When I travel, I always try to look for some sort of local thing to experience. Whether that’s attending a flamenco festival in Seville, spending a day with the Longhorn Miao in Guizhou, or in Colombia, playing tejo with a local. If you’re headed to Colombia and want an authentic Colombian experience away from all… Read More Want an Authentic Colombian Experience? You’ve Got to Play Tejo
If you’re looking to know exactly how much it’ll cost to travel China for 7 weeks, I’m going to disappoint you. That’s because the truth is, there’s no good way to really tell you how much it costs to travel in China. It’s a huge country with diverse topography, 56 ethnic groups, and thousands of years of… Read More Budget Breakdown: How Much I Spent Traveling China for 7 Weeks
One of my most poignant observations when I was in China in spring 2012 was how the state of the Chinese rail system reflected the country’s growing wealth gap. As I rode a variety of trains in China between September and November 2017, this disparity only became clearer. There are extremely old trains that rattle… Read More A Guide to Trains in China, from the Old-School to the High-Speed
I don’t know when I first heard of the Longhorn Miao. I just know that once I learned of the ethnic minority, it was hard to forget their distinctive headdresses. But I didn’t know much more about the Longhorn Miao, other than that they lived in southwestern China like so many of China’s other ethnic… Read More A Visit with the Longhorn Miao
This is Huangguoshu Waterfall, the largest waterfall in Asia. Located in the southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou, Huangguoshu (Yellow Fruit Tree) Waterfall is this poor province’s pride and joy, its key tourist attraction. To get there, you’ll first need to get to the city of Anshun, roughly 90 kilometers or an 80-minute drive from the… Read More This is the Largest Waterfall in Asia
Besides the Miao ethnic minority, Congjiang is also home to many Dong tribes. In fact, Congjiang is part of Guizhou’s Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture. This means that as with other autonomous areas of China, Congjiang has more Miao and Dong people than Han Chinese, the ethnic majority in China. So after visiting the… Read More Hear the Grand Choir of the Xiaohuang Dong
The southwestern Chinese province of Guizhou captured my attention as soon as I learned that it was one of the most ethnically diverse provinces in China but wasn’t as commercialized as the ever-popular Yunnan province. So after exploring the gorgeous natural wonders of Guangxi, we hopped on a train from Guilin to the city of… Read More The Last Gun-Toting People of China
Growing up, I don’t think I had a conscious awareness of race until we moved to Florida, where the ugly legacy of slavery and Jim Crow made race something that was much more obvious. But while race wasn’t on my mind, I had always been fascinated with ethnicity. Not race or nationality, but ethnicity. China’s… Read More Does Cultural Tourism Help or Hurt Ethnic Minorities?
After spending roughly a week in northeastern China in September and then roadtripping through northwestern China in October, I turned my sights south, specifically to the south central autonomous region of Guangxi and the southwestern province of Guizhou. For me, the largest draw for Guangxi was initially Guilin. I had long heard of the beauty of… Read More Skip Guilin, Go to Yangshuo and Longsheng Instead