Joel Balsam

Spent nearly three months research and writing the Armenia chapter of this Lonely Planet guidebook.

In ovens across Oaxaca, bakers are raising the dead.

A longform feature about a man saving the world's largest viper and the potential in their venom to save human lives, rather than take them.

Photographer Stephanie Foden and I travelled with Adventure Canada from western Nunavut to Greenland across the Northwest Passage, a route that's only recently become accessible due to climate change. The feature was available on American Airlines flights throughout the month of March and online.

What do you think of when you think of a cowboy? A gun-slinging John Wayne type? As my first story for The Guardian shows, there's a whole other group of cowboys that are left out of the mainstream narrative.

I spent the beginning of 2019 living in the Mexico City's Colonia Roma, and wrote a guide & story about the neighborhood for Travel + Leisure.

Descendants of French-speaking Acadians in Louisiana saw their culture and language slip away in the 20th century. Now, a new generation of proud Francophones is leading a resurgence.

I ventured deep into the Amazon to profile surfers (and a surfing dog) riding rare tidal bore waves.

From finding a campsite to keeping clean.

Poutine, bagels, smoked meat, and Portuguese chicken. Look at any food round-up of Montreal dishes and you’ll see these four items listed as essential, signature foods. But how did piri piri chicken, a dish that wasn’t even a traditional component of Portuguese cuisine before the 1970s, end up here?

Deep in the Black Rock Desert—and arguably even deeper into the Burning man experience—a hardy crew of cancer patients are burying their diagnoses in the dust.

When a massive earthquake struck Armenia in 1988 it killed 25,000–50,000 and displaced many more. After the earthquake, some of the displaced ended up moving into the shipping containers that held their supplies, but over 30 years later nearly 3,000 people still live in these metal boxes. While I was in Armenia I visited two shipping container communities and wrote about it for a new publication called Horizon Guides

Cross-country skiing, or Nordic skiing, has all the components of a perfect pandemic pastime — it can be done alone or in a bubble to adhere to public health guidelines, you can ski as long as there's even a skiff of snow and injuries are rare. "It's safer than walking now that everything's so slippery," says Chandra Crawford, who won the gold medal for Canada in the 1.1km cross-country sprint at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.

Old-school vibes. Modern amenities. Bean-shaped pools.

Best advice from passionate Canadian RVers