Today I’m releasing Man Bites Dog! a downloadable PDF guide to raising a ridiculous amount of money for charity through creative endeavor.

Over the summers of 2013 and 2014, I raised over $100,000 for charity with two attention-demanding, audacious undertakings. First, my brother and I pedaled bicycles 4,450 miles across the USA for the children's hospital that saved my life. The following summer, I backpacked 200+ miles through the Sierra Nevada mountains to “summit” both type-1-diabetes and the highest mountain in the contiguous United States with my younger sister.

Mostly thanks to an article on Bicycle Touring Pro, I've been privately advising others on the process since. Two years ago, I thought it worthwhile to write down my formula to distribute on a larger scale. After picking up and putting down the project a couple of times, reworking the structure, and putting more time into these fifty-six pages than I’d like to admit, and it’s finally finished!

“To travel or not to travel?” is the most common question I receive as a writer of wanderings and thrifty travels.

Whether the aim is a specific place (especially Hawaii and New Zealand), a specific way (by bicycle or in a Honda Element home on wheels), a specific job (deckhand for American Cruise Lines, season work through CoolWorks), or a general inquiry about whether to travel or not, I answer this question in one form or another dozens of times each year.

A couple months ago, I received a general ask of the “to travel or not to travel?” question and figured I’d publish my response, highlighting my approach to the question and offering a bit of insight into why I venture out.

This year was a year of discovery and evolution for me.

From life lived from a Honda Element to five months in the mountains just outside Yellowstone National Park to discovering the inner half of the human experience in a ten-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat, the lens through which I view the world was reshaped more in the past year than any year since a stroke quaked the core of my being at sixteen.

Perhaps the most important lesson from all this change was that we will continue to be shaped and reshaped as long as we remain open to the world. An unchanging worldview is not a sign that we've got it all right, but that we lack exposure to new experiences or are blind to what those experiences teach.

A highlight reel of WONDER WANDER 2018, by Christopher Bellizzi.

From September 21st to 25th I hosted WONDER WANDER 2018, a gathering of adventurous and creative souls at The Range Rider's Lodge—the stunning, old log-cabin lodge I run in the summertime a mile outside Yellowstone National Park.

Ten hours a day for ten days straight, I sat meditating (or attempting to at least). Not to short-change past endeavors, like recovering from a brain-damaging stroke or pedaling a bicycle across the United States, but it might have been the most intense, challenging experience of my life to date. It was also one of the best.

What follows is part story, part review: why I signed up, my experience, and why I believe that—if one can handle it—a ten-day Vipassana meditation course is one of the best experiences a human can have.

From September 21st to 25th I hosted WONDER WANDER 2018, a gathering of adventurous and creative humans at The Range Rider's Lodge—the stunning, old log-cabin lodge I run in the summertime a mile outside Yellowstone National Park.

Never have I hosted such an event before, I had no notions of how it would turn out or who would turn up. What transpired was different, and better, than I ever imagined.

Perhaps because I'd been working so much, I stumbled upon a personally new form of wonder this summer. It first happened with Henry, the owner of the lodge I manage seasonally, while troubleshooting the satellite internet dish at his place over the phone.

Amid a twelve-hour workday tasked with one of many items on the day's to-do-list, my focus on the details relevant to fixing the satellite dish suddenly broke and just fell away.

It was like I'd spent the last two months in a sunny field with a microscope, moving from blade of grass to blade of grass, agonizing over the smallest fragments of the whole field when I suddenly went, “You know what, I'm gonna lift my head up and look around for a moment.”

The phrase, “To see the sights!” is one of the most common Airbnb booking messages I receive as manager of a lodge a mile outside the northeast gate of Yellowstone National Park.

It’s a limiting, yet apt phrase, as many who visit our national parks get caught up in “seeing” a national park—reducing one of life's most immersive, transcendent experiences to simple observation.

The point is not to merely observe Yosemite's monolithic walls, the striated eons of the Petrified Forest, or Yellowstone's swirling of geologic, plant, and animal life, but to feel connected to Earth’s eternal procession. To recognize we are a part, not apart from, these fantastical displays of nature, evokes profound awe and mysticism within us that has been all but extinguished from our day-to-day lives.

I wasn't sure if this was the exact spot until, climbing down the black rocks of the seawall, I suddenly remembered their placement. This was it. I had hopped down this exact path to the beach nearly five years ago.

Reid and I were overwhelmed with waves of emotion. Pride, that we pedaled bicycles across the United States. Relief, that we survived. Despair, that it was over. Fear, that life might never be so good again. Frustration too, as we waited for Rob to pick out this spot, a five-minute eternity in a motel parking lot. That motel being the last obstacle between us and the Pacific.

Amid the emotional storm, this was the big payoff scene. The moment the Arizona Republic and NBC had paid to send Rob, the same photographer they send to the Olympics, on a drive from Phoenix to Oregon to capture. Much hinged on this footage, not just for us, but for Rob, who had surely stuck his neck out a bit to dub his neighbor's cross-country bike ride for the local children's hospital worthy of the financial investment.

Sometimes, people ask if that illness still affects me.

“Not that I notice," I usually reply, "except that I live more for now, as I don't know if I'll have later.”

Most people respond in defense of later.

“You can't just ignore the future! If you do, you might end up in a situation you don't like.”

Does it have to be one way or the other, though? Can we not divvy our focus between the two? Perhaps what I should say is, “Before the illness, I was focused primarily on the future, with an eye on the present. Today, I focus primarily on the present, with an eye on the future.”

