¡Hola a todos! I’m Brandon and I’m writing from Buenos Aires. My friend Tyler and I have been backpacking through the Southern Cone (specifically, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, with a short trip into Uruguay still left to do) since June 8. It has been an exhilarating experience (to the say the least), and we look forward to sharing some of our (crazy) stories here.
Tyler and I met freshman year at Harvard when we were randomly assigned to the same dorm along with three others. We have been friends since then, rushing the same fraternity (SAE) and even traveling to several destinations together (Vermont, Michigan, NYC, DC, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, India, Amsterdam, Cancun, and Belize). As may already be apparent, we have quite a bit of travel experience!
Although Tyler has lived in the suburbs of Detroit for most of his life, he’s had plenty of opportunities to travel. He’s been to most U.S. states, and besides the destinations mentioned above, he’s also visited Canada, several islands in the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Eastern and Western Europe, Japan, and Russia, where he boarded the Trans-Siberian railroad going all the way from Moscow to Lake Baikal. Tyler majored in Social Studies with a citation in French and is also an avid lover of sports, foreign cultures, and good food. He has also been trying to pick up some Spanish while down here.
As for me, my family and I have moved around quite a bit. Dallas, L.A., Mexico City, St. Louis, New Orleans, and Beirut have all been homes to me, and now my family is living in Bangkok. Thanks to my family’s work as well as opportunities provided in college, I have traveled to most U.S. states, Canada, the Bahamas, Panama, Brazil, Eastern and Western Europe, Turkey, Egypt, Southern Africa, China, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. I majored in Government while also earning a Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies. I’m also a native Spanish speaker and speak fluent French, advanced Arabic and Portuguese, and conversational Italian.
Although we sometimes clash due to our different personalities, one thing unites us in the end: our passion for crazy, wild, ridiculous, awesome travel experiences. We just returned from Santiago, Chile earlier today after a 22-hour journey across the snow-capped, jagged Andes, so we are exhausted, but we will post again in a few days with details on the past 5 weeks. ¡Hasta luego!