Keith Martin

explorerkeith

Keith Martin

I am from Georgia, but I have lived in California for the past few years. I have been working as an engineer since I got out of school six years ago. I have grown tired of working the never changing rat race of ‘normal life’, so I am embarking on a multi-year round the world journey, a retirement of sorts, beginning with a winter contract job in Antarctica. From there, who knows where I will go, but I plan on seeing the whole world and all of the unique cultures, remote wildernesses and amazing history that this planet has to offer. I am planning on traveling as inexpensively as possible, without sacrificing the quality of the adventure, but I am also going to work along the way to help cover my expenses.

Update: 03/03/2008 - I am taking a break from life on the road for a while. I am going to get my blogs up to date over the next several months.

Update: 17th June, 2009 - I am just back from a two month adventure in the Peruvian Amazon. I am working on getting my blogs up to date, but first I am going to write about the Amazon - Stay tuned for the long overdue blogs on Greece and the Middle East. I will be heading to Scandinavia and the Arctic for another sailing adventure at the end of July.



North America » United States » Florida » Keys » Key West December 1st 2014

There we sat at the edge of Marathon Key in a parking area at the beginning of the Seven Mile Bridge. The rain that had been accompanying us for the whole drive had finally broken and, while the dark clouds were still threatening, we were determined to complete the last part of the drive with the top down. The only problem was it was the first time we had ever rented a convertible and we had no idea how to get it to go down! We had done the obvious things like releasing the latch and pushing the button that had an image of the car with the top opening on it, but all we got was a warning that the top was not secure and a beep. As any modern, tech savvy person would do, ... read more
At The Gardens Hotel 1
Art Deco in South Beach 6
South Beach

Europe » Norway » Eastern Norway July 13th 2014

I have always loved tall ships. I have been lucky enough to sail on three different ships from afternoon-long mock battle voyages to an epic, two month long crossing of the Southern Ocean. While sailing on the ships is the pinnacle of excitement for me, another experience revolving around tall ships has intrigued me for years. The closest I had come to attending was in San Francisco when I found out about the event the day the ships were sailing out of the bay and I could only watch them leave from a distance. It was there that I first saw the bark Europa, which, several years later, I helped sail from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope. After years of dreaming, I finally got to attend The Tall Ship Races! It happened by ... read more
Exploring Fredrikstad 1
The Bark Europa 1
A Sea of Masts


We were considering going to the Caribbean coast for the remainder of our stay in Costa Rica. We asked a few people in Monteverde how long it should take us to drive there and they each told us something different, ranging from a manageable 6 hour journey to an epic, stay-in-the-car-for-the-rest-of-the-day slog of 10+ hours, and each of them gave us their answer while making a face that told us they though it was way too far for us to consider in a day’s journey. Google Maps was the most optimistic, suggesting a comical 5-hour driving time – We knew that was not likely, since we had had to double the Google Maps driving time everywhere we had gone in Costa Rica. We set off from Monteverde determined to make the idyllic, palm-lined shores of the ... read more
A Squirrel Monkey
A Capuchin Monkey From Our Balcony
From Our Balcony 1


Monteverde was one of Costa Rica’s top attractions. Its cloud forests formed an otherworldly landscape of misty forest vistas and rolling mountains that are home to a stunning array of wildlife. It is a bird-watchers’ paradise that draws people from all over the world who come hoping to get a glimpse of its most famous avian resident the emerald green and red resplendent quetzal. The main town in the region is Santa Elena, a compact tourist town with a laid-back feeling about it. We arrived in Santa Elena at around 2:00 in the afternoon. Our journey from Bijagua had been long, but enjoyable. The majority of the drive was on paved roads and, with the exception of a one-lane construction zone where I got to carry the red flag signifying that I was the last car ... read more
Exploring Monteverde Cloud Forest 1
Exploring Monteverde Cloud Forest 2
Exploring Monteverde Cloud Forest 3


