It’s amazing to think back and remember that, for several years between 2010 and 2013, I updated this blog twice a day with stories from the road.

It’s fun to look back and see that these entries were not simply links to polished stories I wrote elsewhere. Rather, they were first-hand accounts of my experiences and written stream-of-travel. That is, they were tales that didn’t have all the raw emotions removed and hadn’t been put under the microscope of a professional editor.

There was no context to these blog entries other than that I wrote about what I experienced, and that I experienced what I wrote about. That’s what made it fun.

They were also written at a time when I had not yet been told how things should be done, or, as was the case as the years went on, I had not yet been encouraged to adapt my style, narrow my perspective, and sharpen my angles for the needs and wants of various publications, that did things a certain way.

I’m thinking about it today because 2025 is going to look much different than I originally expected.

I have spent the last three to four years working on a separate side business, Palisade Kombucha, which we recently sold. I worked very hard on this business and it impacted how much I could travel, and how much I could write.

Indeed, I wrote rather minimally the last few years. I kept my column for Forbes, I wrote a couple pieces for CNN, and I maintained my role as the Tent Editor at Outside Magazine. I also started a small podcast in my tiny hometown. Otherwise, I pitched zero new publications from 2020 to now and I lost touch with many of the editors I used to work with. It has been hard to think of myself as a writer or a journalist anymore.

I’m okay with it—Palisade Kombucha was a fun ride, and I can again reclaim those publications—but I’m officially ready to get back to writing and to rediscover that voice I once had. Not the same voice, but a similarly honest one, with renewed emotion and reflection, in a way that once again allows the experience to be the story.

Writing here twice a day will probably never happen again. But if I can get some of that youthful Wake and Wander energy going again, I’ll be happy.

I definitely have the destinations upcoming to inspire the start of something new. Next month I’ll head to Antarctica, followed by New York City, Hawaii, the Caribbean, Montana, Austria, and Canada.

Going to try to get this place back up and running—stay tuned, and pardon the dust.