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 […]
Spilling the Tea about Alishan
Victor loves coffee, and this blog is a clear testament to that. There are so many posts about coffee tours, coffee shops, coffee destinations, conversations about coffee over coffee, and even hiking through coffee plantations. Yet if you were to go through our kitchen, you’d find at most two bags […]
In the Sea of Clouds
When we travel, we usually try to avoid pre-planning everything. By rigidly scripting every activity down to the minute, you can easily deprive yourself of genuine travel experiences, instead just following the “script”. But that doesn’t work with sunrises and sunsets, especially if you want to catch them from a […]
Hugging Trees in Alishan
Alishan was giving me a headache. Trying to fit this mountainous forest into our itinerary was a challenging task. No direct trains from Taipei. No direct buses. Renting a car and driving up there? Maybe. But that wasn’t ideal. The most reasonable option was to get to the city of […]
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 […]
No Way! Norway!
It feels like every time I start a post about a new country, there is the same theme. “Look, we are doing something we’ve never done before! We usually don’t travel like this, but we made an exception this time!” A long time ago, we started out as budget travelers […]
How I Sent My Parents To The Concentration Camp
Because my parents still live in Belarus and I live in the States, I like inviting them to join our trips from time to time. This way, we can kill two birds with one stone: enjoy some quality family time and explore a new destination together. Over the years, we’ve […]
San Diego. Finally.
After twenty years of traveling, we have been to over forty countries, almost every U.S. state, most national parks, and basically every major U.S. city. But there are still places out there to explore. “We have still, somehow, not been to San Diego,” Victor said. I vaguely remembered how. We […]