Kidnapping, surfing, plane accidents, and people fishing for cocaine: pretty much business as usual in Richard McColl's out of bounds adventure along the Pacific Coast of Colombia.

Excerpted from her thesis Heroes or Hellions: How Americans are Perceived Abroad, this chapter by Erin Granat examines the dynamics of a "miniature United Nations" that forms when a random group of people travels together in Australia.

Young soul surfer and traveler Spencer Klein takes us to the end of a road where there are people living with monkeys, drunks passed out in the sand, and jacked-up Chevy Blazers used as low-tide beach transport. In other words, on the search for waves in Centroamerica.

"In front of me, the biggest fish I have ever seen, its massive gaping void of a mouth, was just meters away; with my heart beating furiously and a thrashing of my fins I swam frantically trying to avoid being swallowed whole," writes Mark Steele in his account of diving with whale sharks in La Paz.

A concise history of Zimbabwe since Mugabe´s rise to power in 1980 with links to various NGOs doing humanitarian work.

A medieval European pilgrimage route over a thousand years old, the Camino de Santiago has become a unique long-distance hike for tens of thousands of "pilgrims" each year. Andrea Kirkby reflects on walking the trail, the landscape of rural Spain, and how, once on the pilgrimage, "you start to accept the unusual, the strange, the downright weird, as part of your everyday life."

"Some know nothing about Cuba, the Cuban Revolution, or the US embargo against Cuba—they even think Che Guevara was Cuban—but they’re drawn to Cuba because of what they believe to be the forbidden travel experience," writes Julie Schwietert in this how-to guide on traveling to Cuba.

From Coachella to Glastonbury to EXIT, Matador presents the best music festivals around the world.

"Absolutely anything is possible. Two massive semi-trucks twisted up in the air as art? Okay. A “Barbie Death Camp” where you can desecrate and bury those little blond bitches? Sure?” Burning Man first-timer, Erin Granat, tells us what she learned at Black Rock City this year.

In the middle of Mexico City, Julie Schwietert Collazo, discovers an unlikely form of protest.