~ Early Web Links ~

Randomwire is a long-running travel blog focused on Asia, chronicling journeys through China, Japan, and beyond with an emphasis on place, memory, and slow observation. Posts cover everything from pilgrimages and stone carvings in Sichuan to architecture in Tokyo, offering a thoughtful and unhurried perspective on the continent.

Run by Alan A. Lew (The Travel Geographer), this blog catalogs and reviews Web 2.0 websites and online tools related to travel and tourism, covering services like destination finders, staycation sites, and trip planners. Posts evaluate whether early travel startups lived up to their promises, making it a useful snapshot of the travel tech landscape from the mid-to-late 2000s.

Cristian documents his Erasmus student exchange experience through a photo and video gallery organized by month, capturing the memories and friendships from his time abroad. Now archived, the site serves as a heartfelt time capsule of his international study adventure, complete with film photography rolls and a guestbook for fellow participants to leave messages.

Captains Gwen Hamlin and Don Wilson have chronicled their full-time sailing adventures since 1999, covering a decade-long world cruise aboard their CSY 44 sloop Tackless II and now continuing aboard their St. Francis 44 catamaran Tackless Too. The site is packed with logbook entries organized by region, a reference shelf, chartering info, and practical cruising knowledge drawn from years of offshore sailing and Virgin Islands charter operations.

Bike China Adventures hosts a rich collection of bicycle touring travelogues from cyclists who have ridden through China and across Asia, including a featured account by Guinness World Record holder Heinz Stücke, whose decades-long global bicycle journey took him through Tibet, the Sahara, Afghanistan, and beyond. The site serves as both an archive of firsthand cycling narratives and a hub for anyone interested in long-distance bicycle travel in China and surrounding regions.

Juha Liikala is a Finnish software engineer and nomadic traveler who documents his wanderings across Italy, Bali, the Caribbean, and beyond through blog posts and microblog updates. The site blends personal reflections on travel, technology, and social media culture with a warm, conversational tone and a growing archive of longform and short-form writing.

The Rambler is Phil Schmidt's blog chronicling his retired life traveling the United States full-time in an RV, with posts spanning from 2022 to 2026. Phil's wide-ranging interests, from ham radio and solar power to hiking the Appalachian Trail and model sailplanes, give the site an adventurous, tinkerer spirit.

Caleb Jay Rogers is a software engineer whose prolific blog spans over a decade of posts covering travel across Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Singapore, and China alongside programming, digital nomad life, and personal philosophy. With 195 posts organized across dozens of tags, the site offers an unusually rich mix of travelogues, tech opinions, and life reflections that rewards deep exploration.

Built by a traveler who spent a decade living across Southeast and Central Asia, this site catalogs the most common scams tourists encounter, from fake monks and jet ski schemes to counterfeit currency and gem store cons. Each scam gets its own detailed entry with photos, making it a practical and eye-opening guide for anyone planning a trip through the region.

Brr is a personal blog documenting life and work at US Antarctic research stations, including McMurdo Station and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The author spent 446 days on the ice as USAP support staff, writing detailed posts about South Pole infrastructure, water systems, electrical power, and the realities of extreme cold-weather living.