What happens when you’re sick over wanting to be back in a place where you don’t belong? An ache. That’s what Ireland was to me. It wasn’t leprechauns, luck, pots of gold, or Guinness Beer. I avoided those things like the plague. I didn’t even kiss the Blarney Stone. Upon arriving in Dublin, after a […]
Kuala Lumpur: A Place of Many Firsts
Monsoon Season You have not experienced Southeast Asia until you have heard the sky open up on top of a market of corrugated metal roofs during monsoon season. That was the introduction that Kuala Lumpur yielded me. The mood of the Petaling street market changed, time to hunker down for an hour to keep […]
8 Things that Travel Has Taught Me
I’m 50 countries in now, and to me that’s nothing. It’s a drop in the bucket compared to what I’d like to see, do, taste, hear, and feel. Folks keep telling me that I will be done soon. But what they don’t know is that it’s like drugs. I’m in too deep now, and there’s […]
Penang: A Food Paradise, Malaysia
The Journey My hips twisted to balance as I focused on keeping my feet planted, surfing with the movement of the train on the tracks. I was too intrigued to sit during the ride from Kuala Lumpur to Penang. I tried not to fumble my camera lenses as I switched them then held my camera […]
Rastafarians, Scared of Snorkeling, and the Embodiment of Jerk Chicken: Jamaica, Where Things Went Wrong
I could do this. Easy. Laid Back. Island Time. Jamaica. After all, I’m the girl who will go almost anywhere, try almost anything, eat almost anything. But I’m still not fearless. Sitting at home at my kitchen table, I was the one who had decisively stated that I was going to Jamaica to face my […]
Guatemala, Land of the Trees
As we rode into Guatemala on CA13 we were stuck behind a bicycle race. The slow pace forced us to carefully soak in all that the countryside had to offer: a van went by with a loudspeaker announcing available medicine for sale out of the back of it. Senoras nursed on the front […]
Wild Penguins: The Last Patagonia Chronicle, Part 5
Exploiting nature for money is a thing of the past. Yeah not really; but it should be. All across the globe humans are furrowing their brows, concerned about the sustainability of and our effects on wildlife. Muscles were tingling, cinching up somewhere inside as I was surrounded by the “typicals” swiping from photo to photo […]
Tierra Del Fuego, The End of the World: The Patagonia Chronicles Part 4
After consuming ungodly numbers of Che Empenadas in El Chalten and getting a little too friendly with another South American Gray Fox near Lake Condido we braved the mangled guardrail road to Ushuaia. It was summer, but apparently the road was too much for many of the international truckers in the rain. Legend has it […]
The Patagonia Chronicles Part 3: A Flamingo, An Ice Wall, A Rock Pile, & An Estancia
Crossing between Chile and Argentina was little more than a blink of an administrative counter. We got out to lift up a chain and let ourselves over. We had been strategically planning our diesel stops on the map. All plans to purchase and keep a spare can had run dry. The scrub grass silence was […]
The Patagonia Chronicles Part 2: Is That Really Another Guanaco?
Puerto Natales is the closest hub of civilization and it’s 80 km to the national park. From our hostel we passed the town’s pride, a massive Milodon sculpture, and later on the cave of the Milodon. I wasn’t even really sure what a Milodon was, but knew it was big, kinda had the body of […]
The Patagonia Chronicles Part 1: Backpacks, Bagualeros, and Torres
The dreaded blue box . . . A plane full of backpackers chatters as we barrel in our silver bullet from Santiago to Punta Arenas. Many were headed to Antarctica. My blood pressure begins to calm since the teenager in the airport aggressively demanded to assess the size of my (and everyone else’s) backpack at […]
Romania, So Much More Than Vampires
Can we begin with a creepy, exaggerated laugh of a villain? I’ll be the first shmuck to admit that the reason that we visited Romania was to see Bran Castle– hit Bucharest, tackle some vampires, and get out. But Romania has a way of slapping around silly tourists with this inappropriate attitude. My favorite memories […]
