London on Empty

February 13, 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

My flight arrived in London at Heathrow just before 7 AM, London time. Yet, I was unable to check into my hotel until 2:30 PM. This meant I had quite a few hours to kill before I could rest properly and I hadn’t slept, but for maybe an hour on the plane. So what could I […]

Surviving a Coach Tour

January 23, 2017.Reading time 8 minutes.

So you’re thinking about booking a tour to travel around your home country or beyond. Wonderful! Before you start daydreaming too hard about how you think it’s going to go, let’s get some reality out of the way first. Tours aren’t all about you. There, I said it. Deal with it. You aren’t the one planning […]

Touring Western Europe with Indigo Travel

January 20, 2017.Reading time 10 minutes.

Since it was my first time escaping the borders of my home country, America, I felt nothing short of intimidated. Sure, I’m a spontaneous spirited, independent woman who seeks adventure at every turn, but… leaving my comfort zone so completely and plopping myself down in foreign lands loaded with foreign currencies, languages, and customs, I […]

These Boots Were Made for Walking

January 13, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

I’ve officially been home for a week now and I still feel like I’m trying to catch my breath! If you were following me on Instagram then you saw how fast paced my holidays were and what I have been up to for the last three weeks. Now that I’m home I’m back to work, […]

Tourists Beware – Scams We Were Warned About

December 25, 2016.Reading time 4 minutes.

While our coach rolled through the center of Paris our tour guide offered us a few insights of what scams he himself or others on previous tours experienced in Paris and other major cities. These included: Theft: Warnings about protecting our passports and cash so far as to pin them under our clothes. If it’s […]

A London State of Mind

December 19, 2016.Reading time 3 minutes.

What would you do if you only had 24 waking hours to explore London? How would you best fill your time? Tours? Free-range adventure? That’s the conundrum I’m currently facing. I have about 12 hours in London once I get to my hotel on Christmas Eve Eve and another 12 hours the day before my […]

See This Girl Travel!

December 14, 2016.Reading time 2 minutes.

I’m finally doing it! I set a goal for 2016 to travel and it’s finally happening! One week from tomorrow I will be boarding my flight to London where I will spend a day exploring before meeting up with a group of strangers to tour eight countries in 11 days! I am beyond excited, but […]

#SeeGirlTravel: Learning to Be Alone

November 16, 2016.Reading time 9 minutes.

I can’t decide if choosing to be alone while I was single was harder than being alone now that I’m married. When I was single there was that stigma of being a lone woman in public, surrounded by happy couples or more attractive women on the prowl when all I wanted to do was have […]

Dining Out in Cartlandia

September 3, 2016.Reading time 6 minutes.

She asked me if I wanted to go to a food cart. It was over text message so I thought she might have been auto-corrected and was actually saying “go-karts” which was still weird, actually. I was confused. Terribly, terribly confused. When I asked her about it, I think I broke a piece of her […]

Keeping Portland Weird

September 1, 2016.Reading time 10 minutes.

I grew up in Gresham, a city that connects to Portland on the east side before you head on up to Mount Hood. In fact, I grew up in Hood’s shadow, spending my winter weekends playing in the snow. After school my friends and I would hop on the MAX (light rail transit system) and […]