• A Look Back at 2014

    I began 2014 completely exhausted after coming off several months of much-too-fast travel and without any sort of direction. Do I keep traveling even though the thought of being on the go makes my stomach hurt? Or do I lie low and go back to work even though the thought of sitting in a cubicle

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  • Ethics of Travel

    When I visited Dubai a few months ago, I ran across quite a few naysayers; people who disagreed with my choice to travel there because of their moral objections to the city. As a traveler (and wanna-be anthropologist), my goal is to visit and observe a place and its people. I am not there to

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  • Photo Friday: Jumeirah Beach, Dubai

    I visited Dubai with a friend who’d been a couple of times before, so while there, I allowed him to take a sort of tour guide role, showing me the best of what Dubai had to offer. I knew I wanted to get photos of the city’s skyline and he wanted to show me the

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  • Dubai, the City of Contrasts

    Dubai is an interesting city of contrasts. This young city was built on the backs of hard-working and grossly underpaid expats—Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos—yet it’s almost a futuristic theme park for the wealthy. When looking around, it’s hard to see what is truly authentic and what is just here for show. Though, I suppose

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  • What to Wear in Dubai

    Before my trip to Dubai, I was sort of torn about what to pack. I knew that the United Arab Emirates was Muslim, and thus I’d probably need to be mostly covered, but I’d also read that Dubai was sort of a fashion metropolis, jam-packed with malls teeming with awesome clothing stores. So–what do I

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  • Foodie Friday: Samosa + Chai = Love

    One of the things I loved the most about Dubai was the huge population of Indians and Pakistanis. Of course this is for purely selfish reasons: it’s my favorite cuisine.. ever. (In fact, my friends would probably tell you that it isn’t even worth asking me what kind of food I want to eat when

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