Yes, believe it or not, this was a 4 page story in LIFE Magazine more than sixty years ago when I first swam the Hellespont. I repeated the swim twelve years later for my book, The Adventurer’s Guide. You can see the whole LIFE story here. Quite an adventure for a 16 year-old kid. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #121 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

There is a series of stepping-stone lakes in a hidden valley in Tajikistan known as The Seven Pearls of Shing. This is the fourth, taken at dawn’s early light with the lake a mirror reflecting the sky and surrounding mountains. Each Pearl are of different colors, each of uniquely mesmerizing allure. It is one of the many wonders – natural, cultural, historical – we’ll experience this September in our exploration of all Five Stans of Hidden Central Asia. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #52 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

There is a part of Tibet the British kept from China and is now a part of India.  The region is called Ladakh and this is its capital of Leh.  It’s the Upper Indus river valley after it flows out of Chinese Tibet and before it reaches the Line of Control with Pakistan.

Ladakh is geographically and culturally Tibetan, where Tibetan culture still flourishes. Here the great gompas (monasteries) of Thikse and Hemis are active, and where you are welcome in hidden mysterious gompas like Lamayuru over a thousand years old.

There is an ultra-remote part of Ladakh called Zanskar where the Zanskar River flows through the crest of the Himalayas to reach the Upper Indus.  Running the Zanskar is one of the world’s greatest whitewater experiences.  We’ll see and do all of this next August on our Indian Tibet Expedition. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #120 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)  

East of Borneo in Indonesia is a large starfish-shaped Island called Sulawesi, where in the south-central mountains the Toraja people have created one of the most exotic cultures on earth. They bury their dead in caves carved out of vertical cliffs, with balconies at the entrances lined with clothed wooden effigies called a Tau Tau as guardians for the departed.

The Toraja live in villages composed of family long houses with enormous peaked roofs of wood and thatch, decorated with exquisite painted art and scores of buffalo horns. While Indonesia is predominantly Moslem, the Toraja are a blend of Christian-animist. They are a gentle, peaceful people, marvelously welcoming and friendly. It is a priceless privilege to spend time with them, as I was able to during the summer of 2016. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #49 Photo ©Jack Wheeler)

Yes, that’s me at 16 (in 1960!) with Tangamashi, a Shuar Jivaro chief who adopted me into his clan. The Jivaros are the only people on earth who make a shrunken head of their enemies killed in battle – called a “tsantsa.”

They inhabit the Amazon rain forests of the Ecuador-Peru border; living with them was the first adventure I had by myself alone. Tangamashi accepted me, taught me how he made a tsantsa from an enemy’s head skin, took me blowgunning monkeys with curare-tipped darts, and introduced me into the Jivaro spirit world with a tea they called “natema” from the Banisteriopsis vine – a very colorful experience. How cool can you get for a 16 year-old kid?

It set me on a path of an adventurous life from which I have never wavered – and there’s no slowing down now. Another great adventure always awaits. (Glimpses of Our Breathtaking World #25, photo ©Jack Wheeler)