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 […]
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 […]
An Entirely Maddening Time in Dubrovnik
Let me just preface this by saying that I loved the Dalmatian Coast. Visiting a new place is similar to dating. You’re both trying to figure out if you like each other, if you fit together. Dubrovnik was the equivalent of dating an international super model. Despite her beauty, I couldn’t get to know her. […]
Funky in Seattle
Photos of the lovely Seattle
14 Photos of Montenegro That Will Make You Want to Visit
A week before my Balkan road trip I sat in a meeting. I didn’t know the man sitting across from me. I didn’t know his name or his official job title, but I knew he outranked me because of the way he carried himself. We scoffed at the latest news about Trump shoving the prime minister […]
Friends to Cuba- Actually, Friends to Cubans
If loving Cuba is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. What I especially loved about it were it’s normal, everyday, working class people and the families of the slums. I visited Cuba legally, and hesitated to publish what I learned because of the icy relations of the past that have yet again been […]
Vancouver Island & Telegraph Cove
∴Mountain Ranges & Sunshine∴ There’s something about the way the light shines on Vancouver Island. Even the weeds on the side of the road are beautiful. The green that hits you when you step off of the ferry is unreal. The island is roughly the size of Honshu, the main island of Japan—pretty big for […]
Authenticity in Costa Rica
This is where this story began; it was hard not to miss the burning forest outside of Liberia. When the Spanish claimed “Costa Rica” they named it after the RICH land they saw. Mixed research indicates that in the 1940’s 75% of Costa Rica was forested. Suprise As of today 20,000 acres of land is deforested annually. Now, while […]