About Me (Barbara Weibel)

Barbara Weibel After years of working 70 hours a week at jobs I detested, I felt like the proverbial "hole in the donut" - solid on the outside, but empty on the inside. Searching for meaning in my life, I abandoned my successful but unsatisfying career and set out on a six-month solo backpacking trip around the world to pursue my true passions of travel, writing, and photography. My blog features stories about the destinations I visit, people I meet, the crazy things...Read more here....


Five tribal leaders from the remote South Pacific island nation of Tanna are sent to the U.S. by their supreme chief. Their mission? To bring the message of joy and peace they learned from a very special soldier during World War II – a man they called ‘Tom Navy’ – back to America. The journey is being documented by the Travel Channel in a six-part series, Meet the Natives, which premiers with back-to-back episodes at 9 and 10 p.m. E/P tomorrow night, November 29, 2009.

As a travel writer, the Travel Channel provided me with a special link to preview the first two episodes and frankly, I was blown away. Amidst much hilarity, these traditional hunters and farmers who wear grass skirts and live with no electricity or television, don layers of clothing and learn how to operate a video camera before departing for their first destination, a cattle ranch in Montana. I laughed out loud as they struggled with sleeping bags on the floor of the cabin and then again when they helped the wife cook breakfast – a first, since in Tanna, women do all the cooking. Coming from a culture that produces everything required to sustain the tribe on a daily basis, it is difficult for the men to understand why the Montana ranch contains 5,000 head of Continue reading

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Ah, yes, I have been strangely silent for a few days. I have learned that when this happens I must just “let it be” and allow the process to happen. These are times of great introspection. Sometimes, the result is an epiphany. Other times, the stillness allows me to hear the answer to a question I have been contemplating.

Since walking away from my lucrative real estate career to pursue a life of travel, photography, and writing, the way I see myself has changed significantly. During my six-month trip around the world in 2007, a friend insisted that I print up business cards that said I was a writer and photographer. Initially I resisted. Although I had been blogging for some months by then, I still didn’t see myself as a writer. Thankfully, she finally convinced me that this was a necessary step. The business cards shifted my belief about who I was – it was in print, so it must be true. Gradually, I began to tell people I was a writer whenever they asked what I did for a living. The more I said it aloud, the more real it became.

Upon returning from my around-the-world trip I began soliciting freelance writing assignments. I had some small success but soon realized I was writing about subjects that did not interest me just to get published. Simultaneously, the blog morphed from a narrowly focused travel site to Continue reading

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If we’d all treat each other the way the girls in this video did, it would be a better world.



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Master Taisen Deshimaru said:

To think is to choose to observe and comprehend,
even if one is disturbed by oneself or others.
Ultimately, to think means to understand,
to understand primordial matter,
the first thing in history.

Master Ok-Sung An-Baron said:

Between he who has conquered a hundred thousand men in battle and he who has conquered himself, it is the latter who is the greater victor.”

I originally read these quotes on two consecutive days. On its own, the first quote was thought provoking, but when I read the second quote Continue reading

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I’ve been writing a lot lately about how we seem to have lost our way in this country; about how we value material possessions over family, friends, and belief in a higher power of our choosing. Today I was reminded that there are people who have never lost sight of what is most important in this life.

Dick Hoyt is one of these people. Soon after the birth of his son, Rick, he learned that the child had Cerebral Palsy. Doctors counseled the parents to put the child in an institution, since they were certain he would never walk or talk and would spend his days in a vegetative state. Fortunately, Dick did not listen to their advice. Instead, he raised Rick alongside the other children. When the other kids swam in the lake, Rick was supported in the water. When they traveled, Rick went too. And he responded – in a way that the doctors would have deemed impossible. Watch the inspirational story of “Team Hoyt” in the video, below.




Continue reading

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair;
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us,
we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-

Thus begins what is my all-time favorite book, A Tale of Two Cities, a historical novel about the French Revolution written by Charles Dickens in 1859. Dickens described in detail the savage brutality of the revolutionaries toward the former aristocrats. Yet in the midst of this horror, Dickens finds redemption, resurrection. He illustrates a great paradox: evil generates good. The novel ends as it begins, with regeneration.

I am currently re-reading A Tale of Two Cities and I am struck by the comparison between our current times in the U.S. and the time of the French Revolution. Our government has repeated many of the mistakes of Continue reading

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