Travel Destinations
Explore travel destinations shaped by firsthand journeys, honest stories, and places still calling from beyond the map. From my home base in Portugal to Camino trails, Moroccan medinas, and future adventures, follow the road beyond the crowded highlights and discover what each destination feels like after the postcard moment ends.
By Carter Lowry | Portugal resident, travel filmmaker, and founder of Atypical Vagabond
Last updated: August 2026
Travel destinations are more than coordinates, famous landmarks, and another pin dropped onto an increasingly crowded map. The best places challenge your assumptions, interrupt your routine, and occasionally make you wonder why the hill looked considerably smaller on Google Maps.
I’m Carter, the traveler, filmmaker, and occasional wrong-turn specialist behind Atypical Vagabond. From my home base in Coimbra, Portugal, I explore historic cities, overlooked villages, pilgrimage trails, local cultures, and the wonderfully strange corners that hurried travelers often miss.
Some destinations below come from firsthand journeys I have already documented with my camera, notebook, and increasingly opinionated feet. Others remain on my future travel map. I will always distinguish between places I know personally and places I am still preparing to explore.
Start With Portugal
Portugal began as another travel destination. Then it became home.
Living in Coimbra has allowed me to experience the country beyond a rushed Lisbon–Porto itinerary. I have wandered through medieval villages, followed mountain roads, explored Roman ruins, stood beneath Atlantic waves that appeared to have personal grievances, and returned to places long enough to notice how they change with the seasons.
Whether you are planning your first Portuguese vacation or searching for somewhere beyond the standard tourist circuit, this is the strongest and most detailed destination collection on Atypical Vagabond.
Explore:
Travel Destinations I Have Explored
Europe
Europe currently occupies the loudest section of this website—and Portugal is largely responsible.
My journeys have taken me through Portugal, Spain, France, Germany, and other parts of the continent. However, the most transformative European experience has been walking the Camino de Santiago. Crossing from France into Spain at the speed of sore feet revealed details that disappear through the window of a train or rental car.
Europe rewards travelers who slow down. Its famous cities deserve attention, but so do the villages, neighborhood cafés, old pilgrimage paths, regional festivals, and places that never appear on a “Ten Things You Must See Before Lunch” itinerary.
Start exploring:
- Portugal travel stories and destination guides
- Camino de Santiago guides and stories
- Why slow travel changed my life
Africa
Morocco was not a quiet introduction to Africa—and that was precisely why it stayed with me.
Marrakesh arrives through sound, movement, food, color, crowded streets, hidden courtyards, and the occasional moment when you realize you have absolutely no idea which direction you are walking. It demands attention instead of allowing you to observe safely from a distance.
My Morocco stories explore more than attractions. They examine how the country felt, what surprised me, and why unfamiliar places often become the journeys we remember most clearly.
Explore:
North America
North America is where my journey began.
I grew up near Kansas City before life carried me through different parts of the United States and eventually overseas. Traveling abroad changed how I understood home, but leaving also helped me see North America with a more critical—and more appreciative—eye.
Mexico added another layer to that education. Its history, food, landscapes, and communities reminded me that national borders rarely explain the full cultural story of a place.
Read more about the journey that took me from Kansas City to Portugal.
South America
Ecuador changed my relationship with language and travel.
Studying Spanish in Loja meant participating in ordinary life instead of simply moving through attractions. Language study made every interaction more vulnerable, occasionally more confusing, and ultimately more meaningful. It demonstrated why remaining in one place can reveal more than racing through several countries.
More South American destination stories will appear as I return to the continent and explore it with the time and attention it deserves.
Asia and the Middle East
A biology field trip took me to Jordan, where science, landscape, history, and culture collided in ways no classroom could reproduce.
That journey helped establish something I still believe: travel should make us more curious, not more certain. A destination becomes meaningful when we allow it to challenge what we thought we understood.
Jordan will eventually be joined by deeper coverage of Asia and the Middle East as future journeys move from the planning board to the road.
Future Travel Destinations
This map is deliberately unfinished.
Central America, Oceania, more of Asia, and a deeper return to Africa and South America remain ahead. Those sections will grow when I have meaningful stories, useful research, and firsthand experiences worth sharing.
I am not interested in manufacturing expertise about places I have never visited. The internet already has enough travel pages calling every beach “pristine,” every village “charming,” and every mountain “breathtaking.” Apparently, ordinary breathing has become impossible once someone packs a suitcase.
Future destination coverage will include:
- Firsthand destination guides
- Honest travel stories
- Practical itineraries and transportation advice
- Local history and culture
- Hidden places beyond the standard tourism circuit
- Videos showing what the journey actually looked and felt like
Currently on My Travel Radar
Cabo Verde and Italy are two countries I hope to explore, while Barcelona and Toulouse are two European cities that continue occupying a suspicious number of my browser tabs.
These are still future journeys rather than firsthand destination guides. I have not visited them yet, and I will not pretend otherwise. For now, they represent possibilities—the next chapters waiting somewhere beyond the current map.
