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My 2026 calendar | My sci-fi books | My travel photography
Happy 2026, everyone! And hello again, St. Pete.
I’ll admit: my heart hurts a bit.
Without going too deep into the story (about which I could write an entire novel), I’m not a Florida person. I like to say I got stuck here after moving from Savannah, Georgia down to Bradenton (south of Tampa) in late 2018. During COVID, the cost of living exploded and I went from a $1500/month living by myself in a 2BR, 2BA apartment, to $1600/month for the HALF I paid with a roommate in a 2BR, 1BA house.
If you’ve read my books, the main character is not a fan of his home planet, with lots of pent-up resentment, stress, and trauma that fuels not a hopeful desire for adventure, but a desperate obsession to escape.
That’s…kind of how I felt about Florida. For me, the postcard novelty Florida beats everyone over the head with wore off in a matter of months, as I watched rampant deforestation and draining wetlands to build thousands of densely-packed single-family homes selling for $600k+ that have no backyards and operating under predatory HOAs. Light pollution stretching hundreds of miles down the coasts forces you travel halfway across the state to see halfway-decent night skies.
To sum it up, I need my mountains, my cold weather, and my snow–none of which Florida has–but I also need to live somewhere that actively destroying and exploiting the very habitats it parades around in pretty tourism pictures (and let’s be honest, without tourism, Florida’s economy would all but collapse).
There’s certainly more to the story beyond this surface layer I’m expressing from a disgruntled perspective, but in the interest of time, I’ll leave it at that.
I call October 2023 my first foray into being “The Hiking Astronomer.” If you read this post, you’ll see I took my smaller telescope to Crater Lake in Oregon to witness the October 14th Annular Solar Eclipse. Though it was cloudy and we barely saw the eclipse, the 5-day adventure ignited something in me that had been crackling under the ashes for a while.
Then I came back to Florida.
In June 2024, I quit teaching and did a 6,000 mile solo road trip around Arizona for a conference, to travel the state, and to host sidewalk astronomy in Tucson and Sedona. This coincided with my 20-year novel writing anniversary, on which day I visited Meteor Crater east of Flagstaff and Horseshoe Bend in Page, a few minutes south of the Utah border.
Then I came back to Florida.
In August 2024, I traveled to Utah with a Nat Geo & BBC drone operator who I met at H0rseshoe Bend (I can officially say I’m 1 degree away from knowing David Attenborough). We traveled from Grand Junction, Colorado, to St. George, Utah, hitting up otherworldly landscapes, a few national parks, and just creating an adventure that flared up my wanderlust to a degree I’ve never felt before.
Then I came back to Florida.
Hurricanes Helene and Milton destroyed and shut down my Sarasota and Bradenton astronomy locations for several months, leaving St. Pete as the sole location from October 2024 – May 2025. In that time, I got invited to speak at a series of conferences in Idaho the following summer, and something in my brain clicked.
This…this could be the moment.
I could leave Florida. My rent would end while I was in Idaho. I didn’t have to come back.
I’ve always dreamed of living in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Oregon is my favorite state in the continental US, but I’ve never had the opportunity to leave Florida and go live there. With my rent ending and being a relatively significant sum to speak at these conferences, it seemed like everything was lining up in exactly the way it needed to for me to escape Florida.
It was around March 2025 that I started my personal rebrand from Sidewalk Science Center–a nonprofit organization I created and been directing in Florida for nearly seven years, but was struggling with scalability, capacity, and logistical issues and was sliding into stagnation by then–to the Hiking Astronomer.
I set a date for the final sidewalk astronomy session, changed out table covers and stickers, and set the expectation: I was leaving St. Pete, speaking at those conferences in Idaho, then moving to the PNW. On May 9th 2025, more than 600 people attended my final sidewalk astronomy event, and on May 19th, I left Florida for what I thought–and a piece of me even hoped–was forever.
This one-way road trip…changed. Suddenly, I realized, why would I want to escape paying rent in Florida just to change it out with paying rent in the PNW, where I can’t do the work I love nine months out of the year. I’d also been infatuated with vanlife for years, often asking myself “why am I paying rent when I’m literally never home?” Sure it was a place to sleep and shower, but beyond that, I was nearly always gone writing in a cafe, hiking one of Florida’s extraordinarily flat trails, or hosting astronomy.
