Is voluntourism a good idea? Things to consider
Have you ever combined travel with volunteering? Or are you considering signing up for a voluntourism experience? If so, here are some things you should think about first.
Travel Advice
Years of experience traveling gives me, I think, a fair amount of knowledge about travel: how to keep yourself safe, how to travel solo, how to choose where to travel, what not to do, and so on. These articles are meant to help less-experienced travelers avoid all of the many mistakes I’ve made. I hope they help!
How to choose a destination: Tips to consider before travel
Sometimes it’s hard to choose a travel destination. Say you have only two weeks’ vacation, and you want to get the most out of it. Here’s some advice.
Mardi Gras around the world – and Mardi Gras food!
Mardi Gras around the world has morphed into a range of different pre-Lenten celebrations. Read here about how different countries celebrate!
Unique travel gifts: a short-but-sweet gift guide
Looking for unique travel gifts for travelers in your life? Here’s a short-but-sweet list of great gifts for travel lovers: a year-round gift guide.
Tips for Hiking to San Giovanni Fortress in Kotor, Montenegro
The climb up to San Giovanni Fortress a.k.a. Kotor Fortress is hard, but definitely worth it for the magnificent views!
Albania travel tips: Things I wish I’d known before visiting Albania
Don’t go to Albania unprepared, like I did! Read these Albania travel tips, covering everything I wish I’d known before visiting Albania.
Sustainable travel tips: Part 2 – Land or sea
Sustainable travel tips: reducing your carbon footprint when traveling. Part 1 was about air travel; this part covers travel by land or sea.
SCOTTeVEST: a review (revised and updated)
An update of an old review of a SCOTTeVEST travel vest, this version adds reviews of a jacket and a hoodie, and gets much more positive in the process.
Traveling Iceland by campervan
All sorts of great advice about traveling Iceland by campervan in a guest post written by Chrystalyn Rose.
28 Practical Tips for Women Traveling Alone
Truly practical advice for women traveling alone. Tips for sleeping, eating, socializing and lots more travel advice for solo female travel!
Minimalist packing tips: How to travel light!
These minimalist packing tips give you a step-by-step guide: everything you need to know and do to travel with carry-on luggage only!
Sustainable air travel: What you can do
Have you ever been offered to buy a carbon offset when you booked a flight? If so, did you buy it? We all know that flying is bad for the environment. According to Our World in Data, aviation produces about 2.5% of all CO2 emissions, a greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming. Making it…
How to be respectful when you travel
When I was traveling in Parvati Valley and then on my Manali trip in the Indian Himalayas, I was surprised to see how many travelers, both local and foreigners, boasted that they were great explorers and were staying in the Himalayas for months. Note: This is a guest post by Priyanka Gupta. Disclosure: This article contains Amazon affiliate links….
Travel-addicted but can’t travel? 3 ways to deal with your wanderlust
A lot of us who enjoy traveling are sitting at home – or, if you’re a digital nomad, in a hotel or on a friend’s sofa – wishing desperately that this pandemic would end so we can hit the road again. I know I am. I am travel-addicted and my “itchy feet” need scratching, yet…
ExpressVPN review, by a digital immigrant
I am a digital immigrant. What I mean by that is that I didn’t grow up with computers like digital natives; the only computers I knew of as a child in Connecticut were the ones that filled whole rooms in banks and government offices. As far as I was concerned, they were equivalent to the…
10 Reasons People Get Addicted to Travel
“Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” — Pico Iyer Note from Rachel: This is a guest post by Danny Newman (see…
Don’t tar all “influencers” with the same brush.
I hate the word “influencer.” It has taken on a bad connotation: young people, generally female and white, who claim “influence” through pretty poses on Instagram. Articles circulating on social media accuse them of all sorts of bad behavior: buying followers and demanding free rooms and meals from hotels in exchange for pictures, posing for…
10 Travel Risks NOT Worth Taking
The following is a sponsored guest post by Globelink travel insurance. I’ve added an extra bit of advice at the end as well. While travelling is an experience that opens you up to the world and challenges your entire world view, there are certain things that are just not worth the risk when you are…
Gifts for flight attendants: an experiment
Cabin crew members have an important role and show remarkable patience. Here’s a story about my experiment with bringing gifts for flight attendants.
Trip of a Lifetime: Bloggers Pick their Must-See Destinations
For this collaborative post, I asked fellow travel bloggers about their idea of a trip of a lifetime: If a person who’s never traveled far from home asked you to name the one place they should visit on their one-and-only trip ever, what would you say? I got so many different answers! I’ll start with the…
Choosing a destination in a time of terrorism
Note: I wrote this a couple of years ago, but the argument I make here still applies. Where I mention a terrorist attack from some time ago, just fill in whatever the most recent one was. The attack on a Berlin Christmas market last week got me thinking about how terrorism affects travel and tourism….
Spending Christmas Away from Home
It occurred to me recently that, although I don’t even celebrate Christmas, I almost always end up spending the holiday at home. Of course, the term “home” has shifted meaning with each move. I asked several fellow bloggers recently to write a short piece about a place to spend the holiday, besides home. Here’s what they sent:…
How to Use Hotwire: Tips for Booking Hotels
In my post about Arolithos “Traditional Cretan Village”, I described how I reserved my hotel room through Hotwire, and how Hotwire is a bit of a gamble. (Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of these links, I will receive a small commission. This will not affect your price.)…
Eagle Creek Backpack Review
For the two solo trips I took this year—one to Guadeloupe, Martinique, New York and Spain, and one to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and South Korea—I needed a very specific kind of luggage. The problem Since I was traveling solo, I needed to travel as light as possible. I also needed luggage I could manage…
Driving Costa Blanca: Some Advice
If you’re ever in the Costa Blanca in Spain, here’s what I’d recommend: get away from the coast! Yes, you can enjoy the beaches and party till the wee hours in the coastal towns, but there’s far more to see inland. The drive I did the other day, for example, was absolutely lovely. Leaving from…
5 Tips for Helping a Fearful Flyer
You’ve boarded a plane and found your seat, stowed your things and buckled up. The plane makes its way onto the runway and, after a short wait, the acceleration for take-off begins. You’re reading the book you brought along and don’t pay any attention to what the plane is doing, but, as it speeds up, something…
Ill Overseas? 10 Top Tips
On my recent solo trip in Asia, I developed a hernia in my neck that caused a lot of pain in my left arm. Without going into all of the details, I ended up on an odyssey of sorts through the Korean medical system as well as my own Dutch medical system and, as a…
Choosing Accommodations: Consider Out of Town
How do you choose your accommodations when you travel? You probably take several things into consideration: cost, quality of the hotel, and location probably top the list. If you’re like me, you try to balance the three. I want the best quality possible within the amount I can spend. Often, though, I find that a…
An over-packing update
Before my recent solo trip, I posted about my plans to travel with just one small 35-liter suitcase. It was a convertible one: it had wheels, but could also be used as a backpack. I chose what I brought along very carefully, and it all fit into that 35-liter bag, except for a small daypack holding…
Packing for a solo trip
My packing is done—except for a few toiletries—and I’m ready to go! I leave on Tuesday for a month-long solo trip to Guadeloupe, Martinique, then to visit family in Connecticut, then to a TBEX conference in Spain. In June I’ll leave on another solo trip, this time for two months. Packing is a challenge for…
The pros and cons of solo travel
“What? You’re going all by yourself?” This is the usual response I get when I tell people about the solo trip I’m planning this April. In a tone of voice that says they think I’m crazy. Every solo trip up until this point has not really been solo. For example, many years ago I took…