A buddy of mine has been on an epic trip across Eurasia, and adventure he calls Off Silk Roadin’. His blog is a fairly long form recounting of his tales, but I recommend checking it out mixed in with browsing through his pictures on Flickr. He’s done some in depth touring in places that are often forgotten by travellers, and without saying it, gives a powerful recommendation for going to the Asian Steppes.

One of his best talents is starting conversations with strangers and thereby making friends and getting a much better place for where he is visiting. One quick tale for example:

I popped into a Photo studio for some visa pictures. The three guys who ran the shop were Armenian and eagerly recounted the histry of their families, which lived in what is now northeastern Turkey (where we had just come from) before the “Armenian Genocide” (something I have to learn more about having heard so many conflicting accounts. They sat around, solved crosswords, drank coffee, brewed us a tasty batch, and when they got wind of our journey, pulled out an old Soviet Atlas, pointed at things and recounted stories of their service in the Soviet Army that took them places where we were going to go. A sailor came in and introduced himself as a “semen” (seaman) and when I took a picture of him, suggested I not post it since he travels to the US frequently, and doesn’t want to be listed in the rolodex of the CIA (to which I was presumably contributing.) We encountered this kind of Soviet relic paranoia in several instances, particularly Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan so far.

And tales like that with some of these pictures, and I get that itch on my feet and can hear the open road whispering in my ear.

If you’re jonesin for some more travel reading material, you should check out all the blogs listed in the Lonely Planet travel blogger awards. They’re all a bit different from what we do here, mostly folks on the road chronicling their journeys, but most are worth checking out for some good travel images and ideas.

The 2008 Weblog Awards are open for voting, with a list of intriguing travel blogs, many of which I was unfamiliar with. I love reading about people’s travels and spinning that into ideas for future adventures. Questing obviously isn’t in the running for these awards, but you can vote for this blog in the blogger’s choice awards. We’re in the top 10 right now, and I’d be very grateful to you all if you could toss a few votes our way.

The weblog award nominees are:

MyKugelhopf
Lots of talk about food mixed in with the travels and spectacular photos to boot.

Folie a Deux
A blog for dreaming about comprehensive trips with a strong personal touch.

The Asian Traveler
A look at some of the fun and funny kitsch of Asia, but with an annoying design.

Curious Expeditions
The bizarre and macabre from around the world, unfortunately not updated that often.

Notes from the Road
Not so much of a blog as an online photo magazine detailing various areas.

The Lost Girls
A group of friends roaming the world, the fun they are having shows.

LL World Tour
A serial traveler going to areas that are fairly accessible from the US.

Jaunted
An online travel magazine that churns out a ton of material.

Intelligent Travel
National Geographic’s standard travel blog, with a bit of a focus on Washington DC.

The Cranky Flier
Mostly blogging on the aviation industry, which of course is a central industry for travel.

Like any blog interested in more traffic, we’re in the running for the Bloggers Choice Awards. If you like what we do here, please take a minute to vote for Questing For Adventure as the best travel blog. It just takes a moment to sign up and vote, and I’d certainly appreciate it as it helps bring in they eyes and the kudos.

Questing for Adventure, and it predecessor The Quest for Adventure, haven’t been around for very long. But I like to think that we’re on an upward trajectory. We’ve had 76 posts so far, including a handful of ideas for epic journeys. All told, I think we’re doing pretty well, and I hope that you, dear reader, and support us going a bit further.

Un-sexy update: It looks like the Blogger Choice Awards are having some trouble with their servers. If you haven’t had a chance to vote yet, please come back and try again and hopefully they’ll be back up. Thanks!

Sexy update: Voting is back up! Please vote for Questing For Adventure. Many thanks.

I think one of the better blogs done from the road is Everything Everywhere. The Author, Gary Arndt, has been roaming around since March 07, and blogging the whole way through. He’s running a promotion right now giving away some souvenirs from South East Asia. There are two ways to enter:

1) Subscribe – Once a week during the month of November, a special code will be sent to subscribers at the bottom of a regular blog post. You will only be able to see this code if you have subscribed via RSS or subscribe via email. If you are already a subscriber, you don’t have to do anything. If you haven’t, just register for my RSS feed, or if you don’t use RSS you can subscribe by email. You will be able to enter four times during the month via RSS.

2) Link – Make a blog post linking to this page and mentioning the contest OR just cut and paste the code for one of the premade buttons I’ve created. You can earn two entries for a blog post and two more for installing a button. You can email me with the URL showing the link, or I will probably be notified from Google or Technorati. If you have multiple domain names, you can enter this way multiple times.

Oh wait! It look’s like I’ve just done the second one! Aren’t I clever. But seriously, if you like tales from the road his blog is worth checking out.