Kevin Love is ready for basketball again, but he definitely enjoyed one of the longer summers of his NBA career. Love had an injury-filled 2018-19 campaign for a Cleveland Cavaliers team that failed to make the postseason without LeBron James, which meant for the first time in four seasons he had a considerable offseason.
NBA players often handle that time differently, and while workouts and swimming continued for Love, he spent the summer exploring the world with an adorable vizsla puppy and his girlfriend, Kate Bock. In a New York Times story entitled “Eat Pray Kevin Love,” which is perfect, writer (and former Dime contributor) Alex Wong talked to Love about basketball but, more importantly, his lengthy summer travels that he documented on Instagram.
Love stressed that he was constantly working out, but he was also eating like a king in various locations around the world. And in the interview he explained how watching Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations impacted him and his desire to travel. Though the two never met before Bourdain’s tragic suicide, the spirit of his sense of exploration and appreciation for other cultures were a big influence for Love’s travel.
Love said he had always admired Bourdain’s open-mindedness as he explored the world on TV programs such as “No Reservations” and “Parts Unknown.”
“The great thing I learned from him was to be relentlessly curious and without fear of prejudice,” Love said. Having taken a recent interest in photography which resulted in his buying a new camera and two new lenses, Love set out to capture the photogenic essence of each location he visited this summer.
Love visited Thailand, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and places like British Columbia during the summer, snapping photos that became a pretty epic summer road trip collection on Instagram.
But the trips were also about food, too. And Love said they made a point to ask locals where to eat and what they needed to experience.
In Thailand, the two visited the Elephant Sanctuary, the Big Buddha, and also came across a new-to-them culinary world at the Sunday street market. A coconut sorbet sourced from a local town was a highlight.
“Some people eat to live,” Love said. “Some people live to eat. I live to eat.”
He was the envy of the NBA world, drawing comments from plenty of players about his travel. And it seems like he had good inspiration to hit the road and see the world.
