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 […]
Hiking Into the Sky, Patagonia, Argentina
Start with Part I of Argentina Travels to figure out who Ayala is and who we are. “First hike in El Chalten,” Victor said, “Is twenty-six kilometers. Next day, we’ll take it easy and do nineteen. The following day, we get to El Calafate and hike up a glacier.” “When […]
Free Wheeling Through Albania
As we planned our Albanian trip, the first question that popped up was “How will we get around?” Private transportation for two weeks was too expensive, and public transportation was too inconvenient for our overbooked itinerary. The only viable option was to rent a car. But I had my doubts. […]
Albania: Buzzed in Berat
Our guidebook passionately warned that Albanian red wine was utterly terrible and recommended sticking with white wines only. We are not big wine drinkers at all, but what we did want to see were the Albanian wineries. Of course, the best part of any distillery or winery tour is the […]
Where To Next?
“Next week is going to be our 100th blog post!” announced Victor, who likes to keep track of useless statistics such as his billable hours, NFL scores, and how many times each cat throws up a hairball. I was planning to post about that time Victor, his mother, his aunt, and […]
Raki-n-Roll or Getting Drunk in Albania
We’ve mentioned in this blog that we don’t drink alcohol unless we travel. No, this is not a complicated loophole in a mostly sober lifestyle; we are simply submerging ourselves in cultural explorations. We firmly believe that learning about the drinking culture of a country can help us get a […]
Impossible to Ignore All the Red Flags: A Dive into Albanian Past
If you look at the map of Europe with no political borders, you may not even find Albania. Where exactly does Greece end and Albania begin? If you remember that just a thin strip of the Ionic/Adriatic Sea separates it from the heel of Italy, your task finally becomes achievable. […]