My travel-fu is strong: The items I always pack in my kick-ass carry-on bag
Inspired by this post on Boing Boing, and recent travel plans, I thought I’d share with you what I take with me in my carry-on bag. Why? Because I consider myself an expert airplane traveler. With how often I go back and forth from LA to Maui, Seattle, and Texas to visit family and do work stuffs, I had to get my travel game strong. And my carry-on is where I draw most of my strength.
The most romantic Lord of the Rings tour of New Zealand you’ll see today
We decided to go to New Zealand, partially as this was Matt’s first trip overseas (and New Zealand is one of Australia’s closest neighbours), partially due to The Lord of the Rings. And finally we chose New Zealand because we wanted to try to keep the costs down, while having as much luxury as we could afford.
How a year on the road saved my life and helped me grieve
My fiancé has always loved travel, and was saving up for a year long road trip cross-country to take with his brother after he finished grad school and his brother got out of the army. When his brother passed away in Afghanistan in 2010, our lives were shattered pretty completely. His death impacted everything, and left us in the center of this desolate vortex of grief. Not knowing how else to proceed we kept moving and decided to still take the trip together. So on a hot sweltering day in July, we packed the Volvo and drove off.
A rainy, Michelin star-chasing, foodie vacation in Cartmel, England
Any food-enthusiasts and Michelin star freaks out there? If you’re thinking of taking a culinary-inspired trip, you’ll want to eat up all the details of Lydia and Johan’s foodie honeymoon to Cartmel, England.
Just-because solo trip to freezing Chicago
I went to Chicago! I’d always wanted to go, and I had some unexpected time off in early January. I braved the awful winter we’ve been getting near the Great Lakes and flew out the day all the airports opened back up. This was my first trip alone after the end of my long-term relationship and after moving back home with my parents. Needless to say, the time to myself was well-appreciated. Chicago ended up reminding me a lot of Toronto, one of my favourite places. The new-ness mixed with familiarity was just what I wanted for a solo trip.
Avoiding turbulence: Keep in contact with family at home while traveling abroad
When we started planning our first international family trip, we had a few co-parenting hoops to jump through; negotiation and compromise is often the name of the co-parenting game. For this trip to happen, I had to assure my son’s father that he would continue to have the routine contact he enjoys in our daily life, and that we would keep him apprised of our travel plans. As I sat down to work all the kinks out in this travel agreement, I learned several valuable lessons we will continue to employ as we enjoy traveling as a family and keeping all branches of our family tree satisfied and smiling.
I was in a plane crash: here’s how I deal with flight anxiety
In August 2005, I was a passenger on Air France flight 358, a flight from Paris, France, to Toronto, Ontario. Upon arriving over Toronto, our plane flew into a sudden storm, landed too far down the runway, and slid right off the end, bursting into flame. We had to evacuate down the emergency slides, and all of our luggage burned up with the plane. But I still fly.
Take a virtual trip around the world with this open-ended, world-traveling honeymoon
We both LOVE to travel, over the course of our relationship we’ve gone on a number of international hosteling/backpacking trips together. We’d been joking about going around the world, but when we found out that Alex would be getting laid off the same week that Sara would finish grad school it seemed like the perfect opportunity to actually do it!