Holidays abroad are a double-edged sword. On one side, you feel like you’ve been given a Get Out of Jail Free card. You’re relieved of the pressure of figuring out who you need to buy for, what you should get for them, and whose house you need to be at […]

We arrived in Johannesburg, South Africa with zero plans but a steaming pile of prejudice against the city having encountered a few people who either lived in South Africa or had visited there. Everyone, and I mean everyone*, described the city as no less than the 10th Circle of Hell…but […]

Hanoi: The place where John McCain was held as a POW for five and a half years, the burial place of Uncle Ho (Chi Minh), the gateway to the famous Dragon boats of Ha Long Bay, and the home of some of the most dedicated English Language Instructors I’ve ever […]

Like every American girl growing up on 90s TV, I had a crush on Uncle Jesse from Full House. Ever since I learned that his TV character was half Greek, the Greek Islands have been on my travel bucket list. It just seemed to be a place where perfectly sun-kissed […]

Cyprus was one of the many countries I didn’t know existed on this earth until someone suggested that we go there. It just so happened that the island nation is not in the Schengen zone, making it the perfect place to add to our itinerary. It’s nestled just below Turkey […]

I promised my mother as we were leaving Georgia that I’d tell everyone in Turkey, our next destination, that we were Canadian. There’d been a little too much political turmoil in that region of the world for her liking (something about Americans being arbitrarily detained), and she pleaded for us […]

Every 90 days, Nate and I have to exit the “Schengen Zone,” which includes the vast amount of European nations, in order to not be deported…or sternly talked to. I’m not sure which, but it’s a theory I do not wish to test. On the recommendation of some of our […]

Every German stereotype ever imagined — men in lederhosen with a stein of golden beer in one hand and a rope of sausages in the other while swaying brightly to an oompah band — comes from the southern part of the country known as Bavaria. It turns out, much to […]

I considered skipping over writing a blog about Ireland. One, we only spent four days there. And B, we spent nearly all of our time outside of the hubbub of Dublin and instead stayed in our Couchsurfing host’s suburban home. The only touristy thing we managed was to take a […]

If I had to choose one favorite country out of all our travels so far, it would have to be Scotland, and it’s not just because of the prevalence of good ciders and the adorable-yet-slightly-incoherent dialect. It has an old soul. Every cobblestone foot path gives the impression that it once led […]