What is Without Baggage?

Without Baggage is an online magazine about traveling. I don't write about every place I've ever traveled or everything I do when I travel. Instead, I try to write concise essays about other places and cultures and the funny things that happen when you're thrust into them.

Travel website Gadling describes Without Baggage as "a traveler's online magazine with brains and heart" with essays that "evoke emotions and intellectual pursuits that aim to explore the depth and meaning of travel experiences."

Who is Without Baggage?

Hank Leukart, the personality behind Without Baggage, is a Los Angeles-based freelance television producer and journalist.

Hank has worked as a producer on the US version of the hit television show Big Brother for CBS Network Television. As a journalist, Hank has written many articles and essays covering travel, technology, and the arts for publications including The Cleveland Plain Dealer, The Dartmouth, Computer Gaming World, Computer Player, NetGuide, and Games Domain Review. When he was fifteen years old, Hank wrote and published The Doom Hacker's Guide, a 300-page book about sprucing up the 1990s computer game, Doom, and authors Dick Lehr and Mitchell Zuckoff featured him in the book Judgment Ridge for his journalism work.

Hank has traveled to numerous destinations -- including places such as Africa, Alaska, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Costa Rica, Delft, Denver, Edinburgh, Ecuador, Florence, Honduras, the French Pyrennes, the Galapagos Islands, Glasgow, The Hague, Laos, the Loire Valley, Los Angeles, London, Mexico City, Miami, Montreal, Puebla (Mexico), New England, New York, Normandy, Northern Thailand, Paris, Rome, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Southern Mexico, Toulouse, Washington DC, and Vancouver -- but there's still ten lifetimes of destinations left to explore.

What does Without Baggage mean?

Traveling without baggage is the best way to travel. I carry as little as possible, I don't make any advance reservations, and I avoid having a set itinerary. Traveling gives you the opportunity to leave emotional baggage at home and escape life while giving you a sophisticated world-perspective. Of course, it's almost impossible to travel without any baggage at all. Though I almost never check luggage on airplanes, I still usually have at least a backpack on my back. But, the less baggage, the better.