“Are you a backpacker, too?” When a German 20-something asked me this question in Ho Chi Minh City recently, I cringed. We are traveling around the world with only our backpacks, so the answer is certainly yes. However, in my reticence to respond that way, a realization donned on me… I am a self-loathing tourist. I hide from the hordes of Chinese...
It broke my heart to leave these items behind, and not bring them home as keepsakes of our adventures. But alas, like a turtle, I travel with my home on my back (and a 20kg limit on every flight), so I will have to be satisfied simply bringing home memories. What I Would Have Bought… Bottles of home-brewed rakia from BulgariaA glass for Turkish tea with gold...
Our two and a half weeks in Japan were a whirlwind of experiences and adjustments, both to the rich culture surrounding us and to our rhythms and relationship after two months on the road. It made for an interesting, challenging, and important stop on our travels that we are still processing in many ways. Coming into Japan we had very high expectations and very...
When my friend Franny suggested a 4-day motorbike loop in central Laos, I didn’t give it much thought. She was living in Thailand, and I trusted her local knowledge of what we should see and do in the Mekong region. Victor and I had loved zipping around on our rented motorbike on the country roads of Chiang Dao and Ko Samui during our honeymoon in Thailand two years...
Our first impression when flying into Hong Kong was how green and mountainous it looked out the airplane window! Miami-esque high rises and active maritime shipping equipment laced around the perimeter of giant green mounds of tropical jungle. After our easy 24-minute Airport Express train ride, we were met by our friend Maddie Copp! She and her husband Austin hosted...
After the bucolic charms of Bulgaria, Istanbul was a riotous display of color, culture, and streetwares. That is, once we got there. From Molly and Nasko’s Bulgarian wedding we drove past the turn for Istanbul (which would have been only a 4 hour drive) back to Sofia just to drop our rental car and take the 10 hour night train from capital city to capital city...
Arriving in Sofia, Bulgaria two weeks ago felt new and exciting! As we mentioned, it was the first place on our trip that we hadn’t been to before. Staring out the window of the taxi, Soviet era block apartments with peeling paint and crumbling concrete were sprinkled liberally amongst green parks and pre-Communist buildings. Our taxi...
When you fall in love, I think it’s common to yearn for your partner to deeply know and love the places that formed you. We want to transcend our separate pasts and have our loved ones understand implicitly the magic in our holy places. I felt that when I begged my college boyfriend to make a trip to Baltimore, when I convinced my New York friend crew to come to a...
I want to take a minute to acknowledge a major challenge in taking time off to travel. For me, it was very hard to leave. I felt a great deal of guilt and sadness leaving kids on my Speech team during their high school journey, colleagues who I had built curriculum and relationships with, growing nieces, aging grandmothers, and a city full of close friends. During my...
Bulgaria was not on our list of countries to visit until a friend of mine met a guy here, fell in love, and decided to get married. However, after scratching the surface and spending 2 weeks here we began to realize that this country rarely visited by Americans, has absolutely everything you could want in a vacation (and at a fraction of the price!). Mountains:...