My name is João Leitão. Since 1999, I have spent roughly half my life somewhere else.
Nomad Revelations is my adventure travel blog — an archive of more than two decades of journeys written to inspire independent travelers and audacious backpackers to explore the world on their own terms.
I was born in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1980, with a degree in Visual Arts and a habit of not staying put. So far the road has taken me through 146 countries, and around 20 unrecognized territories — from Afghanistan to Antarctica, Yemen to North Korea, Timbuktu to Transnistria.
This page is who I am, where I've been, and why I keep going.
Author Notes
- Born
- Lisbon, Portugal, 1980 · degree in Visual Arts
- Base 2026
- Between Agadir (Morocco) and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates — with about two months a year in Egypt running RJ Travel's group operations, two to three months in Dubai at the company operations, and the rest between Poland, Portugal, and anywhere else in the world
- Blogging
- Online since 2003 · this domain since 2006 · in English since 2010 · Lonely Planet Pathfinders alum
- Awards
- IATI Award 2022 — Best Portuguese Travel Blog · Featured Speaker, Global Tourism Forum Istanbul
- Work
- Founder of RJ Travel Agency SARL (tour operator & DMC — Marrakech office) and RJ Travel LLC (tour operator — Sharjah, UAE) · co-owner of the Dar Rita hotel in Ouarzazate
- Lived in
- Morocco (since 2006), United Arab Emirates, Finland, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine, USA, Brazil, Poland
What this blog is
Nomad Revelations is an adventure travel blog in the oldest sense of the words: I go, and then I write what actually happened.
The main intention has never changed since 2003 — to encourage other travelers to discover exciting and unknown places, with exotic itineraries and first-hand stories instead of recycled advice.
You may notice most of my destinations are not the usual ones. Yemen. Afghanistan. Iraq. Somalia. Sudan. Syria. North Korea. That is not an accident, and it is not danger for the sake of danger — it is curiosity about the parts of the world most people only see through headlines.
I go, and then I write what actually happened.
A life on the road
On the road, I've spent 15 days driving Iceland's Ring Road and Westfjords, then driven solo through northern Afghanistan, followed by a 13,350 km road trip through South America from Quito to Ushuaia.
I took a 5,000 km winter road trip across Russia in February, at −33°C, and an equally cold two-week Antarctic expedition across the 66th parallel.
I've been part of an 18-man local convoy enduring 22 hours from Gao to Timbuktu, perched on top of a pickup's cargo. By water, I found a last-minute Galápagos cruise in Puerto Ayora and later spent 550 hours crossing the Amazon River by boat, sleeping in a hammock for months.
In 2017 and 2018 I spent one year living in a camper van across Central Asia and the Middle East — 38,000 km through Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Iran and Iraq, crossing the Pamir Highway in winter with my wife and our small son.
Embracing the unexpected has led me to live six months in Istanbul and another half-year in Lviv, Ukraine. I've taken bread-baking classes in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I put stigma aside to visit North Korea — and, quite unexpectedly, ended up liking it a lot.
I lived a week like a monk in a Buddhist monastery in Lumbini. I attended an authentic Amazigh triple wedding in the Sahara. One evening in Harar, a century-old ritual ended with me feeding wild hyenas in Ethiopia, close enough to smell their breath.
There are downsides to the traveler's rhythm, even danger. I've had guns aimed at me in Mauritania, Iran, the DRC and Mali. I've been detained over travel misunderstandings in South Sudan, Spain, Mauritania, Barbados, Morocco, the DRC, Monaco, Uzbekistan, Germany, Nagorno-Karabakh, Lithuania and Russia.
Malaria, contracted in the Congo, took eight months to fully leave my body.
And still — I've walked the Chernobyl Dead Zone and left unharmed. In 2020 I crossed Syria's M5 highway through Idlib during the war. In 2023 I returned to Afghanistan; in 2025, back to Syria under its new authorities.
The danger was real. The hospitality was also real. That sentence is true of almost every country on this blog.
Why I travel
Why not? I travel to be abroad, to see new things and learn how people live in different parts of the globe. I like to communicate with people, hear their ideas, and get inspired by moments: sunrises, talks, gastronomy, history, music, dance, nature.
Human contact is the core of it. I define myself as curious — a sponge, a boy with a backpack absorbing architecture, vestiges of the past, religious beliefs, flavors, aromas, languages and musical expressions.
Why the name Nomad Revelations
Nomad — a person who continually moves from place to place; a wanderer. That has been my rhythm since 1999.
Revelation — the act of revealing; a disclosure of something not previously known. During my years of traveling I gathered so much that I thought I might as well share it.
Move. Discover. Reveal. That's the whole editorial policy.
My favorite countries
People always ask. The top five: Morocco — my home of 16+ years, colorful, welcoming and endlessly surprising; Turkey — rich, diverse, delicious; Portugal — where I'm from, and where heritage sits on every corner; the Gorno-Badakhshan region of Tajikistan — the mountains along the Panj River in this page's cover photo; and Brazil — friendly, vast and alive.
