OUTBOUND WITH RON

Gdańsk , Poland

I begin a new European tour in the far north along the Baltic Sea at Gdańsk, one of Poland’s most beautiful cities.

If you’re seeing the video as it premieres you’ve likely figured out that I didn’t come to Gdańsk in the cold of winter. This and other videos in this series from Europe were filmed in summer and early fall 2025.

Gdańsk is a vibrant port city with a rich history and stunning architecture offering a compelling mix of heritage, charm and nearby scenic beauty.

It was here at the former military outpost of Westerplatte that the first battle of World War II was fought. And in the 1980s a shipyard strike here famously morphed into the Solidarity movement that helped bring down the former Soviet Union.

Gdańsk is a great springboard for exploring the Pomeranian Coast and I visit the delightful coastal resort city of Sopot, a 20-minute train ride away.

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4 days ago | [YT] | 18

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Portland, Oregon

Hello from back home in the United States!

My latest video from El Nido in the Philippines, where you see me standing atop a cliff overlooking the town’s spectacular bayfront, is my last of the year.

I’d planned others from the Philippines but that was before illness got in the way. (For any who missed it, my video from Anghor Wat in Cambodia recounts what happened.)

I’ll see you January 4, 2026 for the start of a new adventure--from Europe--filmed during late summer and fall.

I begin in Poland.

Until then sincere thanks for all the thumbs up on the videos and for subscribing to the channel. Stay healthy. I look forward to having you along in the new year!

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2 weeks ago | [YT] | 24

OUTBOUND WITH RON

El Nido, The Philippines

It wasn’t that long ago that El Nido was billed as one of the Philippines’ last frontiers.

Those days have passed. With the rise of mass tourism the island of Palawan has exploded in popularity and El Nido is a favorite destination.

Once you’re here you can understand why. Yet, despite the large number of people who come here, El Nido is deceptively laid-back. Many if not most visitors arrive to island hop—that is, embark on day-long boat trips to nearby smaller islands.

That means from roughly mid-morning until around sunset, El Nido is a lot more tranquil than you’d expect.

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3 weeks ago | [YT] | 15

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Siem Reap, Cambodia

Sometimes things just don’t go one’s way and they didn’t for me at Anghor Wat.

To conclude my stay in Cambodia I arrived in Siem Reap excited about returning to the incredible ancient ruins at Anghor (my first visit having been before I began the YouTube channel).

And as you’ll see in the video, everything was going swimmingly at Anghor Wat (the most famous singular temple within the giant Anghor complex)—until suddenly it wasn’t.

No spoiler alert here, but I will say I’m happy that I made the decision to start what had been planned as a full-day exploration of Anghor at Anghor Wat. So I did collect a decent amount of footage before what happened, happened.

There’s a postscript (from Puerto Princesa on the Philippine island of Palawan) with a post-mortem of what took place.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 13

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Wat Banan, Cambodia

When we think of Cambodian antiquities we think first of Anghor with its grand temple Anghor Wat—often to the exclusion of other great ruins of the ancient Khmer empire.

Among the most impressive of these is Wat Banan near the city of Battambang in northwest Cambodia.

Built over several decades starting about 1050 CE and completed by King Jayavarman VII (who would become perhaps Anghor’s greatest builder), Wat Banan is a splendid if not somewhat forlorn specimen of Khmer architectural grace.

If not for its famous counterpart, Wat Banan might justifiably receive hordes of visitors. But as you’ll see in the video, I found the elegant ruins—which have suffered considerably from looters—eerily quiet and nearly abandoned.

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1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 10

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Battambang Province, Cambodia

You can’t understand the essence of a place like Cambodia without getting out into the countryside.

That’s what I’ve done in this video from near Battambang in the heart of northwestern Cambodia’s “rice bowl,” with its bucolic fields and villages where most tourists never venture.

It’s a place of both serenity and surprise, starting with a remnant of the Bamboo Train—once a thriving flatcar enterprise to ferry poor rural folk that now caters mostly to tourists during time slots when no ordinary trains are on the tracks.

Among other things, I visit the “killing cave” of Phnom Sampeau—a stark reminder of the Cambodian genocide—and a village that straddles the Sanghae River with the help of a swinging bridge where I encounter an unlikely refuge for fruit bats.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 16

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Battambang, Cambodia

Most people who visit Cambodia don’t venture past Siem Reap and the nearby ancient Khmer ruins at Anghor other than maybe to explore the capital Phnom Penh.

And that’s a shame, especially when it comes to the city and province of Battambang in northwest Cambodia along its border with Thailand.

Battambang was the provincial capital of Siamese "Inner Cambodia" during the 18th and 19th centuries and continued as a provincial center after being “returned” to Cambodia in 1907 as part of the former French Indochina.

As the video shows, this fascinating city of 150,000 people in the heart of Cambodia’s “rice bowl” (founded a thousand years ago on the banks of the Sangkae River) is laced with Thai and French influences.

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1 month ago | [YT] | 15

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

This second video from Phnom Penh includes a visit to the infamous torture center set up by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide and ends with a sunset stroll along the city’s delightful riverfront abutting the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers.

They are representative snapshots of Phnom Penh—and Cambodia—then and now, however incongruous they may seem.

At least 2 million people died during the diabolical rule of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot from 1975 to 1979, herded like cattle out of Phnom Penh and other cities in a maniacal effort to create an “agrarian society.”

The former torture center, once a high school, is now the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum. It isn’t pretty and isn’t for the faint of heart. But it’s invaluable for understanding modern Cambodia and what its people endured a half-century ago.

Which helps make today's welcoming, laid-back Phnom Penh--as exemplified by the vibrant nightly spectacle along the riverfront--all the more pleasant and life-affirming.

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2 months ago | [YT] | 10

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Phnom Penh, like Cambodia itself, has long been overshadowed in Southeast Asia by Vietnam and Thailand.

But as the country’s tourism infrastructure has developed that has begun to change as travelers delight in what they find beyond merely the incredible ancient Khmer ruins at Anghor.

As the nation’s capital—and economic, political and cultural center—Phnom Penh is indispensable to appreciating the many wonders of Cambodia.

As this first of two videos from Phnom Penh shows, its museums, lively street life, colorful markets and deceptively laid-back atmosphere for a city of 2.5 million people projects an aura of another era—one that’s increasingly fading in this part of the world.

2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 17

OUTBOUND WITH RON

Old Goa, India

When the Portuguese arrived in this part of India in the 1500’s they named the provincial capital that they established Goa, which became a great city of 200,000 people—larger than London in its day.

But in the 1700’s Goa was all but abandoned following tragic twin pandemics of cholera and malaria, leaving it a ghost town.

Today it is a ghost town like no other, famous for its more than a dozen great Roman Catholic churches and monasteries—most on a par with similar houses of worship in Europe and Latin America.

In the last video of my series from southern India, I visit the World Heritage Site of Old Goa, where these stately churches stand lonely and surreal in the sweltering Goan countryside.

Program note: For the channel's next series of videos I'll see you soon...from Cambodia.

2 months ago | [YT] | 11