Or why being anywhere near Copenhagen gives me anxiety.
Pre-Ankara-wedding disaster time
Sheep fight in the Faroes
Somehow, I knew what was going to happen from the moment I laid eyes on the ram, even though it all began innocently enough. He was just standing on a boulder above my head, facing away from me and chomping on some grass. His stringy wool was pitch black and it was falling off in... Continue Reading →
A wedding in Ankara, real original!
When arguably my two best Turkish friends invited me to their wedding in Ankara with 4 monthsโ notice, I only swore at them for a second before I tripped over myself to change all my preexisting travel plans to the Faroe Islands for that weekend.
Taking the Healing of the Sea in Croatia
Dates of visit: July 5 - 11, 2021 On the third day, I made my peace with the salt. You could say it was only a matter of time, considering Iโd arrived on the Mediterranean coast in the middle of a July heat wave, but given my history as a heat-phobic woman Iโd say itโs... Continue Reading →
Ideas for Iceland : A travel guide
A travel guide and honorable mentions
What to pack for a midsummer carry-on-only Icelandic road trip
Iceland is a country to be experienced outdoors. Bring layers, expect rain and wind, and you're good to go!
Greatest Hits Volume II: North America
Photograph-and-prose love letters to some favorite places in North America.
A taste of Iceland
The Land of Fire and Ice, they call it, which could only be more fitting if they mentioned the rest of the elements too.
A Traveler without travel
Where some people have hoarded toilet paper for comfort, I have hoarded unspent travel dreams.
A series of ridiculous events: Fieldwork
True short stories about being a field biologist in the Americas
The Quest to Hielo Azul
I could punch a puma in the teeth right now.
A series of ridiculous events
True short tales of absurd things that have happened to me around the world
Greatest Hits: Europe Edition
A series of abstracts on my favorite European places
Map, The.
The definitive (and interactive) answer to everyone's favorite question: "so where all have you been?" Now with different flavored pins for how much I'd recommend (or not) each place.
On Wanderlust
Imagine that you stand on the tropical shores of Indonesia, staring south into the endless tropical blues of sea and sky bisected by the distant horizon. Imagine, just for fun, that you decide to board a wooden canoe and paddle it 400 miles to Australia. Even equipped with advanced weather forecasts and handheld GPS units... Continue Reading →
Pandemic-stranded, Part II
Taking the scenic route to Buenos Aires
Pandemic-Stranded, Part I: Hindsight is 2020.
Or, that one time I got stuck in Patagonia
A lungful of cloud
I stand at the edge of a blank canvas. Featureless mist swirls in its depths. My gaze hungrily scans the emptiness, but I find only ghosts and shadows. The light pulses: dark to light and back again; the sun is doing its level best to break through the veil. Functionally blind, I must rely on... Continue Reading →
Welcome to Venice
The scent of fresh brine wafts in through the window, a seabird's cry carried upon its back. I crack an eyelid and see a patch of pre-dawn sky, curiously watching me back. Fragments of human conversation drift up from street level through the cool humid air. The words are too quiet for me to even... Continue Reading →
ยฟTe gusta yerba mate?
Whether I like yerba mate isnโt really the point. Much like the anise-flavored rakฤฑ in Turkey, the allure is the shared experience. For those of you unfamiliar, yerba is a form of tea, the mate is a cup traditionally made from a hard hollowed gourd, and the sharing of โyerba mateโ is a pseudo-religious ritual... Continue Reading →
Tierra del Fuego and Rio Cruz
Two weeks ago, I was unceremoniously thrown into a Toyota Hilux with two complete strangers. I would spend the next 8 days and 1600 kilometers with them, hiking 75 kilometers up and down largely pathless mountain faces near the Patagonian cities of Ushuaia, El Calafate, and El Chalten, conducting research for upwards of fourteen hours... Continue Reading →
A PhD in Bariloche: First Impressions
The southern half of Bariloche, as seen from one of my field sites San Carlos de Bariloche is a town with a bit of an identity crisis. It's a city of overlapping immigrants: the first human settlers were the Mapuche, who moved in thousands of years ago in the same vein as the Inka, the... Continue Reading →
Not From Around Here: A thousand tiny mistakes
This is the fifth time I've moved to a foreign country. I've been an expat for almost four years, bouncing from country to country with whatever possessions will fit into two suitcases, trying to figure out the whole world by savoring disparate bits and pieces of it. I love it, but I'll admit that it... Continue Reading →
A series of fortunate mistakes
Or that one time I accidentally went hiking in the Andes
Relaxing adventures on the island of Madeira
โHold out the back of your hand, like thisโ the portly produce man tells me, showing me his fist with his fingers curled under. He picks up a small passionfruit with its top cut off: a tiny natural bowl filled to the brim with gelatinous seeds. He takes an appropriately tiny spoon and fishes out... Continue Reading →
Hiking Madeira
Waiting in line to board the plane from Basel to Funchal, I suddenly found myself engulfed in a sea of Germans in peak physical condition. Their feet were clad in hiking boots and their were bodies covered in Jack Wolfskin adventure gear (which is Germanyโs answer to Columbia or Carhartt). While โWolfskin Germansโ are something... Continue Reading →
That’s a weird balloon: A tale of two traditional Black Forest Carnival parades
Spectators dressed as pirates and Mickey Mouse line the sidewalks, waiting with nervous energy for the parade to start. A gang of children stands warily in the street, staring ahead at something I canโt see; their stances suggest theyโre set to flee at the slightest hint of danger. They stand motionless for so long that... Continue Reading →
What’s in a quote?
โThe world is a book, and those who donโt travel read only one page.โ -St Augustine You may recognize this quote; itโs become ubiquitous in the travel world. I think there is a certain wonderful truth to it, but there are also many delicate caveats to its truth.ย The important thing is to restrict the... Continue Reading →
Keep the change
I stick a hand in my pocket and find a medium-sized coin, and I can tell which nation itโs from without even looking at it.ย The metal of it feels wrong somehow; the face that kisses the pad of my thumb is a little denser and softer than what Iโm used to now.ย Americanโฆnot Canadian.ย ... Continue Reading →
The mountains are calling
I broke up with Germany a little over a month ago.ย This sounds terribly dramatic, but that was how it felt at the time.ย I was unwillingly wrenched away from my former love and immediately snatched up by a new burly, flannel-clad suitor - Canada - without so much as a solicitation of my opinion... Continue Reading →
Window Seat Odyssey 