The longer list I keep coming back to: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Mali, Nepal, Nicaragua, Oman, Peru, Russia, Syria, Sudan, Switzerland and Uzbekistan.
Living between Morocco and the UAE
I moved to southern Morocco in 2006. In 2010, with my sister, I opened Dar Rita, a hotel in Ouarzazate. In 2019 we also created Dar Digital Nomad, one of the first coliving and coworking spaces in Morocco — a good chapter that has since closed.
And there is RJ Travel — today two companies: RJ Travel Agency SARL, the tour operator and DMC with our office in Marrakech, and RJ Travel LLC, the tour operator registered in Sharjah, UAE. Together they run small-group tours and private trips with guaranteed departures to Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Algeria and beyond. You will probably find me somewhere between a Marrakech desert tour, an expedition to Iran or Syria, or leading a group through Iraq.
These days I live between Agadir and the United Arab Emirates, where I hold residency in both countries. Around two months a year I'm in Egypt running our group operations; two or three months in Dubai at the company office; the rest moves between Morocco, Poland, Libya and Portugal.
The blog and the company feed each other: I still travel the way I write, and I still write the way I travel.
As seen on
Nomad Revelations has been featured by Daily Mail, Insight Guides, TSF Rádio Notícias, Público, Wanderlust (Blog of the Week), DN Magazine, NiT, G1 Globo, La Presse, TV Amazonas, TVI24, momondo, eDreams, Ekonomista and Xposé, among others — and I was part of Lonely Planet's Pathfinders blogger team.
In 2022, Nomad Revelations won the IATI Award for Best Portuguese Travel Blog. I have spoken about travel photography as a featured speaker at the Global Tourism Forum in Istanbul, and was part of Lonely Planet's Pathfinders blogger community from 2015 to 2022. Back in 2004, I organized the Évora Tambacounda expedition — 13,000 km from Portugal to Senegal and back, sponsored by the Municipality of Évora, carrying official UNESCO books and medals to mayors across West Africa.
Leading travelers is not a side effect of the blog — it came first. Between 2000 and 2007 I prepared and led twenty overland expeditions from Portugal into the Sahara Desert. I have led more than thirty Marrakech-to-desert group tours in Morocco, spent two months a year running group trips in Egypt from Cairo to Luxor, Aswan and Alexandria, and worked for years as a tour leader in Libya, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia. RJ Travel exists because of those twenty-five years on the front seat.
Questions people ask me
Why is this blog about adventure travel?
Because my passion is lesser-known destinations and unfamiliar experiences — venturing beyond the typical tourist trails. I've written about Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia and Congo: places that aren't accessible or advisable for everyone, but that reward careful planning and an open spirit with the most memorable journeys of a lifetime.
What is the biggest adventure you've ever had?
The 2011 journey through South Sudan, the DRC and Uganda. I was surrounded in the jungle by a mob holding machetes, rescued by Moroccan UN peacekeepers, traveled onward inside an armed UN vehicle — and then contracted malaria, which required hospitalization in the Congo. Rough, and ultimately one of the most formative trips of my life.
Since when do you write this travel blog?
I've been publishing online since 2003, after starting my People of the World photography project in 2001. This domain opened in 2006, first in Portuguese; the English-language Nomad Revelations began in 2010. Fellow bloggers I admire include Expert Vagabond and Against the Compass.
How many countries have you been to?
146 countries, plus around 20 non-recognized countries and territories — Somaliland, Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria among them. I also return to places I love: Mauritania seven times, Turkey fifteen, Uzbekistan five, Iraq four. The detailed maps are on my visited countries page.
How long have you been on the road in total?
Averaging around six months of travel per year since 1999 — roughly ten cumulative years on the road, alongside living in Morocco, Finland, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Ukraine, the USA, Brazil and Poland.
What is the main focus of your travels?
People, history and nature — with a soft spot for dusty, warm countries and ancient desert cities. I've visited 345 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and I have a particular love for petroglyphs and castles.
What is your favorite country?
Morocco — even after 16+ years living and working here, it still feels like being on the road: the colors, the people, the gastronomy, the landscapes. After it: Turkey, Portugal, Tajikistan's Gorno-Badakhshan, and Brazil.
What's the single best lesson the road has taught you?
That at our core we are all the same. We smile, cry, love our families and enjoy life — everywhere. Travel means exploring the unknown, and the unknown keeps proving that the world is far more hospitable than the news suggests.
Life is made of moments, and the world is out there, full of precious and unique adventures waiting. If traveling has given me such amazing experiences — why shouldn't I share them with you?
Welcome to my adventure travel blog.
Keep going: visited countries · best travel experiences · my 52 best travel tips · what's in my backpack
