Hello!
Before jumping into present-day travel tales, I thought I should introduce myself. I’m 35 years old, born in New York City and raised in Portland, Oregon. I’ve had careers in professional theatre as a company manager, in higher education as an administrator, and in hospitality as the founder of and baker at a late-night cookie delivery business. Throughout these careers, I found and grew my love of travel.
While I did experience some travel growing up, the pivotal trip that sparked a lifelong love of adventure was a 3-month backpacking trip around Europe. Cliche, I know. Though I would like to add that our trip was a bit more unusual than most. Yes, we did start out in London and did the predictable stints in Paris, Dublin, and Berlin, we also made the trek to the less-visited Brasov, Malmo, and Kilarney, and spent a fair amount of time in Budapest and Istanbul as well as a dozen other cities. Our multi-month adventure hooked us and left us wanting to experience more places, cultures, and sites.
It was a few years before we travelled internationally again as we had several job changes we were focused on but we made it count. Our next destination was Peru — we explored Lima, trekked the Inca Trail, and stayed in the Amazon with monkeys! Since then, we have gone as far north as Longyearbyen, Svalbard, and as far south as Torres del Paine in Chile, we climbed Kilimanjaro, tramped through a jungle in Laos, attended weddings in Dehli and Cape Town, and mountain biked in Cambodia. I’ve visited the pyramids in Egypt, the rice fields in Bali, and the Alhambra in Spain. I’ve ridden hot air balloons, tuk-tuks, buses, trains, ferries, and some of the smallest planes out there. We’ve stayed in treehouses, tents, hostels, old mining lodges, mountain lodges, domes, yurts, eco-lodges, open-air Felucca, and quite the range of Airbnbs. Previously not one for adventure, on our travels, I’ve gone spelunking, ziplining, mountain biking, kayaking, dog sledding, parasailing, hiked glaciers, and completed the “Arctic Challenge”.
And the food! As a lover of all cuisines and as someone who is a lifetime member of the clean-plate club, trying local dishes and the experiences surrounding food are always some of my favourite parts of travel. These memories come flooding back. With our hands, eating sticky rice and curried vegetables off of a banana leaf that was moments ago taken from a banana tree. Enjoying some of the freshest and most exotic fruit grown on-site at a beautiful eco-lodge in Bali. Siping locally-made wine paired with chocolate in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Visiting the fish market as the sun was coming up in Tokyo and partaking in sushi made from just-caught fish.
As I’m embarking on this momentous life change, I hope to document parts of my journey and share it with you. Thanks for being here. More soon!
