I’ve been a traveler my whole life, having lived in six houses in three U.S. states before my 18th birthday. In 2005, the year I turned 20, I took my first trip to Europe; by 30 I had been to nearly 100 countries and was one of the most prolific traveler bloggers on the planet.

Business and leisure trips notwithstanding, I’ve also completed several stints as an expatriate, primarily in Asia. Most recently, I followed up two years in Bangkok, Thailand with 18 months in Taiwan’s capital Taipei, before living in Kyoto, Japan for most of 2021. As of 2022, I base myself in a charming historical district of St. Louis, MO, my hometown.

I launched the blog Leave Your Daily Hell in late 2009, first to chronicle my short-lived career as an English teacher in Shanghai, then to document my increasingly expansive travels. By the mid-2010s, it had become one of the most trusted independent travel publications on the web.

Since then, I’ve created several country-specific niche sites, starting in 2018 with Japan Starts Here, whose popularity grew exponentially in the lead up to the Tokyo Olympics. Taiwan Starts Here and Thailand Starts Here are poised to take off as soon as the respective nations they document re-open borders in the wake of Covid-19.