These are the personal accounts of my travels around the world. They are a combo of diary excerpt, photo album and travel guide, told in storytelling fashion with links to and pictures of all the places I visit to inspire your next trip!
After a 3-year delay, it is finally happening! From being moved to tears at a flamenco show, to realizing I don’t have my wallet at the end of a meal, to not seeing Picasso art at the Picasso Museum, this is my adventure in Spain.
Un extracto de mi post sobre mis viajes por España: Después de la cena, voy a un show flamenco – ¡mi primero! Me sorprende lo mucho que me conmueve el baile y el canto.
From all-day rides through the Gila Forest, to touching 1,000-year-old pictographs on a cave wall, to singing old cowboy songs around the campfire, to self-medicating my sore butt each night with wine, this is my dude ranch vacation at the Geronimo Trail Guest Ranch.
Just because international travel has been restricted doesn’t mean that a person’s burning desire to travel has also been restricted. During this last year, my overseas trip had to be rescheduled postponed canceled. So I went on a road trip up the coast from Los Angeles and found the perfect small town getaway: Pacific Grove, California.
Our adventure in Japan continues. Off we go to Osaka, land of neon billboards and a canal, and Tokyo, in which we enjoy a a mysterious ramen bar experience, a crack - I mean matcha den, a 12-story (twelve!) stationery store, and Book Town, a neighborhood with 140 bookstores. When can I move here??
After a ten-and-a-half-hour flight from LAX, I arrive at Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan. Suddenly, I am in a whole new world: From capsule hotels, a traditional tea ceremony and a bamboo forest (with the sign “Closed for repairs from June 2017 to closed”), to a gang of map-eating deer and endless temples in Nara, my adventure has begun.
I took this solo road trip during Christmas week for two reasons. One: I’ve been struggling with depression for the last couple of months and feeling lost and alone, so I thought I might as well head out to the desert in a place where I really was lost and alone. And two: I figured this would be a good time to unplug, decompress and try to recover from burnout. This trip made me see that while you don’t always get what you want, you seem to get what you need.
Earlier this year, a friend of mine told me that I was welcome to stay at his place in Cleveland when he was out of town. My immediate reaction was: "Why on earth would I want to go to Cleveland?" Cut to six months later...I was itching for a change of scenery, so I thought, "Why not go to Cleveland?" As is my nature, the minute I purchased my non-refundable plane ticket, the thought "This is a huge mistake" went racing through my mind like a drunk driver.
At 8:31 a.m., the high-speed train left the station and traveled 285 miles to Paris' Gare du Nord railway station in just over two hours. Despite the group of eight or so English gents in ugly Christmas sweaters indulging in beer before noon surrounding me, the trip was smooth sailing, and before I knew it I had arrived in the City of Lights.
When I stepped out of the train onto the platform, I stood there for a minute while everyone rushed past me and just absorbed the fact that I was actually, finally, incredibly in Paris.
When my dream finally came true and I purchased a plane ticket to Europe, I almost peed myself with excitement.
My trip started with the TSA confiscating my very dangerous weapon—a tube of fennel-flavored toothpaste—which I encouraged the security agent with the faded enamel to use as I flashed her my own pearly whites. I knew right then and there that nothing was going to discourage or prevent me from having a fantastic time.
Getting past the Guardia Civil just to buy some stamps, nearly destroying a 200-year-old museum piece, receiving an impromptu invite to a dinner party and meeting my Spanish teacher after two years of online classes — this is week two of my adventure in Spain!