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 […]
France Flashback: Châteaux of the Loire Valley
If you’ve ever skimmed our blog, you already know our usual pattern: go to a country, spend two weeks there, enjoy the hell out of it, swear we’ll return, and then never set foot there again. It happens every single time, no matter how earnestly we insist that this time […]
A Year in the Windy City: Unique Things to Do in Chicago
With 2026 underway, we’re excited for all our upcoming trips this year. But globetrotting aside, our own city of Chicago offers enough adventures to fill a whole calendar. We love being tourists in our own backyard, exploring it even after decades of living there. And because we are always obsessed […]
The U.S. Virgin Islands: Unlikely, but Possible
After getting back from the U.S. Virgin Islands, we calculated our total expenses for two people for six days, one week before high season, and it came out to $1,875 for everything, including flights, accommodations, a rental car, food, and all entrance fees. Nowadays, whenever you don’t know how to […]
The U.S. Virgin Islands: America, But Not Quite the America You Know
“So, did we travel internationally or not?” We asked ourselves this question recently after returning from the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before the trip, we felt we weren’t traveling outside of the United States. The USVI is not a country. It’s a territory and part of the United States. The “U.S.” […]
Dig This: Mineral de Pozos
After spending the afternoon watching the parade and dance competitions in the ghost town of Mineral de Pozos, we had just enough daylight left to visit the one site we had actually planned: the abandoned Santa Brígida mine. The rain, clearly summoned by the relentless swirling and drum banging of […]
The Ghost Town That Wasn’t
We were in San Miguel de Allende, enjoying all the classic traits of a pretty Mexican town – a gorgeous church dominating the skyline on the main plaza, colonial architecture with carved wooden doors and wrought-iron balconies, winding cobblestone streets, and quaint local markets where indigenous women sold traditional crafts. […]