Soaking at the Szechenyi Baths
Picture this: Baroque-style baths, filled with thermally-heated water, that are outdoors and open year-round. If you're a Midwesterner like me (or just anyone not...
Packing List: What to Pack for Backpacking Around Europe
For two consecutive summers, I backpacked around Europe. I stayed in hostels, traveled by train and bus, and yes, carried everything I had with...
Peggys Cove in Photos
Less than an hour from downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia, lies a tiny fishing village called Peggys Cove. With a permanent population of well below...
Meet Giannina
Meet Giannina. She is 34 years old and a native of Lima, Peru. She is one of six children, and was named after one...
A Guide to the Neighborhoods of San Francisco
Before I visited for the first time, I only associated San Francisco with a handful of things: fog, the Golden Gate Bridge, “Full House,”...
The Prettiest Place You’ve Never Heard Of
Alexander Graham Bell once said, “I have travelled around the globe. I have seen the Canadian and American Rockies, the Andes, the Alps and...
Photo Essay: San Francisco Chinatown
Can you guess what draws in more San Francisco tourists each year than the Golden Gate Bridge? It's not Alcatraz or the Painted Ladies...
Tips for Visiting Yosemite National Park in One Day
“Among them are killers.” This is what the first Caucasians to visit Yosemite Valley were told upon descending into the granite valley in 1851....
The Lazy Person’s Way to Bike the Golden Gate Bridge
I had quite a few things on my San Francisco “to-do” list — visit Alcatraz, explore Chinatown, find the “Full House” house… and, of...
The Best Views of San Francisco
I don't know about you, but whenever I visit a new city, I always make it a mission to get at least one really...
Photo Essay: Yosemite National Park
After visiting a bunch of amazing areas and national parks across America last summer, I really thought I had seen the best. Arches. Monument...
An Ode to San Francisco Street Art
When I think of murals and street art, I think automatically of San Francisco. Partly because it's one of the first cities in which...
Visting Windy, Beautiful Castlepoint in New Zealand
The day was sunny, but cool. A strong wind was buffeting sand into our faces, so that it crunched when we closed our teeth...
Is Going to the Blue Lagoon in Iceland Worth It? Here’s What You Need to Know
It was like being in some sort of late-night-food-induced dream. You know, the kind where you're walking on the ceiling and people are climbing...
Postcards from New Zealand
It's been nearly a year since my last trip to the Land of the Long White Cloud. And yet there's not a day that...
Fire and Ice in Iceland
After my unexpected near-death experience on a snow-covered Icelandic mountain, I really didn't know what to expect from the second half of the “Essential...
The Time I Almost Died in Iceland
It's no secret that writers often exaggerate events in order to make them seem more interesting or exciting. You know, like writing about “a...