• Summer

    camping road trip, iceland style

    hi all! did you have a wonderfully warm and sunny august?  i’m back (home) in the czech republic and newly invigorated by this iceland trip, having unexpectedly experienced both sunny and warm weather on the trip. it was a fantastic month, but i wanted to share with you a little about our camping road trip! we spent four days crossing iceland’s south coast, from reykjavik to jökulsárlón and back, which including our interior driving near the southwest golden circle area put us at about 1,000km. why the south coast? well. i was not a newbie to iceland, but having never visited the south coast before, i felt as though it…

  • Summer

    kitchens around the world

    (add your kitchen to the list! more info at the end of the post) it’s been a quiet, sunny, winter week here. so uneventful that i was scrolling through photos i took last year and couldn’t help but notice how many photos i took of kitchens i stayed in. the thing that fascinated me the most about spending time in someone’s house is their kitchen, especially if they are from a different country than me. like most people, i only knew the kitchen in the house where i was raised and there, we do things a certain way. so it’s super interesting to see what others’ kitchens look like and…

  • Summer

    to guidebook or not to guidebook

    for the vast majority of the ten years i’ve been traveling europe, i’ve been an absolute rick steves fan. scratch that, disciple. on my very first europe trip, which took place in august 2004, i and a couple friends went through a local travel agency. and why not? it wasn’t very common at the time to plan your own trips and i was pretty green to the whole backpacking thing. she turned me on to the books of the local (washington state) hero and fellow UW alum, rick steves, and for many years i followed his itineraries absolutely by the book. on some trips, if rick (yeah, i feel comfortable…

  • Life Abroad,  Travel,  TravelTips

    A Broad, Abroad: Secrets for Traveling Europe on a Budget

    since i embarked on my very first trip to europe in 2004, fresh out of high school, i have learned an enormous amount about how to travel on the cheap. i am the self-professed queen of frugality (as well as a euro budget travel vet) and i cringe at paying full-price for anything. so here’s a list of excellent tips that i use all the time that will allow you to travel even in western europe for dollars a day. and even if you no longer like to travel on such a budget, these tips are just plain smart and will help you save money for the part of your…