The Joys and Challenges of Traveling Solo Across Alaska

Here’s a multi-faceted realization I’ve found in recent years: I absolutely love to travel solo — and most people absolutely do not. Traveling solo doesn’t daunt me; indeed, it ignites something primal and wondrous in me. Comparing myself to how most other people travel, though, is another mountain: Why are they not like me? Why am I not at all like them?

Alaska, At Last

Back in 2020, in that early sliver of what was sure to be a promising year, I started making preliminary plans to visit Alaska. Known widely as “The Last Frontier” and my own final frontier, too. I’d traveled to 49 states since touching down in Hawaii a couple years prior, and it was time, at last, to conquer them all. Well. We all know why that trip didn’t happen. And it’s been plaguing me ever since. Three and a half years of longing for Alaska. Until now. I refuse to long any longer.

Four Seasons of America; Four Seasons of My Soul

Now months removed from this trip, I look back and notice something of a correlation with both the climate of these diverse corners of America and also the climate of my soul as I encountered each one…

I Can’t Believe I Came From Her

My grandmother died. These words rattle around my heart like pinballs that won’t settle, even a week beyond her funeral. And yet I wonder if the settling of these pinballs would be any better – the finality of their lodging into the belly of that machine, no longer kept alive by another flap of the paddles. Mayme Alice was the last of my grandparents to leave this earth, and undoubtedly the one with whom I grew closest.

2021: Wasted

I look back on this year and can’t help but feel the wince of apparent wasted time. The lethargy of a lingering pandemic, the apathy of my creative soul, and the heavy, sometimes brutal work of ministry. Of holding less and less tightly to relationships – even if it means letting some go. My 34 years of life feels increasingly like a bell curve. Isolation and worthlessness filling the lowly cracks of my adolescence; a rising wave of optimism for my twenties, filled with new friends and adventures aplenty; and a steady decline of ambition into my mid-thirties.

Beyond the Rot of This River

I’ve become more justice-minded in this year of isolation – to do something with this faith of mine. To borrow a vivid example from Ronald Rolheiser’s “The Holy Longing”: to not just retrieve dead bodies from the river, but to go upstream and find the source of all this death.

5 Years With a Blue Ridge Home

Come whimsy or mayhem, for five years running the road keeps leading me back here to the Blue Ridge. However many nights I’ve actually slept in a bedroom here, it is indeed starting to feel something like home. I stared at the hills the other day and prayed, “God, please don’t let it ever grow old.”

Another Dawn Closer

What a comfort. What an assurance. That no matter how much the last day or last four years have tested us, drained us, broken us . . . the sun rises anew. Gives us a new chance to absorb the light and also a new chance to shine it. Or as poet laureate, Amanda Gorman, perfectly put it at today’s inauguration: “For there is always light if only we’re brave enough to see it, if only we’re brave enough to be it.”

What Will I Have Done This Year?

Instead of saying, “What do I want to do this year?” try saying, “What will I have done this year?” It’s a productivity tip I learned from Donald Miller, and I’ve never been more eager to implement this subtle mental tweak for 2021.

You Need to LEAVE

The words “leave” and “stay” keep colliding with one another, over and over throughout my adulthood. I’m learning the equal and opposite power of each.

Change, Leave!

I want to leave my usual ways of changing, leaving. Of always running from things, even if I’m also running to new ones. Of masking my loneliness and shame with adventures and Instagram posts. I want to continue learning to stay for a change, staying for change.

Prisoner of Hope

Oh, the freedom to no longer hope in anything far off. To forget the future and, perhaps, attain a greater ability to live in this present. It hurts to hope, I’ve been learning (groaning) through adulthood. It hurts to hope for things, only to see them fall flat – or, worse, fall further.

These Hills Have Me

I’m not getting out much these days. I used to sprawl all over this city and region, but I’ve become more of a homebody than ever before. But I’m living in my favorite dwelling I’ve ever built for myself, a homier, “Tom-ier” place than anywhere else, complete with maps and globes and buffalo art; early mornings with lighted candles and open windows and blanketed fog amidst the canopy. It feels good to be a body in this home.

Teach Me How to Live

Of course, I want to travel again one day, set loose to wander once more. I want it badly. But for now, I do have this strange desire to be settled. To stay home and enjoy safety and solitude. And I don’t necessarily feel relegated to this reality, forced into it against my wandering will. For all this restless angst I’ve had since childhood, perhaps I’m finally stumbling onto the cure?

A Time to Refrain from Embracing

Looking down at my precious niece in my arms, I realized it’s really something, how we need physical touch to survive. Need to be swaddled. Need to be held. Need to feel the warmth of another human emanating against us, if only to affirm to one another we are not alone in this desert. To embrace for my soul or not to embrace for my body? Life with an autoimmune disease during the pandemic of the century: one calculated risk after another.

Pen Strokes and Chisels to the Soul

I’ve grown more in the last two years than the previous ten. More than ever, I feel God’s hand guiding mine like pen strokes while chiseling my soul. A mystical also brutal process.

