Middle of Somewhere, United Arab Emirates (click photo to enlarge)

Andy Stoll is a filmmaker, writer, social entrepreneur and independent traveler from the heartland of America. In August 2006, he set out on what has become a 3.5 year unscripted, solo, independent trip around the globe, in an effort to better understand how people live in this world. His stories, his discoveries and the people he meets along the way, are documented on this travelogue with new content posted regularly.  Along with entertaining stories and personal insights into the world, he’ll share the lessons learned about independent, long-term around-the-world travel in hopes of inspiring you to set out on an adventure of your own.

While on his trip around-the-world, Andy went in search of experiences that would give him a better first person understanding of how the world works: he handed out microloans in China, fired a machine gun in Vietnam, played a 19th Century British soldier in a Bollywood movie, worked in a dress factory for 60 cents an hour in Bangkok and lived with monks in a Buddhist temple in Korea. He shared beers with nomadic Tibetan herders, drank gluwein with German engineers, sipped vodka with Russian grandmas and cooked apple pie on Armenian national television. He learned to snowboard in the Swiss Alps, stepped off the world’s highest bungee jump in South Africa, dipped his feet in the Persian Gulf, slept in a capsule hotel in Tokyo, threw a Halloween party for school kids in the rural steppe of Kazakhstan and celebrated the holiest of Hindu festivals in Rajasthan. He lived the life of a maize farmer in Zambia, a fisherman in China and a cowboy in the Australian Outback.

About Me

I am a late-twenty-something optimist from the US that has never really fit well into boxes. I am a bi-racial Japanese/German America, born and raised in the heartland of America and schooled in the multicultural inner city of Omaha, the farm fields of Iowa and the bustling neon-lit streets of Hong Kong. I studied filmmaking, media, entrepreneurship and business management in school. I’ve worked in film/television making; co-founded a nonprofit creativity and community-building, social entrepreneurial incubator; and have also been known to work both as a bartender and a cooking instructor for fun. My interests converge at the intersection of entrepreneurship, creativity and community. I strive to enjoy the experience of living.

Learn more about how my around-the-world trip came to be, see a map of my travels, meet my traveling cow-panion, and get answers to some of the most frequently asked questions.

You can learn more about me at www.andystoll.net.

I welcome your comments, questions and thoughts throughout this website or via email, or follow along on Facebook and Twitter as the adventures unfold.