I’ve been back in America for two weeks. Enough time to reunite with friends and family, attend to administrative needs, and shift from travel mode to MFA in Creative Writing mode. These two weeks also gave me time to reflect upon […]Read More ›

Here are 33 travel tips I compiled during my RTW trip.  Hope something in here helps you. PREP: 1.  Consider the weather. I started my trip in February in India and moved south to north. In March, I was in the […]Read More ›

I love my country. I’m proud to be an American and I’ll never take my freedoms for granted. That said, I learned a couple of things overseas that I might not have realized in America, at least not this year… […]Read More ›

When I was backpacking through India in February, I met an Australian named Sarah. At the ripe age of 25, Sarah looked around one day and realized that she had it all: a doctorate in veterinarian science, a job at […]Read More ›

The Greyhound dropped me off in Savannah, Georgia, where I spent two days with a friend from college. We had not seen each other for five years due to overlapping deployment schedules, but once reunited it felt like we hadn’t […]Read More ›

Homeward Bound started with food poisoning. I traveled for 19 weeks in places like India, Egypt, and Turkey and routinely ate food from street vendors and hole-in-the-walls. I thought my stomach could handle anything. Apparently “anything” does not include a […]Read More ›

One day, when I was 15, I decided to join the Army. Like so many of life’s fascinations, it’s difficult to understand what spurred my decision. But I do know that my love of America had a lot to do […]Read More ›

The trouble of getting to Marrakech, Morocco was worth it.  I fell in love with everything about this city.  For starters, the food:         If you are in Marrakech, visit the Djamma El Fna square at night.  […]Read More ›

Have you ever gotten food stuck in your throat? You’re not choking. You can still breathe. But the food won’t go down despite repeated swallowing. This happened to me on the way from Madrid to Marrakech. I consumed a bunch of Lindt […]Read More ›

I hate the travel naysayers. You know, the people who use scare tactics to try to convince me that I can’t travel here or there because it’s too dangerous for a solo female traveler. I realize that I need to be more […]Read More ›