My New Asheville Apartment Tour!

I just moved back to Asheville after a summer of travels. See my new apartment, including my awesome new studio space, and hear me talk about coming plans for this YouTube channel, including my new video sendoff!

Sexy Changing in the Staying

Traveling changes a man, certainly. It’s what draws me to the road and the skies, again and again. The blaze of colors to my exterior and interior alike. But staying put changes a man, too, I’m better realizing. It’s not as sexy. Not as readily apparent sometimes.

God’s Love is Still Reckless

When “Reckless Love” first came out in 2017, I, like many others in Christian worshipdom, fell out of my seat. For the last year and a half, though, as many songs just do, it faded. Back at church, the electric guitar strings belted a familiar intro. One I’d not heard in a church setting for many, many months. “Reckless Love” returned to my life. And I couldn’t skip it this time.

I Like Coming Home?

I recently climbed the stairwell to my new apartment with a bag full of groceries and thought this distinct thought: I like coming home. It startled me, and I immediately recognized its significance. Because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thought this thought. Alas — it’s been years since I truly enjoyed coming home.

The Whispers I Followed Home

After 147 days, I followed the whispers back to Asheville, and I’m thrilled not to be wandering any longer. I found an apartment in town, and a phenomenal one at that. I hesitate with clichés — especially Christian clichés — but y’all: this was a God-thing. I’m living in a phenomenal apartment in a phenomenal neighborhood with a phenomenal landlord, and I follow a phenomenal God of provision.

Stranger in a Familiar Land

The road has led me back to the Blue Ridge. Back in these hills rolling like moonlit shadows, just like I remember, just like always. I’ve been gone from this place for 82 days. Traveling as far away as Colorado and Maine and losing a grandfather along the way. And the way is still unfolding before me.

Itch

I’m itching for home. God, I’m itching for regularity again. I’m itching for therapy and CrossFit and training for a marathon and the same coffee shops and writing my third book and building local friendships and taking Your Other Brothers to bold, new frontiers. I’m itching for this road trip to end.

I’m Tired.

I just attended the second Revoice conference in St. Louis. Several of my fellow authors from Your Other Brothers also attended, and we’ll have a full recap/conversation coming to our site next week. But for now, I wanted to shed some more personal thoughts on the conference and my life-on-the-road at large. The main one being: I’m tired.

Joy Terrifies Me

It’s so clear now — something I’ve always known to be true about me and yet see anew. I’m terrified of joy. Joy just terrifies me. For how fleeting it is.

When Jesus Slides Into the Shadows

Before you even know it, Jesus slid into the shadows long ago. You thought he was still there. Like he’s always been. Like he always will be…right? But if we don’t intentionally keep Jesus atop our bookshelf…I think the Father is willing to let us turn other pages. To let us wander without for a bit.

City of Macaroons and Broken Dreams

I entered Charlotte with gargantuan hopes. Hopes that wherever I landed after #RunningTo would be the city I’d call home the rest of my life. A city of dreams fulfilled that simultaneously kept adding new ones. I stare at this Queen City skyline with kind of a hopeless sigh. I failed this place.

Where (and Why) I’m Wandering Next

Back in the height of my wandering (have I reached the valley yet?), I read a blog about the importance of traveling. I have no idea who wrote it or where the link stands today, but there’s one tip from the post I’ll never forget. I’ve implemented it ever since I read it, and it’s […]

Cleanse

For the next two weeks, I’m embarking on a body cleanse. I’ll be taking fiber supplements along with liver and digestive supplements every morning. And every night. I’ll finally be scrubbing out my insides after thirty years. I’ll probably be pooping a lot. But don’t worry. This post goes beyond my bowel movements. That part […]

Introducing my hometown!

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. Travels and book-writing have kept me busy. Here’s a Snapchat story of my tour through Langhorne, Pennsylvania — my hometown. Some of you may have seen variations of this tour over the years; newer followers may not be familiar. Enjoy! #TMZroadstache

That Boy is Dead

I recently went home to celebrate my mother’s 60th birthday (she doesn’t look a day over 38). It was a weekend of laughs and meals and car rides that reminded me how blessed I am to be a Zuniga. And yet part of that weekend pricked a wound still in me. As part of our […]

And to All a Good Riddance

As the grotesque mass of space garbage we call 2016 hurtles toward oblivion, people everywhere are cheering the prospect of a new year. Myself included. We’ve proclaimed this the worst year ever, what with a most bizarre election cycle, the deaths of numerous beloved celebrities, raging wildfires and natural disasters, and the opening of the […]

I Watched Gilmore Girls and Now I’m Thinking Too Much

I watched the Gilmore Girls revival over the weekend. There. I said it. Laugh at me. Deride me. Label me with your sharpest effeminate nicknames. It’s not like I have masculine issues or anything. I grew up with a little sister who loved Gilmore Girls, and as such, I saw more than a few episodes. I was […]

