Translation: “Hello Phuket, Thailand!” I still can’t believe I’m here. It seems a bit surreal, as Europe was so consuming that I didn’t do much thinking about the post-Europe part of my trip until the very end. I do feel that traveling through the Balkans was a great way to ease from the comforts of …
Two posts in two days! Lucky you 🙂 After 117 days in Europe (don’t worry, only 86 Schengen Days!), I'm jumping continents, headed for the much warmer climate of Southeast Asia. Before I left for my trip I was nervous and excited. Oddly enough I feel the same now. Although the differences from Scandinavia to …
After over a month of cold weather and Balkan food (meat, wrapped in meat, side of meat) Greece has been a very welcome end to my ~4 month trip though Europe. A lot of people who visit Greece do it via cruise, or island hop in the Aegean Sea, both great ways to see Greece, …
I’ve been traveling around the Balkans for over a month now, and even in this off-season of travel, would now consider myself part of the “Balkan backpacker circle”. Everybody travels a similar route so it’s fun to have familiar faces in each city, and helpful to exchange travel notes. Anyway, as I’ve made my way …
Continue reading Albania, from Isolationism to Christmas Markets in under 30 years
I spent the last week in two UNESCO protected walled cities along the Adriatic Sea, Dubrovnik, Croatia and Kotor, Montenegro. Both cities are extremely popular summer destinations but completely empty in December, which was kind of cool, even though it rained a lot. I’ll preface with, I didn’t learn much about history in these places. …
There are certain names made famous by war that everybody knows. Adolf Hitler. Napoleon. Ulysses S. Grant. The name Gavrilo Princip is not a household name, yet he is arguably one of the most important people in modern war history. Even people who know that he’s the guy who assassinated Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke and …
On Wednesday I took the bus from Zagreb to Belgrade - a ~5.5 hour journey with exactly nothing to look at. I couldn’t help but think, no wonder this stood as a border between Austrian and Ottoman rule for so many centuries, who would want to bother crossing this area on horseback? Anyway, my first …
I have found during my travels that when I really love a city, the next city, no matter how amazing, is a bit of a let down. It can also be a bit of a shock to go from a small town to a larger city. The noise, crowds, and trash can be a rude …
If you go back and read my first post, Anticipation, you’ll see that Slovenia was one of the countries I was most excited about. I wasn’t really sure why, I had read that it was beautiful, the people were friendly, a sort of “hidden gem” among European destinations, but otherwise didn’t know much in particular …
Florence You know that feeling when you know you’re about to round a corner and see some amazing building, and you realize you don’t actually know what it looks like, and then BAM! you’re in Florence looking at the Duomo. The initial sight of this thing literally stopped me in my tracks: There is tons …
Continue reading Italy Part 2: Panini, Gelato, Pizza, Repeat
