This week, I’m very happy to be in the same spot, resting up for my onward travels next week. I’m in Salalah, a beach town in southern Oman that fronts the Arabian Sea. 

I want to extend a heartfelt thank you for the notes I received last week. I’m happy that you are enjoying my adventures and learning about the world in the process. 

Sharing the World, Warts & All

Here’s an especially thoughtful note on last week’s post: Destruction Tourism: Eritrea, from my friend Kelly, who writes the Substack Benthall Slow Travel:

Erin — this stayed with me. Not because it was sensational, but because you resisted the urge to aestheticize what is clearly hard, layered, and unresolved.

What struck me most was how those sites weren’t framed as spectacle, but as evidence — of history that hasn’t been metabolized yet. The graveyard, the junkyard, the scrapyard aren’t “attractions” so much as receipts. They ask the visitor to sit with cause and consequence rather than look away or tidy it up into something more comfortable.

I also appreciated the way you held two truths at once: the visible damage and the dignity, ingenuity, and warmth of the people living within it. That tension feels honest. And necessary. Too often travel writing either romanticizes resilience or flattens places into tragedy. You did neither.

This is the kind of piece that reminds me travel isn’t always about delight or escape — sometimes it’s about witnessing, without rushing to resolve what can’t be resolved quickly.

— Kelly

Here’s to continuing to open ourselves up to the world, as witnesses and participants. Let us not look away. 

Don’t miss out on my latest posts: 

🧑‍🦰 Nomad Profile: Jo from Britain shares why her concert of “unretirement” is flipping the script of a fixed income, fixed routines, & fixed location.  

❇️ Cultural Delight: What Not to Wear: Arabia Edition recounts how I’ve (mostly unsuccessfully) dressed during my Middle East adventures.

🌍 An Adventure A Week: Camel Market—Oh My! takes us back in time with a visit to Keren’s famous camel market (+ little surprise I encountered on the way). 

💰Bansko Nomad Fest Savings: Save €25 with NOMADLIFE Discount Code on a ticket to BNF: banskonomadfest.com. I’ll be there and hosting an in-person Community Meetup.

📸 Photo of the Week: Ice camping on the Antartic peninsula.

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