunched, I am opening the mechanical and electrical toolbox designed to initiate Armageddon.

​Former Colonel Mikael Kamenskov had his finger on the button for over a decade.   If the orders had come down, as they nearly did on several occasions, he was responsible for pressing the button, launching the missiles, and annihilating entire cities.   Moustached and balding, he is serious man, explaining the detailed security measures and base design using scale models and a stick pointer.  He describes how a two-man combat crew would take six-hour shifts, capable of surviving in their subterranean silo for up to 48 days without surfacing.   The Colonel does not present the face of a cold-stone killer, and yet his actions would directly have resulted in the slaughter of millions.  
 
I remove my Ray Ban sunglasses as we leave the bright sunshine behind and enter the guts of the facility. The air is cool as we walk along a narrow tunnel, once reserved for top-secret military personnel only. Heating, air, plumbing and radiation filters line the walls, while above us, a 120-ton cap protects the giant test-tube shaped silo.  The 12-level underground command post silos were built on hydraulic suspensions, to function in the event of earthquake, or more likely, missile attacks.  In the eyes of many Soviet soldiers, explains the Colonel, mutually assured nuclear annihilation was not so much an “if”, but a “when”. 
 
We cram into a tiny elevator and descend slowly towards Level 12.    A loud ringing accompanies the elevator, along with an old rotary dial telephone in case we get stuck.   I open the flap doors to find a small circular room with low ceilings, the air musky and dank.   Two bunks are fastened to the walls, a simple airplane-like toilet behind a door.  Bleak as a tomb, this was the living quarters for the two officers on duty.   An iron ladder takes us up to the next claustrophobic level, the command room.   All signs of life are removed.  Trees, animals, seas, clouds and cities only exist here in the imagination. I take my seat, and imagine myself on duty, the hotline ringing.  

Even though the button is useless and the missiles long since destroyed, it feels like I’m playing with an unloaded gun.   I’m thinking about the horrifying photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, displayed in the museum above.  Is the barrel empty?   My hand shakes. I just cannot bring myself to do it.  Some buttons are just not meant to be pushed.  
 
My bones are chilled when we exit the silo, and it takes some time in the hot sun to warm them. I put my sunglasses on, my eyes struggling with the afternoon light.  Various missiles are on display outside, including the CC18, a massive black rocket considered to be the most advanced and deadly nuclear missile ever built.  NATO dubs this modern Russian-made missile “Satan”, an apt name for pure technological evil, carrying 10 warheads in its cap, each 50 times more powerful than the atomic bomb that exploded over Hiroshima.

The most distressing part of visiting this unique Ukrainian museum is knowing that hundreds of similar bases still exist around the world, its officers on duty, waiting for that phone call.  Even as Russia and the USA work to reduce their nuclear stockpiles, other countries are actively seeking their own membership in the nuclear club. 
 
Perhaps one day all nuclear missile bases will be dismantled, and similar museums will demonstrate just how close we came to cleverly engineering our own destruction. Considering Ukraine voluntarily chose to dismantle its substantial nuclear arsenal, turning this tool of “mutually assured destruction” into a vital and chilling museum, there is always reason to hope. 

The Museum of Strategic Missile Troops is located 3.5 hours drive from Kiev.   It is open daily from 10am to 5pm.  Tour operators in Kiev can arrange transport and entrance. 

It took three, long hours to get to the temple.   An hour of that was figuring out which bus to take, negotiating the ticket, and finding directions to the correct platform.    Five people were crammed into a seat built for three, and although there were no live animals, there was a freshly slaughtered chicken.   It was hot, it was uncomfortable, it was intense, and it was vivid.   This is travel, and this is all worth it.  I hike up the hill, and there it is, a beautiful stone temple, glowing in the sun.   I take a deep breath, pull out my camera, and then I see them.  Over a hundred tourists, wearing name tags, following a red umbrella.  Ladies and gentlemen:  begin the debate!

Travellers carry towels, never iron their clothes, and freak out when there’s a schedule.  Tourists stay in nice hotels, look forward to going home, and typically pay the set price.   Travellers discard guidebooks, tourists clutch them closely to their chests.   Travellers need a holiday when they return home, tourists leave home for a holiday.   Or vice-versa.   

