Find Your Way in the Big Bend
Whether you're exploring the desert on a guided tour, settling in for a small retreat, or searching for a place to call home, Stevie brings local knowledge and a personal touch to every path. Three ways in — one guide who knows them all.
Welcome to My Dojo
Big Bend Dojo is my classroom, my gymnasium, my attempt to find my own 'Way.' The word dojo comes from Japanese Buddhist tradition — a place for seekers of higher learning and self-mastery, not just martial arts. I live in Alpine, but my home stretches across this whole wild stretch of Trans-Pecos Texas, from Marfa to Terlingua to the river towns of Mexico.
Last year I lost my wife, Martha, my soulmate, and it left a hole in my world I'm still learning to live around. This project is my way of coming out of the cocoon — telling stories, exploring my home, and trying to find my light again, out loud, in public, imperfectly.
Meet Stevie the Guide
Before the Big Bend, there was the whole world. Stevie has guided divers on the Great Barrier Reef, naturalists through the Galapagos, and doctors into the Andes and Amazon — collecting stories, maps, and a few good friends along the way.
Now he brings that same instinct for navigation home, leading tours and retreats through the desert he calls his own.
Two Books, One Honest Journey
Stevie's first book, Secret Passages of Stevie the Guide, traces the breadcrumb trail that led him from ordinary life to mission work with orphans in Peru — written, in his own words, for approval as much as for truth.
His second book, The Taboo Distillery of Stevie the Guide, is what happened when he stopped holding back. Sparked by a 4:30am conversation with a Buddhist abbot on a cruise ship, it's an unfiltered look at faith, doubt, and the messy work of finding your own way home.
Read them in order, and you'll watch a guide become a little more himself with every page.
