The Wild, Wild East: Taiwan’s Enigmatic East Coast
Like Alishan, we considered cutting the East Coast out of our itinerary entirely. The region was remote, and it was a logistical puzzle to plan. Also, it was the only place in Taiwan where we needed to rent a car and potentially drive through what looked on the map like […]
Food. Taiwan. Must I Say More?
I wanted to write about the top 10 dishes we ate in Taiwan and quickly realized that the list was way longer than 10 and each dish deserved its own blog post, and this would quickly spiral into Two Cats Backpack Eats Taiwanese Food for Entirety of the Foreseeable Future […]
Breakfast of Champions in Taiwan
One thing that never stopped surprising me about Taiwan is how you can be strolling down a sidewalk one moment and the next, you are suddenly in the middle of a busy restaurant. And I don’t mean just outdoor seating, which is common enough around the world. I am talking […]
Little Teapot Short and Stout
If your country historically has rocks and water in close proximity to each other, I will probably end up writing a post about it. Let me explain. Anywhere in the world where there are rocks and water, there will usually be deposits of clay, created by the breakdown of igneous […]
The Mist, the Cloud, the Tea, and the Sunset: The Trails of Shizhuo
The hardest part of any itinerary is usually not where to visit or when, but for how long. There are always disagreements online over how much time each place deserves, with some people claiming to have fully explored everything in one day, while others take a week. And when it’s […]
Norway: Table for Two, Please!
Food has always been an essential part of travel for me. I’ve always been an adventurous eater, from grubs to scorpions, cow brains, and alpaca. Except for an occasional refusal to nibble on a fried guinea pig, I am usually game to try anything locals eat and always fully immerse […]
A Brown Slice of Heaven
Remember last year we went to Türkiye and came back to write the entire post about leblebi – a Turkish snack that impressed us so much. On our trip to Norway this summer, something similar happened. And we are here to tell you about the most iconic Norwegian food item […]
Norway: It’s a Bad Day for a Hike
Most of the hikes we did in Norway required almost zero planning. Look up some good hikes in the area, take enough water and snacks to last the round-trip, wear weather-appropriate layers, and off you go! The Besseggen hike in Jotunheimen was a notable exception to this rule. It’s a […]
Norway: It’s a Good Day for a Hike
This is going to be our 25th post about hiking on this blog, and I don’t think we ever actually acknowledged or explained just how much we enjoy hiking or how much that influences our travel itineraries. In fact, my own sister, to whom I talk multiple times a week, […]
Polar Plunge. Literally.
As we moved through fjords, in many beautiful spots we saw one common type of construction-slick, modern, wooden containers, often with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water. Some were built on the bank of a fjord; others were floating on a jetty connected to the shore via a bridge. They looked […]
Summer in Norway
What does summer look like in one of the northernmost countries on Earth? That is the question I should have asked myself when packing for our trip. But I didn’t. “It’s summer after all!” I thought, shoving shorts and T-shirts into my backpack. I wasn’t even planning on bringing my […]