The Traveller vs Tourist is a timeless, heated debate.  Many backpackers make proud, public announcements so nobody might confuse them with being a tourist.  Many tourists seem compelled to sheepishly justify their package vacation, while others would never dream of leaving the comfort bubble of a tour bus.   Never mind that both groups are united in the same purpose – to leave their homes and discover something new.   And never mind that tourists don’t seem too bothered by the whole debate in general – it’s usually travellers, sitting in a dive bar, scratching the dirt from under their fingernails, scoffing at the thought of seeing anywhere from the comfort of, dare I say it, a brightly coloured tour bus. 

​Luminous orange overalls flap in the strong wind, an egg-yolk sun cracks against the horizon.   It’s been a physically tough hike, stumbling over loose rocks, my face caked in black volcanic dust.   Atop the cone of Cerro Negro, one of the youngest active volcanoes in Central America, the countdown has begun.  All that’s left to do is sit down on my wooden board, lean back, grit my teeth, and hurl down the cone,  0 to 40 km/hr in eight, wild seconds. 

​You can tell the “next big travel thing” by watching the trends of budget travellers, and they’re heading in droves to Nicaragua.   The beaches, colonial towns, accommodating locals, and prices are a backpackers dream, along with Bucket List activities like volcano boarding.  From the roof of Leon’s cathedral, the largest in Central America, you can see eleven of thirteen surrounding volcanoes surrounding the city.  They sit like a chain of pearls on a necklace, and when they erupt, as Cerro Negro did as recently as 1999, it can cover Leon in a layer of fine, ashen dust.   Not that it bothers the backpackers at Bigfoot Hostel.    When I inquire about the conspicuous absence of waivers for volcano boarding, its affable owner explains some of the legal differences between Nicaragua and the United States.  If tourists want to pay twenty bucks for the opportunity to throw themselves off an active volcano, that’s their problem!   Even though the volcano is at the tail end of its regular eruption cycle, and could explode any day, Bigfoot is doing a roaring trade, with about a dozen clients of all ages heading out daily, a wooden sleigh in hand, anticipating a Bucket List ride of a lifetime.
 
It took some time to figure out the right apparatus to accomplish such a feat, with everything from fridge doors to second-hand mattresses tested to strike the right balance of speed and relative safety.   One thing is certain: while Cerro Negro appears to have soft, sandy steep sides from afar, the granite dust is as sharp as broken glass. Protective overalls, eye-goggles, and remaining seated (as opposed to traditional upright sandboarding) is essential.  Wiping out would tear you to shreds.  

​It’s a forty-minute drive to Cerro Negro National Park, and it’s no accident the adventure takes place during late afternoon.  The sunsets in this part of the world are atomic, November through June, night after night.   We pay a small fee to enter the park, grab our boards, and start the climb up the rear of the ominous looking black pyramid.   Once we begin our steep ascent, the wind picks up considerably. Blackened lava from the last eruption sits like an Exxon mess, the thick oil spilled over the countryside. At the back of my mind, I’m well aware that nobody can sandboard faster than an erupting volcano.  
 
The loose rocks are sharp but we scramble over them, shifting the awkward weight of our boards from arm to arm. Half an hour later we arrive at the outer edge of the crater to find steaming hot sulphuric ash.   You can burn your hand on the ground here, so we keep walking around the lip, a silent prayer that the monster below us remains asleep. With the sun perfectly poised, our guide Gemma explains how to use our feet to break and steer.  
“Keep the mouth shut unless you want to chew rocks for dinner.  Back straight, lean back, and smile for the radar gun at the bottom!” 
 
A thin metal sheet is fixed to the bottom of the wood, along with a piece of plastic that increases speed.   As I begin the five hundred-metre slide, the grating sound of granite against metal sounds like an engine, revving fast.  Rocks and sand attack my goggles, stabbing my lips, sieging my shoes.  I’d scream, but it’s wiser to keep lips pursed and board straight (cone-burn awaits those who flip).     
 
Active volcanoes have intrigued many a Bucket Lister, but only in Nicaragua will you find one so creatively accessible.   Safely on the bottom, the group cracks celebratory cold beers and compares experiences.  “Now that’s something to do before you die!” says one backpacker.  I certainly agree.