About

Take Risks Be Happy helps you live a more interesting life — through travel and adventure.

Now in its second decade, TRBH publishes honest hotel and travel reviews, creative + athletic gear breakdowns, and stories from the road—the kind that help you plan better and get more out of where you go.

If you like adventure but also like clear answers (what’s worth it, what isn’t, and why), you’ll feel at home here. Founded by a marathon runner and world traveler, we lean heavy on travel and running content, in addition to reviewing music creation gear.

What we cover

  • Hotel reviews and comparisons (best for X, X vs Y, where to stay in a city)

  • Travel guides, city guides, etc. (practical notes, not fluff)

  • Gear for travelers, runners, and creatives—what we use, what we’d skip, and what actually helps

  • Interviews with rising creatives and entrepreneurs—people who genuinely embody the Take Risks Be Happy spirit

  • Occasional tools that make travel easier (points, travel credit cards, courses/resources)

A quick note on where Take Risks Be Happy came from

TRBH started as a resource for creatives, freelancers, and entrepreneurs—people trying to make a living doing what they love, and people with stable jobs who felt the pull to take a bigger life risk. That spirit is still here: curiosity, independence, and choosing the more alive option when it matters.

Over time, what readers used most—and what I loved making most—was the travel side: specific recommendations, real tradeoffs, and guides you can actually use.

The people behind Take Risks Be Happy

I’m Alexander Webb, founder of Take Risks Be Happy. I’m a writer and traveler, and my work has been published by The New York Times, National Geographic, The Financial Times Press, WIRED, Business Insider, and other outlets. I’ve lived in China, Korea, Japan, the United States, and Australia, and I’ve spent years writing about travel, creativity, and trying to build a life with more freedom in it.

I also founded The Studies Show, a media project that turns academic research into clear, interesting stories—through short videos, essays, and interviews—focused on topics like psychology, economics, and culture.

We also publish work from a small group of contributors, including Brandon Belknap, a storyteller and photographer with a gift for finding characters, dive bars, and great hotels in the wild. He notes “Like everyone, I struggled to find a calling – more appropriately, I didn’t know which direction to walk in, so I started exploring anything that caught my interest. This led me to writing and photography. With my stories, I hope that I can give you, the reader, the audacity to take those first steps in any direction you want to go.

Affiliate links

Take Risks Be Happy is supported by affiliate links on some posts. If you buy through a link, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend things we genuinely think are worth considering, and we try to stay straightforward about pros, cons, and who something is best for.

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Some of our favorite articles on other websites:

What I Learned Writing 1,000 Words A Day For A Year – Come Write With Us

Cyril Wong: The Interview – Poetry Culture

How Bob Dylan, Housing Prices, and Harvard show that Networks Matter