Matthew Karsten (Expert Vagabond)
Matthew Karsten is the travel blogger and photographer behind Expert Vagabond, now based in France and creating immersive travel films through Escape VR.
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Latest
Matthew’s happenings, collected from public sources, plus their backstory and Starbook, where fans write.
Known for
- Swiss Alps Hike: North Face Trail2025 · Escape VR filmmaker
Escape VR - Penguin Escapes Killer Whales2021 · Video by Matthew and Anna Karsten
Expert Vagabond - 30 Photos From Afghanistan That You Won’t See in the News2021 · Photographer and writer
Expert Vagabond - Hitchhiking Across America: One Ride at a Time2013 · Travel reporting project
Expert Vagabond
Overview
- Also known as
- Matt, the Expert Vagabond
- Creates
- Travel stories, photography, destination guides and VR travel films
- Started
- Began traveling and blogging in 2010
- Home base
- Annecy, France, following a March 2025 move
- Early breakthrough
- A coast-to-coast U.S. hitchhiking project attracted major media attention
Mini bio
How it started.
Before Expert Vagabond, Matthew worked as a freelance photographer in Miami. After a year of saving, selling possessions and building an ebook business, they left for Guatemala in fall 2010. A trip planned for one year became a much longer life of travel.
Finding an audience.
The blog began as a way to share stories with family and friends. As strangers started reading, Matthew approached it more like a magazine. Advertising requests, photography sales and a first press trip followed. Their coast-to-coast hitchhiking project later drew wider press attention.
Adventures to revisit.
Matthew’s archive includes a photo essay from a 2016 trek through Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor and footage made with Anna Karsten of a penguin escaping orcas by jumping into a tourist boat in Antarctica. The encounter was filmed in November 2019 and published on the blog in March 2021.
A new way to travel.
In March 2025, Matthew announced a family move to Annecy and a new business making VR travel films. Escape VR brings destinations into viewers’ headsets through immersive 3D footage and spatial audio, extending the same curiosity that runs through the blog.
Creditschronological, newest first
- 2025Swiss Alps Hike: North Face TrailEscape VR filmmaker
- 2021Penguin Escapes Killer WhalesFilmed by Matthew and Anna Karsten in 2019
- 202130 Photos From Afghanistan That You Won’t See in the NewsPhotographer and writer; photographed on a 2016 trip
- 2013Hitchhiking Across America: One Ride at a TimeTraveler, photographer and writer
Quotes
My mission is to share the beauty of our world with others, as realistically as possible.Matthew Karsten, Escape VR About page
Trivia
- Rolf Potts’s book Vagabonding helped spark Matthew’s interest in long-term travel.
- The airline lost Matthew’s luggage on the first trip to Guatemala.
- The family’s traveling cat is named Poofy.
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