Today we have guest writer Lawrence Wrinkler, who takes us on a breathtaking journey through the Annapurna Circuit — a trek where gods and mortals meet. From lush jungles to frozen passes, 'Chosen' follows a ragtag band of travelers weaving through Himalayan villages, mysterious festivals, and brushes with danger and destiny. With a cast of Sherpas, sadhus, and Israelis chasing their own dreams, this is a tale of raw adventure, deep friendship, and encounters that seem carved out of myth. Amid avalanches, altitude sickness, and mysterious strangers, one thing becomes clear: sometimes, the mountain chooses you. Get ready to step into the heart of Nepal and beyond.

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

In this episode, two guest writers share their stories of being stranded abroad. In the first story, Jessica Holmes relates her trials in South Korea during the COVID-19 lockdowns, and in the second, Marcia Lewis, shares her story of sailing in the Persian Gulf during a time of geopolitical tension between the US and Iran. 

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

This is a fevered dream about travel. 

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

Imagine that you’re a psychologist, a therapist. Outside the window of your office is the Mediterranean landscape of Southern Turkey—hills with small trees. There are Roman ruins and mosques on the horizon. The year is 2017 and the war in Syria, 20 miles south, is at its height.

I am your patient. I lay on your couch telling you a story in free association. What at first seems to be another narrative of beer, war, pussy becomes, at closer listening, a confession of addiction, curiousity, and solitude.

Just an old fashioned love song, really.

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

I was going to start this episode with something personal to introduce myself, but perhaps it’s not an opportune time to introduce myself when the following story is about scoring hookers in Paris. I will say, if this subject offends you, don't listen.

This episode is dedicated to the late, great, Henry Miller, who is no doubt now turning in his grave, this episode is dedicated to the early works of Joan Didion, and last but not least, to Ferdinand Bardamu, wherever you may be.

Intro music by Warhammer 48k, episode music by Breaking, Babyteeth OST

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

This is a confession to a breaking and entering in Germany.

This is not an alibi but rather a justification for why I did it. 

This is a love story and a story of a golddigger.

So come travel to France and Germany in an attempt to prove probate fraud.

All music by Christopher Mathis from the album Woodlandsgaze. Outro by the South Hill Experiment, Baird, and Goldwash, entitled Chameleons.

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

In this episode, we rehabilitate a house in France, we get married (almost), and travel to Germany to bug my father-in-law's house. This begins a longer narrative (continued in future chapters) of battling a golddigger, a younger woman, who tried to extort money out of my girlfriend's father. So if you’re interested in German inheritance law, dementia, and relationships under duress, this episode's for you.

This story is chapter 4 in the book Travel, Memory, meaning it makes more sense if you listen to the previous episode or episodes of season 2, if not it’s no problem, especially if you enjoy depressing love stories.

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

In this episode, we go on a vertiginous tour through the Western World, guided by one night stands, aging parents, and a lone suicide bomber. From Cape Town, Sydney, Istanbul, Athens, Sevilla, Madrid, Paris, Mexico City, to Havana we look for love in all the wrong places, we search for grit in city centers a century too late, and like a debt collector we survey what the present owes the past. 

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

The Bangui Magnetic Anomaly refers to a variation in the Earth's magnetic field centered at Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. 

I wrote a story with the same name in response to a friend's question—what is a day like in the life of an aid worker in Central Africa?

The article was written, beer soaked and sunburnt on a back porch, under the cumulative effects of constant low-grade warfare. Magnetism refers to the desire to understand humanity. The anomaly was that it entailed conflict. In Bangui in 2014. 

I tucked into the correct latitudes, paid for experience with sanity, managed to hold out, albeit only for a year, and bore witness to the world. But the world was gazing back. And it knew what it saw.

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com

I’m calling as I drive through Saxony Anhalt, in eastern Germany, because I’ve drank more coffee than water and need to talk.

We've talked a lot about travel in the past, you know, in our 20s, always writing to one another with the question of where to live. From ever-changing locations, we would hand in our trip reports via email. I would attach crappy poems from Mexico, and you would send photos from a punk house in Florida, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest. There was you in Asia fighting windmills. Pity we never hopped freight together. 

Then in our 30s, it was not where to go, but how to live. The questions about travel had answered themselves. But we never asked why we write, why we tell stories. Since I'm plowing the highway under a lead heavy sky and the cup of coffee is overflowing, why don't we start a conversation about why we write.

And if I told you a random story, say about Haiti, Palestine, California, or France then maybe we could find an answer at the end.

Intro and outro music the South Hill Experiment, Baird, Goldwash, Chameleons. Episode music  Floral Shoppe by Macintosh Plus  and Tastes Good  by Paco Moreno

Leave us a message or question 🫠

If you enjoy what you're listening to but would rather hold these stories in your hand, say while riding on public transport to mom's house or to the mirage of self-actualization through travel, you can buy a book or two at miragetravelpodcast.com