I have two old suitcases in my apartment. I have stacked one on top of the other, making for a side table of sorts. I love luggage. Being able to incorporate that love into my everyday life when I am not traveling, even if it is a side table, helps keep travel close to me. Found at a second hand store, one of the old suitcases that acts as a table is perfectly peach. It still has the former owner’s luggage tag attached to the handle. “Lois” I imagine had some adventures with this bag. Maybe she didn’t, but my imagination can’t think otherwise. A woman who was able to pull off a peach Continue Reading
Under Travel Pressure
A giant book bearing the title Italy sits on my coffee table. Truth always be told, I never really looked at the book until the other day. I had flipped through it when I received the Modern Language Award at my college, appropriately deemed "The Dante Award”. Two women, Costanza and Maria Grazia, my Italian professors who inspired much of my love for Italy, gave the book to me as a gift for winning the award. After spending three months in Italy this summer, a country I have spent years living in, I was somewhat sick of Italy. Reading other travel blogs and articles almost convinced me I Continue Reading
Remembering Places and Having Places Remember You
I walked into my favorite lazy day café in Sicily, part bookstore, part chocolate paradise. I was nervous to enter for it had been over a year since I came here every Sunday, especially when the weather turned bitingly cold. I thought I would glance at the Italian books, maybe get ambitious on my plane ride home and read an Italian novel. Then I heard the sweetest of sounds come from the hot chocolate bar. “Sei ritornata!” Those words translate as you might imagine, “you have returned”. Behind those words was the woman who ran the café, a glasses on the tip of her nose, frizzy haired Continue Reading
Singing The Travel Blues of Guidebook and Recommendation Let Down
Abandoned ghost towns begin to appear in the distance. Hoping it is just a mirage, the more miles I cover, the more unappealing these next two days could be. Prior to viewing the ghost towns in the distance, my excitement to see a new aspect to Italy, Promontorio di Gargano could hardly contain itself in the confines of the mini rental. Just like seeing Sardinia and Sicily for the first time, I had hopes Il Gargano would instill the same wonder, the same feeling of expectations being met. The Promontorio di Gargano sticks out like a sore thumb on Italy’s Adriatic coast in the Puglia region. Continue Reading
Solo Female Travelers and Airport Security
My sister may be the most innocent looking human being. Petite, blond and an incredibly fast walker, she is not what you call a “suspicious looking” traveler. This past week, she went through security and that all changed. As she walked up to security, she is pulled over for the full body scanner. Not knowing you can “just say no” to these “how are they legal” machines, she went through. After putting her hands in the air and rendering all sense of privacy, she was then put through a pat down, as was every other person that went through the scanners. Questioning how well these scanners Continue Reading
Learning Italian and How To Travel From The Nonna
BUZZZZZ! BUZZZZ! “Non lo so! Non lo so!”, my driver Giovanni kept saying as he pressed the buzzer to my new home for the next month. 18 years old and for the first time in a foreign country alone, I began to wonder what I got myself into as it appeared nobody was home. Hand gestures and phone calls commenced as I sat on my suitcase wondering why my Italian host family wasn’t answering their bell. Did they already regret their decision? Will I have to live on the street? Questions in my mind mixed with an overzealous imagination that errs on the worried side more than the carefree. Coming Continue Reading
The Uncommonly Known Benefits Of Being A Rolling Suitcase Traveler
For the most part, travelers I see are often those with backpacks. Articles circulate linking the backpack to different aspects of how one travels. Suddenly an item strapped to your back becomes a whole way of being. Backpackers are adventurous. Backpackers are incredibly social. Backpackers love jumping from place to place more easily. I didn’t know a means to carry clothes, computers and guidebooks could say so much. I don’t use a backpack. I think it stems from a grade school distaste for backpacks. Having to lug home every heavy textbook known to man and woman proved challenging for my Continue Reading