Driving in Costa Rica was proving to be a frustrating experience. The distances were short – Costa Rica was about the size of North Georgia – but the travel times were long. We were learning that if Google Maps said it should take two and a half hours that we needed to double it and if a Costa Rican said it should take an hour and a half it would be more like four. The trouble was that the posted speed limits were slow and the roads were uniformly bad. There were some nice paved roads, but even they were clogged with traffic and slowed by frequent towns and even more frequent school zones. There were unmarked speed bumps, absurdly aggressive drivers, potholes the size of small cars – we were driving a small car – ... read more
Plato Tipico
Crossing the Blue River
Looking Over Lago Arenal


There we stood on the balcony overlooking the mist-shrouded peak of the volcano. To our left through the mist we could see the distant shores of the huge man made lake that shared the volcano’s name - Arenal. The thick mist filled my mind with mystery and set my imagination running wild. I knew there was a volcano there and I knew what it should look like, but the only hint I got was a small piece of steep, rocky slope on the mountain’s western flank and a bunch of misty whiteness. We decided to return to the lodge later for lunch and we turned our backs to the misty mountain and set off on our first walk in Costa Rica. The paths we started on were well paved and beautifully landscaped with lush flowering plants ... read more
Exploring Arenal 5
Over the Caribbean
Volcan Arenal


I will always remember the happenings of that week in late October 2012. I remember following the hurricane as it skirted the coast and watching the path of the small ship that was sailing south with all of its might trying to avoid the hurricane’s wrath. I didn’t like how close the two were to each other on the map and each dispatch I read filled my heart with dread, and a little bit of excitement. The sensible part of me, along with most of the media, questioned the events and decisions that put the grand old tall ship in the path of such a formidable storm. The adventurer in me longed for the golden age of the tall ships and windjammers, before satellites and accurate weather forecasts, when the toughest mariners to sail the seas ... read more
The Wright Brothers Memorial 1
Orville Wright
The Bodie Island Lighthouse 4


The early days of aviation have always had a special place in my heart. Orville and Wilbur Wright, Charles Lindbergh, and Amelia Earhart are all names that evoke images of adventure and glamour in my mind. They and other aviation pioneers pushed the bounds of what was considered possible and, with the help of their amazing flying machines, ushered in a new age. The planes of the era were simple machines that defied all of the rules that had kept humanity on the ground. I have always loved the graceful lines and the throaty rumble of the early planes and I have always wanted to soar through the sky in an open cockpit plane. It was my love of the old planes and our insatiable sense of adventure that forced us off of the bike path. ... read more
Flying Over the Salt Marsh 15
Sunset Over the Marsh 1
The Aviators

North America » United States » Florida September 1st 2012

It had been a long time since I had taken more than a few days off to explore the area around my home. When I was young my family vacations were always road trips. We would visit Florida, and Tennessee, and occasionally we would drive up the east coast through Virginia and Ohio to see family, once we even drove through New York to Canada to see Niagara Falls. Those trips were always a lot of fun and very educational. In my adult life, road trips had not played a big part of my travel plans. Despite all of the traveling I had done and my love of the journey, I had fallen into the trap that is so common in America with our short vacations. Most of our recent local travel plans involved short weekend ... read more
Wakulla Springs 9
St. Mark's Lighthouse
Wakulla Springs 18

North America » United States » Virginia » Richmond June 25th 2011

It seems like I have known of Virginia’s James River Plantations for my whole life. My knowledge was not based on the historical importance of the great plantations, but on my mom’s fond memories of spending time amongst them when she was a teenager. She had a friend whose parents lived there and she frequently got to visit. Here is the story in my mom’s own words: “Often we would go to Anne’s home in Charles City. Her parents rented a house that had been the caretaker’s residence on the Westover Plantation. They couldn’t buy the house because it was in the middle of the plantation but they didn’t want to live anywhere else. Anne’s mother was the one that introduced me to cream cheese and olive sandwiches. I love them still today. I used to ... read more
The Escape Tunnel - Westover Plantation
Exploring Berkeley Plantation 14
Exploring Berkeley Plantation 1




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