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
Switzerland Wishes You Were Here
My visit with Switzerland was short, yet relatively sweet. Swiss chocolates and fondue landed in between my sceneic drive just southeast of Lake Lucerne. Merely picking a squiggly road on the map, I set out with neither cheese nor chocolate but found the sweet Swiss landscape instead. I continued to drive amidst tiny villages with girls selling cheese on the side of the road and cows, lots and lots of cows. The cows in Switzerland seem to possess the same attitutde as the Swiss. They crowded the road and didn’t seem to care. Not even honking could move them. They are Swiss cows Continue Reading
Redhead Reviews Hotel Search Engine Hotel Calculator
Full Disclosure: This is a sponsored review, meaning I was compensated in exchange for checking out HotelCalculator.com. Regardless, my thoughts about the site are my own. No one has ever told me what to do or what to write so why now? What is HotelCalculator.com? Called "the hotel search engine", HotelCalculator searches over 20 travel sites in over 13,000 cities worldwide, detailing over 100,000 hotels. The website aims to save time by doing the hotel searching for you, condensing the results into one simplified list. Features I did some “fake” searching for hotels, beginning Continue Reading
Tirana, Albania Wishes You Were Here
This week's Wish You Were Here post comes from Cynthia of CynthiaOrd.com, Thoughts on Tourism, People and the Earth. Cynthia is fascinated with travel and tourism as an industry and its impacts. She likes to visit unlikely places and see how many people she can convince to go there. Be sure to check out her blog and follow her on twitter at @cynthiaord. In Tirana, Albania, the line between art and politics is a fine one. The current mayor, Edi Rama, began his career as a sculptor and painter. Although he is no longer a practicing artist, there are 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
The Surprises of Travel
If you have traveled anywhere, generally some acquaintance wants to pass along a friend’s number in need of advice. A parent is worried about their daughter studying abroad. A couple wants to know where to wine and dine in Barcelona. While I agree, research is a key part of travel, it seems we sometimes forget to let travel come, as it will. No longer do we just hop on a plane without knowing where we are going or what to expect. We must be prepared, have all the necessary travel gadgets and tools to get us there. Travel involves a great deal of preparation, of knowing what to expect, what Continue Reading
Stockholm, Sweden Wishes You Were Here
Stockholm had just recovered from its royal wedding. It seemed as though most of the tourists had left town, deserting the city and leaving the streets empty. Well, that isn’t entirely true. Wandering around the city, random street art displays appear. A fox jumped out at me, but not in a menacing way. Meager, hopeful and understated, you have to watch where you walk in Stockholm. Head indoors in the city to its most popular museum and you will find all of those crowds missing in the streets. The Vasa Museum holds the Vasa Ship in remarkable condition. The ship sank in 1628 in the middle of Continue Reading