Cabo Verde
Cabo Verde fascinates me because it feels connected to Portugal while remaining unmistakably its own place.
Its Portuguese and Creole influences, Atlantic island culture, music, volcanic landscapes, and relationship with the sea make it especially compelling. Living in Portugal has made me curious about the wider Portuguese-speaking world and the different identities that emerged from that complicated history.
My background in biology also makes island environments difficult to resist. Islands often develop unusual ecosystems, adaptations, and relationships between people and limited natural resources. Cabo Verde offers the kind of journey where culture, history, geology, and biology overlap—and that is usually where my curiosity becomes expensive.
I do not want to visit simply to photograph a beach and leave. I want enough time to understand how the islands differ, listen to local stories, experience the music, and explore the landscapes beyond the resorts.
Italy
Italy has been calling for an entirely different collection of reasons.
The country’s regional identities, ancient history, architecture, food traditions, rail connections, and gloriously stubborn relationship with the past make it ideal for slow travel. Italy is not one experience wearing a boot-shaped costume. Rome, Naples, Bologna, Florence, Sicily, and the smaller towns between them each carry their own rhythms and identities.
I am particularly interested in exploring Italy without reducing it to a race between famous monuments. I want to walk the neighborhoods, take regional trains, visit markets, follow Roman history into less obvious places, and discover the towns travelers miss while sprinting between Rome and Venice.
Italy feels like a country that rewards repetition. One trip would probably answer several questions and create twenty new ones—which is generally how I know a destination is worth pursuing.
Barcelona, Spain
Walking the Camino introduced me to Spain slowly, one yellow arrow and aching kilometer at a time. Barcelona would reveal a very different side of the country.
I am drawn to its architecture, Mediterranean character, neighborhood culture, creative energy, and rebellious streak. Barcelona has famous attractions, but I am more interested in what exists beyond the greatest-hits playlist: local markets, overlooked streets, independent music, everyday conversations, and the tension between a living city and a destination visited by millions.
The challenge will be experiencing Barcelona without allowing its popularity to dictate the entire journey. That sounds exactly like the kind of challenge Atypical Vagabond should accept.
Toulouse, France
Toulouse attracts me because it seems to occupy an interesting space between major destination and overlooked city.
Its distinctive brick architecture, southern French atmosphere, markets, music, aviation history, and proximity to the Pyrenees make it a natural fit for my interests. It also offers the possibility of exploring France beyond Paris and understanding a city with strong regional character.
I am especially curious about how Toulouse connects with the landscapes and cultures of southwestern France. It feels like the kind of place where staying several days, wandering without an aggressive itinerary, and accepting a few questionable turns could produce a better story than chasing a checklist.
Why I Keep Looking Ahead
I love travel because it refuses to let the world become ordinary.
A new destination changes the questions I ask. It challenges assumptions I did not realize I carried and reminds me that no culture, country, or city can be understood through a handful of photographs. Travel has taught me to become more adaptable, more curious, and slightly less confident whenever I think I have everything figured out.
Cabo Verde, Italy, Barcelona, and Toulouse are not trophies waiting to be collected. They are places I hope to experience slowly, honestly, and with enough attention to bring home something more meaningful than footage.
When those journeys happen, these sections will grow into firsthand stories, practical destination guides, photographs, and videos. Until then, they remain what every future adventure begins as:
A reason to keep looking toward the horizon.
Watch the Journey
Some destinations need movement, conversation, music, weather, and the sound of boots hitting the road.
The Atypical Vagabond YouTube channel follows my journeys through Portugal, across the Camino de Santiago, and into places that deserve more than a polished postcard. The videos include the spectacular moments, but they also preserve the missed turns, exhausted climbs, unexpected encounters, and situations where the plan quietly wandered off without me.
Watch Atypical Vagabond travel videos on YouTube.
How to Use These Destination Guides
If you are planning a trip, begin with the destination that interests you and follow the regional guides, itineraries, and travel stories connected to it.
If you are still deciding where to go, start with the kind of experience you want:
- Choose Portugal for history, food, coastline, walkable cities, and slower travel.
- Choose the Camino de Santiago for long-distance walking, reflection, community, and character-building blisters.
- Browse the travel stories when you want inspiration without pretending every journey goes perfectly.
- Watch the travel videos when you want to see what these places feel like beyond the written guide.
Atypical Last Thoughts
The world is too interesting to be reduced to a checklist.
Atypical Vagabond is about staying curious, traveling deeper, and giving places enough time to become more than scenery. Some destinations on this page already changed me. Others are still waiting somewhere beyond the next flight, train, trail marker, or questionable shortcut.
Choose a direction, adventurers.
We will figure out the rest on the road.
Meet Carter
I’m Carter, an American traveler living in Portugal and the creator of Atypical Vagabond. After selling my technology business, I traded the conventional path for slow travel, life abroad, and a slightly unreasonable number of long walks across Europe. I share honest Portugal guides, Camino stories, digital nomad advice, and practical lessons to help you explore the world with greater confidence and purpose.
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