The mountainous Pamir Highway in Tajikistan was precisely the type of terrain that our 1-liter Nissan Micra hatchback was not suited to handle. One of our friends had described it as a car “that you would expect a 60-year-old woman to drive to the supermarket twice a week,” and now we were pushing it to ever-greater extremes, keeping our fingers crossed that it would somehow persevere. So we weren’t totally surprised when our luck eventually ran out. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

Our car was running once again, but now we faced a handful of new mechanical issues, just as we were about to embark on the roughest part of our journey yet: a 600 mile stretch of mostly unpaved and mountainous road along the Tajikistan - Afghanistan border that’s considered one of the most spectacular and potentially dangerous routes in the world. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

When we first learned that it would take a week for our car to get repaired, we figured we’d have some time to relax and explore the historic city of Bukhara, Uzbekistan. But instead we’re hit with a variety of unforeseen challenges: our friends Rosi and Jane’s visas are about to expire, the four of us contract some sort of nasty stomach bug, and we learn that we might not be able to enter Mongolia after all. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

In the three weeks since we started our journey, we’d broken down about 4 times, been to half a dozen mechanics, and tried all sorts of stop-gap measures to solve our car issues, but there was still some sort of big underlying problem whose name we didn’t yet know. Now at another mechanic in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, we were about to find out. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

When it comes to welcoming foreign tourists, Turkmenistan is close to the bottom of the list. It was hard enough to get visas in the first place, and when we did, they were only good for 5 days. Now broken down with serious car problems, we had to try to convince officials to give us more time. Alternately, we could throw in the towel and tow the car all the way to the border to try to get it fixed on the Uzbekistan side, but would the border guards even let us in with a car that wouldn’t start? Suddenly, our little road trip had turned into an international bureaucratic dilemma, and the next 24 hours were sure to be interesting as we sorted this one out. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

Driving a small, crappy car was a prerequisite for anyone participating in the Mongol Rally. The point was to make the journey more exciting and adventurous. We liked the idea at first, but now we’d broken down yet again, and our mechanical issues this time were worse than ever. After getting a hole in our radiator while driving across eastern Turkmenistan, we get towed to a garage where they repair the leak, but things take a turn for the worse. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

While I continue to work on the next regular show, here’s a short bonus episode of some conversations I had with some other Mongol Rally teams during our stopover at Turkmenistan’s Door to Hell. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

We visit the hermit kingdom of Turkmenistan — one of the most reclusive and authoritarian nations in the world — and we see why some visitors describe its capital city of Ashgabat as a cross between Las Vegas and Pyongyang. Paranoia sets in as we get the feeling we’re constantly being watched. And we take a side trip to a giant fire pit in the desert that’s been burning for 40 years! Read more and see photos, as well as a video of the Darvaza Gas Crater on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

“Honestly, most Americans — when they think of Iran — probably think of 3 things,” my brother said. “Desert, oil, and nuclear capabilities.” And it was true. Before our road trip across Europe and Asia last summer, we didn’t really have much of an idea what to expect. But now as we drive across Iran, we realize it’s a place where things are rarely black and white. Everywhere we turn, we see a tension between sticking to the old way of doing things and forging a new path. Listen in as we visit the country’s holiest site and have more car trouble in the middle of the desert. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!

Our eighteen country road trip across Europe and Asia last summer left us with a wealth of memorable stories and experiences. But if you asked me to name the single most fascinating and thought-provoking place we visited, the answer would clearly be Iran. On this episode, we have enlightening conversations with average Iranians that make us see the country in a new light. Read more and see photos on my website.

Far From Home is a series, so it’s best to listen to all the episodes in order from the beginning for the story to make the most sense. Learn more about our trip and follow our adventures at farfromhomepodcast.org and teamdonundestan.com. And if you like what you hear, please do me a favor and leave a quick rating or review in iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts!