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
Tallinn, Estonia Wishes You Were Here
This week’s “Wish You Were Here” photos come from reader Matt McCall. When I decided to travel to Tallinn, Estonia with my brothers for a quick weekend trip, I was not quite sure what to expect. What I did find however, was an unexpectedly interesting city. Arriving on a rainy, cold August night, it felt as though I was transported not only to another season, but also to another time. Wandering through the lamp-lit medieval passages in the misty night, I explored the old city's streets, with its towering churches and numerous restaurants. The old city of Tallinn is surrounded by its Continue Reading
Giving Thanks For YOU With A $100 Hotel Credit Giveaway
Last year I wrote a post on giving thanks for travel on this American Thanksgiving Day. “Looking back on my travels throughout the year, I have countless photos and memories. I have visited new places like Belgium, Luxembourg, and Hawaii. I spent time in Austria, Germany, Italy, Massachusetts, and Arkansas. In other words, I am truly thankful for these places and the people that make travel so intriguing. Without them, I would be speechless, an adjective that never describes me.” This year, I am of the same mindset with travel, but it also goes a little deeper. Being able to write about my 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
Norway Wishes You Were Here
With tour groups on one side and a 9th century Viking ship on the other, you tend to look past the tourists. The Viking Ship Museum in Oslo displays the large Viking ships of Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune, the best-preserved Viking ships known in today’s world. These ships were uncovered in the late 1800s, found in the royal burial mounds in the Oslo fjord. Admiring the ships and their intact nature predictably comes with a visit to the museum. However, these ships were not for imagined grand Viking conquests and expeditions but rather to carry the dead on to the next world, filled to the 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