About

Hi, I'm Z — the extra letter in FaranoZ is my signature. This is where I keep my travel notes: the trips I've actually taken, and the ones I've researched into the ground long before booking a flight.

By day I'm a scientist, which mostly means I can't leave a thing alone until I understand how it works. That turns out to be the wrong temperament for casual travel and exactly the right one for keeping a travel blog. I'm the person who reads the permit-lottery fine print for fun, maps the water sources before a backpacking trip, and still can't sleep the night before a trailhead. This is where I write all of that down.

Most of it comes straight off the ground — Half Dome's cables, the sandstone at The Wave, a pre-dawn push up a volcano in Guatemala, harbour trails in Hong Kong, and plenty of quieter days closer to home in New Jersey. The rest comes from maps, permit sites, and other travelers' trip reports, checked and cross-checked until it's worth trusting. Next on the list is the W Trek in Patagonia, so expect the research rabbit holes to only get deeper.

A camera is never far behind — one for the careful shots, a rugged one for anything that involves getting wet or scrambling. Good light and a good view are hard things to walk past.

What you'll find here

Four kinds of posts, depending on what you need. A guide covers what to see and how to plan around it. An itinerary lays out the days. A journal is closer to notes from the road — first-person, less polished. Tips are the narrow, practical stuff: budgets, permits, what to pack and what to skip. Everything is filed by the place it's about, with theme tags — hiking, permits, budget, food, and the rest — cutting across for when you know what you want but not yet where.

A sister site

FaranoZ has a sister project, CuppanoZ. Our sister site — coffee, tea, and slow mornings. Same "Z" signature, same one-person-taking-a-hobby-too-far energy, different subject.

Say hello

Questions, corrections, or a place worth covering? I'd love to hear from you. And if you're curious how the affiliate links (and, eventually, a few small ads) work here, it's all on the disclosure page. Thanks for stopping by.

— Z