Throwing up twenty-one times in twenty-four hours stinks. Being able to drag oneself two flights up to the hotel roof, however, and look out at the sawtooth mountains and glistening river of Vang Vieng, Laos… well, that eases the pain somewhat.
I think it was the squid soup that did me in, but who knows. A traveler is bound to get sick in some way at some point, and we [...Read More!]
I leave Cambodia feeling sad. I don’t feel sad to leave, but rather I am infused with a profound sadness from what I saw over the past ten days. I have much the same feeling as I did after living in Guatemala: the scars of recent history’s horrors are still bleeding through this country. And how could they not be?
Here are eight elements that will likely strike a [...Read More!]
Yowza! It has been amazing to see two major cities of Japan for the past ten days! Despite the articles on Japan my cousin kindly handed me before coming, there were still endless elements of Japan that came as a surprise. Here are a few for your perusal.
1. Toilet extremes. The majority of toilets in Japan are squat toilets, where you crouch awkwardly over a porcelained hole in [...Read More!]
Before New Years, I knew I was going to take the coming year off to travel, but the plan at the time was to live in Barcelona, Spain (simply because I heard it was fabulous). Over New Years, however, I met a large group of traveling women who raved about how fabulous all these different countries around the world were. A “ding!” sound went off in my head, and I realized [...Read More!]
Being commitment-terrified, I planned initially to do this Round the World stint through last-minute-purchased one-way legs along the way. Stumbling, sunburned, at 11pm to a travel agency in Cambodia to purchase a trip to Iran the next day? Perfect. Thus, on the recommendation of my sweet brother, I opened the homepage for STA Travel (a student/teacher discount hub), trolling for one way tickets from Boston to Bangkok. (See subsequent post [...Read More!]
Testing, testing, tap-tap-tap… Thus begins my first full blown Mama-Kahuna BLOG!The reason: After 6 years teaching high school English in Boston Public Schools (more on this wonderful time later), I have saved enough dough for a year of ROUND THE WORLD, baby! Why the heck am I doing something my mother said she’d “no more desire to do than build a raft out of toothpicks and sail across the Atlantic”? Well. [...Read More!]
Who is this site for? This is a travel blog for people of all ages who are curious what it’s like to travel around the world, through Asia, Africa, Europe, the Americas, and one’s own home (in my case, Boston!). This site has stories of things that I’ve seen and experienced during travel (some of them crazy), and also features specific advice for how to make your travel dreams [...Read More!]