I'm originally from a suburb of New York City, though I've been around the world several times since arriving in Tokyo. While studying anthropology at Harvard, I spent a year living in tiny villages in Costa Rica, Thailand and Southern Africa. During this time, I also developed my passion for adventure travel. I drove an old Ford car from Cape Town, South Africa to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and experienced everything from angry elephants to hungry crocodiles - you can imagine how bored I was when I returned to America. So, after graduating university, I decided not to get a 'real job' and instead moved to China. After teaching English at a small university in Qingdao, I decided to delay the 'real world' and move to Tokyo. I worked for a year as a bartender in Roppongi, and used this time to teach myself Japanese. I also taught English on the side, and helped several of my students learn enough English to go abroad.I also used this time to explore more of Asia, and drove through Vietnam and Cambodia on an old motorcycle. Life for me was really interesting, though I eventually decided that it was time to go back to school. Although it was really hard to say goodbye to fresh green tea and sushi, I moved to the UK to start a masters degree in public health at Cambridge. During graduate school, I ran the student bar in my college, and spent my weekends jet-setting around Europe and ignoring my studies. Although I somehow managed to graduate, I realized that public health wasn't for me, and decided that there was still much more of the world to explore. So, I cleaned up my old backpack, and started traveling through North Africa and the Middle East. My highlights were exploring the dunes of the Sahara desert in an old Volkswagon and exploring the hookah cafes of Istanbul. After a lot of encouragement from my friends and family, I decided to turn my hobby into a profession, and became a travel writer. In the last two years, I've written books, magazine articles and newspaper columns, and I've spent time in over 20 countries on 5 different continents. Right now, I'm living in Tokyo and working on a book about Panama, and I teach English on the side to students of all ages. This is my 10th time in Japan, and I really like teaching English to Japanese people, especially since they are always so motivated to learn. I also think that I am a fun and energetic person, who makes learning as fun as it should be!