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 […]
Museum of Russian Aggression
The world is shocked by the unprecedented Russian aggression in Ukraine. But the sad truth is that it was very much precedented, by Russian aggression in Georgia in 2008. Much like Ukraine, Georgia began eyeing integration into NATO, which led to a deteriorated relationship with Russia and eventually to the […]
Слава Україні! Glory to Ukraine!
On February 24, we planned to post about El Salvador and Victor’s surfing attempt at Las Flores beach. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine, and blogging about travel became irrelevant. I was born in Ukraine, in the tiny village of Ponornytsya in Chernihiv Province, because the hospital of Korop, a slightly larger […]
Beyond the Flowers: Hiking Ruta de las Flores
If a foreign tourist does venture into El Salvador, he will inevitably come for one of two things – to surf or to visit Ruta de las Flores. As Victor is diligently working on his “surviving surfing” post, I will, in the meantime, describe one of the most magical regions […]
Searching for Crashed Planes, Helicopters and Guerillas: A Very Unusual Christmas in El Salvador
We spent the past holidays in El Salvador, and it turned out to be one of the strangest Christmases we’ve had during our travels. No, it didn’t top our Christmas in India in 2014, when on Christmas Eve we nearly lost our camera, money, and Julia’s passport and ended up […]
El Salvador: The Beginning And The End
For our very first story about our recent trip to El Salvador, I will start at the end and then, logically, will go backward. It was our last day in the country, and we had our backpacks ready with tourist trinkets, dirty clothes, and at least five bags of coffee […]
Chasing the Light in France
In the summer of 2009, we went to France to “chase the light”. When I initially announced plans for the trip, Julia gave me a confused look and asked me to elaborate. I explained that we would start in Paris, visiting as many art museums as possible, and then venture […]