In the 1990s my main focus was travel. My recreational reading was mostly travel books.

On my year long trip to Asia, I emailed text and a few crappy photos to Warren who posted them to early blogging platforms.

I recall checking books like 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. Travel for travel’s sake.

After hiking the West Coast Trail for the first time in 1999, I decide to switch to what I called destination travel. I’d travel to do something specific — a specific hike, for example. I’d travel less, but with a GOAL.

The first blogging I did was on WordPress.org, launched 2003. For a couple of years before that I hand coded HTML which was difficult.

Matthew Kepnes — Nomadic Matt — started traveling abroad in 2005 and quickly became one of the most popular on the web. The site is still going strong as Matt hired a team of 5 people to keep it going.

Matt traveled nearly non-stop for 10 years. And then wrote a memoir.

Ten Years a Nomad: A Traveler’s Journey Home

I found it surprisingly honest. Matt spends more time detailing the MANY things that went wrong than humble bragging his awesome accomplishments.

It would be a good book for 1st time backpackers to read on the way to the hostel.

Note — the guy famous for dancing around the world in the early days of YouTube was another Matt — Matt Harding. I confused the two for years.