On June 23, 2025…I knew what I wanted to do. And when I got paid from the conferences, I did it: I bought a small van, built it out with a bed, solar panels and batteries, cooler, microwave, and storage, and have been living it in pretty much ever since. My monthly living expenses went from $1600+ to under $1000–and under $600 if I’m not traveling long distances. Rent is gas, which I only fill up maybe once every 7-8 days. I’m not a foodie and am perfectly happy with basic (healthy) meals, so only spend about $150 on food each month–and yes, I eat my fruits and veggies. Showers? Planet Fitness for $25/month, anywhere in the country, and in the summer months out in the deserts, I have a shower pump that suckers to the side of the van, with warm water courtesy of the Sun.
I drove 36,000 miles in 2025. Explored every state in the west and hosted astronomy in nearly every western state. I climbed mountains, I navigated canyons, hiked under moonlight, camped alone miles from civilization between the purple hills of Petrified Forest National Park. I witnessed some of the darkest skies in the country and led private stargazing tours in Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and California. I made friends in every state, went out to lunch, got coffee, hiked, shared stories, watched sunsets on my days off. I got to spend multiple weeks during summer & autumn with my best friends from college and adore the absolute heck out of their kids, taking them on their own camping trips and mini adventures. I explore the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State and slept deep inside forests, along the coast of Oregon, under the towering redwoods of California.
Then, when I was done with my astronomy stint in San Diego, I traveled to Pennsylvania for the holidays. And knowing I was returning east…and knowing the winter conditions in Florida…I breathed a deep sigh and committed to returning to St. Pete for January and February.
And now I’m back. I got in on Monday the 5th and as of Wednesday night, have already had nearly 700 people come to the telescope. Like I said, I didn’t think I’d be back so soon. As I was driving into the city the first day, my heart began racing. I felt like I’d come full circle. I’d gone on this massive journey and was now returning to where it all began. Like the end of Lord of the Rings, or Narnia, where you return to the familiar, and your heart hurts because now you know what’s out there to discover and experience.
And I knew my mission changed. I’d already been doing it for months, but coming back to St. Pete truly solidified why I do what I do.
My mission with Sidewalk Science Center was to provide free access educational tools and resources in local communities. While still needed, the country and world have changed. With it, my rebrand to the Hiking Astronomer needed to have a mission that aligned with what I personally believe is important today: conversation.
I’m not someone who loves the spotlight. Flattery goes absolutely nowhere with me. I have no desire to be rich and famous; “just enough” and “ability to travel with what I have” are all I need.
What I do want is to be part of the community. To provide a resource. To have conversations. To connect with, and to be the connection for others.
My telescopes are no longer just an educational resource. Not in my eyes. Now, they are a tool to raise eyebrows and draw people in. My mission is no longer strictly about science and stargazing; rather, it’s about getting people to talk to each other. To step out of the comfort of our own isolation and into a shared moment with other people in our local communities. To realize who we are and understand the people around us.
At the telescope, I have my photography and books and videos. These spark stories about places people have traveled, sights they saw, experiences they embarked on or endured. It’s not only me sharing stories, but strangers engaging in conversations together.
I don’t dress flashy or am obvious in any way unless you are a regular who knows me. It’s fun to watch someone walk up and ask a different person if they’re allowed to look, and that person lets them in, sometimes explains what to do, or what they’re seeing. The experience operates organically; I don’t need to pull any strings for it to function. The sense of community drives this experience independent of me. I provide the equipment and visuals and set it all up, but for the most part, I can sit back and let it run itself, powered by curiosity and community (as magical as it sounds, no, it’s still not a Perpetual Machine).
A fear of getting stuck again lingers in the back of my mind. It’s been nearly a year since I was last in Florida, the longest I’ve spent away from it in nearly a decade. My personal apprehension is a real thing I’m pushing back against right now. I have a date set to leave, February 22nd, and then I head back to San Diego for a Lunar Eclipse, then to Sedona for spring breakers. In 2025, I already have private events lined up in Florida, Sedona, San Francisco, and Salem, Oregon. I know I’m leaving, but I also think that maybe…maybe coming back to St. Pete each year could be something I do? I haven’t decided yet, and of course, I don’t actually know the full extent of how any given year is going to play out. There are some events in motion that I’m omitting and don’t know how they’ll play out or where they’ll take me or keep me.
I’m living a life I love. I get to write my books, travel, do photography and fly drones. But most of all, I get to set up telescopes and meet tens-of-thousands of people, share stories, build communities, and most importantly, inspire.
This world is beautiful.
Alex
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