Don’t Ruin the Future

Last weekend, I returned to one of those pivotal places of the past. The city: Gatlinburg, Tennessee. My last official #RunningTo stop before retreating to a cabin in the woods for 36 solitary hours to figure out whether I’d move to Milwaukee or Gettysburg or Charlotte to round out my 9 months on the road. […]

A Decade Without Annie

The vortex of my loathing for November stems from this date a decade ago. The day I lost my dog, Annie, to a freak accident. An accident I was convinced was connected to my first bout with pornography and God’s judgment. A decade later, I’ve laxed on the whole God punishing me thing; a decade […]

What to do when you’re lost and lonely and sad

One of the perks of living in Asheville — a big one, really — is the opportunity to escape to the mountains anytime I please. Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania and then eastern Georgia, I never knew about daily life with mountains. My vision and expectations always encompassed a flat horizon preceded by fields and […]

Why Would Anyone Want to Visit Me?

Prior to now, I’ve only ever lived alone once — and even then, it was just for six weeks while studying abroad at Oxford University. I was only 21, and it was the strangest thing to walk to the grocery store and purchase some Coco Pops (Britain’s monkey-adorned version of Cocoa Krispies) among other nutritious items, and […]

How to Find Home

I wandered over to Chattanooga for Memorial Day weekend. I filmed some exploits at North Carolina’s DuPont State Forest en route to Tennessee. Be on the lookout for that fun video soon. Hiking the trails at DuPont and camping out that night gave me a real return to #RunningTo. It was a whimsical wandering among waterfalls that left me longing anew for […]

Why I Moved to Charlotte and Why I’m Freaking Out

Last weekend, I concluded my nine-month road trip with one final adventure to the Smokies. It was a gorgeous time. It was a torturous time. It was a sleepy solitary much needed recharging time. That cabin in the Smokies was a distraction-free arena to determine my post-journey existence. After nine long months on the road, I’d narrowed down my next chapter to three cities. Three […]

My Road Trip Finally Ends This Weekend and I’m Terrified

Nine months. Nine months and a week, actually. 40 weeks: that will be the ultimate span of this #RunningTo road trip. Before I left southern California last May, I had no clue how long the road would wind. Your guess would have been as good as mine. Two months? Seven? Seventy times seven? The longer I […]

I Don’t Entirely Know Who I Am Anymore

Last week was a great week. I reunited with my parents, brother, sister, and brother-to-be. Parties and meals and heart-to-heart conversations all affirming how blessed I am. On Valentine’s Day I spontaneously trekked to Signal Mountain in southern Tennessee with my brother and his roommate. The hilarity of three dudes doing dude-things in the mountains on a day devoted to romantic bliss […]

I’m Afraid to Stop Running

I recently launched my first Kickstarter. It’s geared toward funding the completion of my #RunningTo road trip and the book that will follow. I’m currently 44% funded, and I’m so grateful. We’ve come a long way, but there’s still 56% more to go in just 16 days. Everyone who gives (and already has given) will get something […]

Tipping Point

It’s November. My notoriously worst month. But I’ve already blogged enough about that. Once again, November presents another tipping point for my life. Not a “bad” one, not a “good” one, just a … a regular old tipping point. From January 1 to May 31, I was a resident of the state of California. I paid rent […]

Why Am I Still Wandering?

When you wander the continent for three months, you start to wonder some things. Why is the sky blue? Why do we insist on block intersections when roundabouts are so much cooler and more efficient? What’s the deal with Scotland? Aren’t they already a country? Among myriad other questions, I’m pondering one in particular after […]

Fullerton to Fullerton: Back to the Beginning Again

#RunningTo DAY 65: It’s amazing how something that was once so commonplace, so routine, so otherwise ordinary can become quite the opposite. Tonight, I’m sitting at an old familiar window seat. Tonight, I’m writing at The Night Owl. After sixty-five long days and nights on the road, I’m temporarily returning to a familiar though quite opposite life. […]

Seattle Isn’t All It’s Cracked Up to Be

DAY 38: I’d just reentered America after two weeks in the Great White North. I cruised southward down the 5 with a sizzling anticipation unlike any other #RunningTo stop to this point. In many ways, my first month on the road had been leading up to this. The Space Needle emerged, Seattle’s distinct skyline unfurling like a blanket in […]

five minutes from home

blue car goes straight white car turns left red light turns green cars surge forward surge toward me. tonight i sit behind a window and watch eyes stare and mind wanders i wonder where everyone is going tonight wonder where i am going tonight? soon i will gather my things and walk i will walk […]

The End of the World: Can It Please Happen Today?

For years, I’ve eagerly awaited this day. This most ultimate day that would, in fact, supposedly finally but probably not become Earth’s very last. The end of the world. It’s one part affinity for sarcasm and another part legitimate longing for heaven. You either get my sense of humor and sense of “home” (or lack thereof), […]

TMZ: Wanderer

It’s been a fun first week christening my proverbial flagship, thomasmarkzuniga.com, detailing all these different facets of my life. Thanks so much for journeying with me. It’s certainly been a fruitful, eye-opening process for me during a time of extreme transition, and I hope you’ve found my introspective posts at least more worth your time […]