When my bus arrived in the “city center” of Chiang Dao, a small community on the side of Doi Chiang Dao Mountain in a sleepy part of northern Thailand, I thought I had missed my stop. The word tiny is too large for that town. But there was a driver waiting with a songthaew, …
I couldn’t wait to learn to scuba dive while traveling solo in Thailand. But within two days of arriving on the island of Koh Tao, I threw in my fins and quit my open-water dive course. Yep. I’m a scuba-school dropout. I learned that I don’t like to breathe underwater, sure, but I also …
Continue reading “Traveling Alone Will Teach You to Unlearn Yourself”
If you are anything like me, when you think about your dream trip to Thailand, you are thinking about splashing in a river while you frolic and bathe a grateful elephant. But please… Don’t. Do That. And please, for the love of all things wild, don’t ride an elephant in Thailand, or anywhere. Note: …
Continue reading “Elephanting Ethically: How to Visit Elephants in Thailand”
The day we completed our pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago was surreal. We couldn’t believe we were heading out on the last day, the 35th day of our pilgrimage, and that that we would arrive in Santiago de Compostela that very afternoon. We woke up in Pedrouzo giddy with excitement and literally skipping …
Continue reading “Walking the Camino del Norte: Arriving in Santiago de Compostela”
Walking Away, Coming Home My fiancé was diagnosed with cancer on Valentine’s Day of 2018. I still think of the day as “Diagnosis Day.” A day when everything about our lives changed. A day that foreshadowed the darkest day that I would ever know when – just four months later – Jeff took his …
Continue reading “How Walking the Camino de Santiago Brought Me Home”
This is it. The hike when I learned to ALWAYS be over-prepared – even on the most simple out and back hike. Getting Lost Hiking Coronado National Memorial When I got quite lost hiking Coronado National Memorial on what was supposed to be an easy outing near the border between the United States and …