Living out of a backpack for a year really does change you. It changed me: I'm a born-again minimalist.

During my year-plus churn through South America and Europe, I lived out of a small black backpack. I loved having so few possessions, just a few outfits, a tiny netbook, a...

I'm excited to be kicking off an intuitive new project: IdeaChats. Intuitive in the sense that there is no grand plan -- I'm excited to just let this evolve. That's how I roll with most of my projects.

IdeaChats are all about new ideas -- ideas that turn my mind...

We've all heard success stories of online dating. According to a recent study by Match.com, a sixth of marriages now begin via online dating. If the numbers are so promising, why does online dating feel like an energy suck? As my friend Ario says, "Online dating induces ADD."...

Imagine there is a food additive that slowly poisons you and can even kill you. Now imagine you have no way of knowing whether it is in your foods. Three million American celiacs and I find ourselves in this situation. We have been patiently waiting for the FDA...

During 2010, as I traveled alone through France, Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, I regularly encountered people who found it courageous of me to travel alone. I remember a hairstylist in Bogota. As she blow-dryed my hair, she told me she...

Watch and listen as I get serenaded by a taxi-driving tango singer. Tango is an addictive dance, it's not only the dance, it's the music, the shoes, the personalities. One night during my tango pilgrimage to Buenos Aires, I left a milonga Zona Tango at the early hour of 2 am and stepped into a cab. My driver was a professional tango singer (many cab drivers in Buenos Aires are addicted milongueros, dancers who prefer the flexible hours so they can dance every night). My driver was a singer as well as a dancer, and he serenaded me on the way home. I was in a state of electric bliss listening and watching the city go by.

I predict this will be the opening scene of a longer documentary piece I make on the passion of tango addicts in Buenos Aires. How can I resist after this? Collaborators, funding, this is your call to join me.

Sasha Cagen is an author and entrepreneur who spent 2010 traveling in Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina. Read more of her adventures and observations at

Coaching is about learning to tune into what you want and clearing out the voices that tell you you can't have it. I have one client with whom I mainly discuss career, but one session, she decided she wanted to talk about finding a new lover. So we switched gears...

The American holiday Thanksgiving is approaching, and with it, millions of families (and urban tribes like mine, pictured above) will gather to gobble down turkey and sweet potatoes with marshmallows baked on top. Many of them will also go around the table to share what they are grateful for in...

Colombia has its own charms, including many charming everyday expressions, some of which initially befuddled me, and now all of which charm in the extreme. I get the impression that these are Colombianisms, but if any of these expressions are common in other hispanohablante countries, please let me know in...

Colombia is an amazing country, full of mountains as stunning as the Swiss Alps and people as sweet and welcoming as the people I met in the Northeast of Brazil. It's also full of strange and hilarious bathrooms. Well, two anyway, that I have spotted in three weeks of travel....

As I traveled through Colombia over the last three months, I remained ignorant of Colombian history. Specifically, the history of violence. Of course I knew there were guerrillas here, and they lurked somewhere in the corners of the country. But the publicity campaign to...

Monday was a terrible morning that turned into a wonderful day thanks to the kindness of a Colombian stranger. I am now traveling in Antioquia, a region of Colombia known for extremely welcoming people. They treat you as a family member immediately.

I was sitting in the bus station...

At first I thought it was just me. My self-esteem had never been so high. On a near daily basis, while I was traveling in Northeastern Brazil, I got compliments on how linda, or beautiful, I am.

But then I started talking to other female travelers. It turns out...

Welcome to the online candy store of love, our dystopic world of disposable dating. Internet dating can become an exercise in ego stroking and gratification, getting emails and winks about how wonderful you are. It can be a perpetual dip into window shopping for love, rather than a means to...

On my first day at South by Southwest, an annual geek conference dedicated to celebrating the brightest minds in emerging technology, I already felt like a speck of Internet dust because I only have 157 Twitter followers.

I took drastic measures and pulled out my iPhone for an old-fashioned phone...

Two weeks ago, on a Friday night around midnight, I was loitering on the sidewalk outside a San Francisco bar with two friends, about to head home but not quite ready to call it a night. A guy standing nearby on the sidewalk told us that that our red, green,...