In school, we were taught about the migratory patterns of animals—south for the winter, north for the summer, etc. What we were not taught was that animals are not the only migratory inhabitants of Earth.

Little-known for its migratory nature, the rental car also heads for more temperate climates in the fall and spring each year in search of more frequent renters. Unlike most migratory species, though, the rental car is unable to migrate without a driver.

This is where we come in.

At the right time of the season, we can enter into a symbiotic relationship with a rental car and drive from one climate to another, at little cost to us. This gets a rental car where it wants to go, and gives us an abnormally inexpensive opportunity to fulfill our great American road trip dreams.

Two years ago, I posted an article titled, Why You Should Stop Watching TV and Be More Like Bruce Dickinson declaring my intention to stop watching television after encountering some startling statistics:

• The average US citizen spends 2.8 hours per day watching TV.
• Over an 80 year lifespan, that amounts to 9.3 years of passively staring at a screen.
• In comparison, we spend 1.6 years in school (K-12) and 10.3 years of our lives working.

Confronted with these figures, I saw a huge waste of time and an opportunity. There were much better ways to spend more than 10% of my life than passively staring at a screen. Two years ago, when I published that article, I cut all watching out of my life entirely: I stopped watching television, movies, YouTube... everything.

As someone who writes about full, vibrant living, you'd be surprised by how often I think about death. A decade ago, a mosquito bite nearly killed me, and since, the thought of death has yet to escape my head.

At first, this dark thought was maintained by the shock of how close I had ventured to life's edge. However, I began stumbling upon benefits of having the thought of death in mind. Benefits in big ways: realizing the future was more of a question mark than a guarantee, I placed more value in the present. And smaller ways: death's consideration made public speaking less intimidating. After nearly a decade of toying with the thought of death and its various surprising effects, it recently dawned on me: remembering that you are going to die is the ultimate catalyst for a better life.

I found myself frustrated and stuck in Las Cruces, New Mexico last week.

Due to our federal government shutdown, I was locked out of White Sands National Monument and driving down to Big Bend National Park wasn't any more promising. Congress appeared gridlocked. The weather was uncharacteristically cold and gusty—and when I say gusty—I mean blow the lid of your peanut butter jar away at fifty miles per hour while you're making a PB&J kind of gusty.

Cold, confined, and unsure where to head next, the realities of life lived from a vehicle seemed leveraged against me.

It took almost a month, but I have finished converting my Honda Element into a tiny home on wheels!

As someone who works seasonally and uses the majority of their year to travel, read, and write, the nomadic "van life" has always appealed to me. With no rent to pay, the ability to move home anywhere at any time, and the resulting focus of such minimalism, I intend my near future to be a rare combination of adventure and productivity.

A couple weeks ago, I finished converting my Honda Element into the world's tiniest home on wheels. As a dude who travels with little interior design experience, the conversion came out better than I could have imagined.

One of the main features that took my Element from livable to friggin' sweet are its patterned fabric blackout windows. Made with a shiny, insulating material called Reflectix, most projects using this material end up feel like the inside of a low budget spaceship. I wanted a more homey, bright look to my space that didn't feel quite so shoddy or depressing. Patterned fabric, adhesive spray, and black duct tape proved the perfect solution.

In addition to looking great on the inside, these window shades blackout virtually all outside light. They also make it impossible to see into my Element, so I can comfortably sleep, with complete privacy, anywhere I'm allowed to park.

We've been taught that the good life is found in comfort—in luxury, in relaxation, and in doing as little as possible. Those best living the American Dream have the constant experience of the highest comfort with butlers, drivers, cooks, maids, secretaries, and assistants to anticipate their every want and need. At that pinnacle of comfort, one shouldn't have to do so much as lift a finger, every desire as satiated as possible in every moment.

Is constant comfort, ease, and luxury the real pinnacle of human experience, though? The rightful aim of the western world?

I don't think so. In fact, I've increasingly come to see comfort as false gratification, as the wrong target most are unknowingly aimed at.

In the USA, comfort is our false idol.

Inspired by two books I read this spring, I started a philosophy discussion group in Silver Gate, Montana this summer.

My first encounter with the idea came from Shantaram, an incredible chronicle of an adventure in which the main character is swept up from the slums of Bombay into the city's all-powerful mafia. His first encounters with the mafia leaders occur at their monthly philosophy meetings. The second encounter came in Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, where I learned of Franklin's Junto, a weekly discussion group composed of a dozen rising tradesmen and artisans in Philadelphia.

In both books, these discussion groups seemed a vital ingredient for success, communication, and organization of both character's communities. I simply thought, "Why not try to start my own?"

I released an application a couple weeks ago for a Chautauqua, a gathering with the purpose of exchanging ideas about how to live. It was meant to be a six-day experience of wilderness, introspection, and discussion hosted at the Range Rider's Lodge—a big, beautiful log cabin structure I manage in the summertime located a mere mile outside of Yellowstone National Park.

As the innkeeper of the Range Rider, I got a sweet deal to rent the entire building at the end of September. By day, I envisioned long hikes, mountain climbing, wolf watching, and exploration of some of Yellowstone's best, often overlooked areas. By night, a couple speeches and small group discussion of the things that underlie our actions in life. I envisioned us riding the high of alpine forests and breathtaking mountain vistas while we shared the whys and hows of our lives.

I was damn excited about this.