Curated Fernweh
Picture spending a long weekend biking through the Dutch countryside when itโs absolutely blanketed in blooming tulip fields. You pause wherever you want along the route, maybe for a cappuccino at the seaside, or a family-farm-made gelato, or a thousand photos of hypersaturated blooms that nestle right up against the bike path. Horses and ducks wander over to see what youโre up to. Squat wooden windmills wave cheerily at you from a distance.ย
While weโre on the subject of airplane food, letโs talk about British Airways.
Once upon a time I rarely took guided tours since I tend to be both a cheapskate and a lone-wolf wanderer. Then I realized that the most foolproof way to get locals to hang out with me is to pay them to do so. Talk about subversion of the captive audience!
I confess Iโm a bona-fide Potterhead. I have the Deathly Hallows tattooed on my back and have taken more Sorting Hat quizzes than I know what to do with (Raven-puff, for the record, since Iโm nerdy but also miscellaneous). Iโve been to the Leavesden studio tour near London and the Universal Studios theme park in... Continue Reading →
As evidenced by my illustrious undergrad career, I do not need any help with drinking whisk[e]y. My sophistication, on the other hand, is always in dire need of a leg up. Iโm one of those people who can tell you if wine is made from red or white grapes, or whether I like the taste... Continue Reading →
This time, I was in luck. Before I even boarded the tour minibus, the driver/guide Brian* offered me the copilot's seat right at the front and directly next to his. I accepted before he'd even finished explaining the footnote that my seat folded down to block the bus entrance so I'd always have to be... Continue Reading →
Or why being anywhere near Copenhagen gives me anxiety.
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 →
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.
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 →
A travel guide and honorable mentions
Iceland is a country to be experienced outdoors. Bring layers, expect rain and wind, and you're good to go!
Photograph-and-prose love letters to some favorite places in North America.
The Land of Fire and Ice, they call it, which could only be more fitting if they mentioned the rest of the elements too.
Where some people have hoarded toilet paper for comfort, I have hoarded unspent travel dreams.
True short stories about being a field biologist in the Americas
I could punch a puma in the teeth right now.
True short tales of absurd things that have happened to me around the world
A series of abstracts on my favorite European places
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.
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 →
Taking the scenic route to Buenos Aires
Or, that one time I got stuck in Patagonia
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
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 →
Or that one time I accidentally went hiking in the Andes
Window Seat Odyssey 