Hi, I’m Manny.

Welcome to Raw Safari.

In 2013 I sold all my furniture, moved out of my house, bought a little tent and set out to see the world.
Over the next four years, I hitchhiked across more than 25 countries including Europe, Asia, America, Australia & Morrocco. I camped out in the Sahara Desert. I visited the Louvre Museum in Paris. I ate out of dumpsters on the streets of Los Angeles, played music in the forest around campfires & made more friends than I’d ever had in my life before.

I started calling my improvised, low budget style of travel “adventure hacking.”
I lived on $10 a day. Everything I owned fit into my beat-up backpack. I spent a lot of nights on couches or sleeping in my tiny tent.
It was all about having time to do the things I wanted to and not wasting my money and energy on things I didn’t need.

My life wasn’t conventional and sometimes I had to bend the rules a bit to make it work (OK, I bent them a lot), but my feeling is, life’s too short to worry too much about following rules.

This blog is the story of my hitchhiking journey around the planet. It’s also a how-to guide for those of you who want to start an improvised adventure of your own.

In these pages I answer questions such as:

How did I end up wearing “Kangaroo Boots” and a bondage collar when I was hitchhiking in Los Angeles?

What is it like to be around exploding petrol bombs?

Why did I nearly get arrested for having a conversation in Serbia?

To hear this story from the beginning, start reading here.

If you’d like to know what I’m doing right now, check out my new YouTube channel, Swag Sketch. It’s more adventure and travel stories, except now I’ve got a car and a bit more money, so I can go to even more remote and amazing places! Watch my latest videos at swagsketch.com.