Watt's World

Nick Watt embraces the strange land of Albania while searching for a George W. Bush statue, downing 160-proof plum liquor, and meeting up with a "sworn virgin" and a hip-hop prime minister before pretending to be an American on a late-night TV show.

Nick heads to Italy to see if cheap villas, good wine and naps are better than rent-free California RVs. He tries not to ruffle feathers with his caffeine intake and hops aboard the "Cosmic Train" to find the White Rabbit in Slab City.

Nick gets spiritual while searching for the city of Telos, looks for spaceships in a campfire, and enjoys a schvitz with Native Americans. Will UFOs, lost civilizations and New Age swag make Nick fall under the spell of California’s Mount Shasta?

Steering clear of the gondolas and tourist traps, Nick explores an abandoned island, befriends an aristocrat with a playboy boat, and winds up spending time in jail. Can Nick go off the beaten path in Venice, Italy?

Nick paints his face and snacks on eggs in the forest, takes shots of bush rum and discovers where the Rastas grow their weed in his quest to find out if Dominica is the perfect Caribbean island.

Why do locals want to "keep Portland weird"? Nick befriends a stripper with a heart of gold, joins the circus and paints the town red with an eccentric rock star to find out why so many are moving to Oregon's Rose City.

Snobs and sophistication is what Nick expects in France, but he goes undercover with the Paris pee pee police to chase “wild urine,” discovers a very “un-French” sport in Marseilles and tries to annoy the staff at a Cannes hotel.

Can Nick Watt live in the farthest reaches of Alaska? He treks from Anchorage to Barrow to find out by visiting oil towns and eating all the whale blubber he can stomach.

Honestly, are the leather chaps really necessary? Busting bandits in Osage, avoiding a contact high in Denver, and hanging ten in Oahu, Nick is on a quest to find out if everything he thought he knew about America is wrong.

Why can't Nick always get what he wants? Breaking his golden rule for travel, Nick goes where he's never wanted to: Saba, a place so famous it's left off most maps, and Montserrat, an island with a bit of a volcano problem.

Is the Cuba we love about to disappear? As the United States normalizes relations, Nick discovers a fledgling free market in the streets of communist Havana: real estate agents, mattress repairmen and all-male go-go dancers.

What does gobs of money mean to two completely different New York 'hoods? Nick ventures into Harlem to play ball and out to the Hamptons to discover what potato farmers and clam diggers think of the mega-rich moving in.

Has Nick made a terrible mistake? He sets out to prove his new hometown isn't all fake smiles and bad traffic by reinventing himself as a masked wrestler, foraging for fine dining, and joining a gang of renegade street artists.