My route which involved a few bus rides FAQs How can you sleep with all that light?Why Scandinavia? Why Finland?How do you have so much time to travel as an American?Isn't San Francisco a really expensive place to live?What surprised you the most?Are you glad to be back? One question I expected to be asked a lot, because it gets asked everywhere else I travel, why are you traveling on your…
I love survival stories and this summer I indulged in many shipwreck stories. One thing that I love about shipwreck memoirs is that the author always survives so it doesn't feel like I'm watching someone's death. Often other members of the crew die so it isn't completely guilt free but since these are real stories I do feel less guilty when I know there is some type of happy ending. While…
This was written last summer but I held off on publishing it. I was still trying to figure out how to sleep at night and writing helped to pass the time in a constructive way. The loss of Lauren and Jay has truly reminded me that life is precious and not to take tomorrow for granted. The smallest kindnesses can have a huge effect on someone so always be kind. I…
After spending my first day in Norway sleeping, I roll out of bed and down the hill to the National Day parade. Norwegians are dressed up in their finest traditional clothes or their best suits, everyone is waving a flag, and the sound of a drum corps echos throughout the city. Everyone is out. I hear a Swede complain that Norway is just so much more crowded than where she lives.…
I've become a bit of an expert at reading travels blogs over the last few years and I find that there are a few levels of detail and most blogs focus on one of these levels. Some are practically turn by turn directions of a location, some are more thematic, and others are in the weeds of their tools. As someone looking for inspiration I am drawn towards the thematic posts,…
Las Vegas may not seem like the perfect spot for a test run for my summer trip to Northern Europe. I had a few things I needed to test out: handling a loaded packraft with my bike, my new bike bag, and my new stove. I ended up there during a winter storm, so the conditions were much closer to what I expect to face in Europe that I could have…
tl;dr I'm heading to the North Atlantic for the summer! I bought my first adult bike when I was 22 because although I loved walking I just didn’t have the time to walk everywhere. It was February in DC and in order to get to my yoga teacher training class I either needed to walk an hour and a half in the cold slush, take public transit for roughly half an…
The sirens’ song rang in my ears. I had resisted their call for weeks, keeping myself at work and away from the coast. As the nights shortened so did my ability to resist, and on the solstice I found myself on my Siren rendezvousing with the Pacific. I pedaled along the bay, sun in my eyes, wind in my face. I followed the traffic then the tourists angling for the best…
It’s evening rush hour, traffic is gridlocked, happy hours are full and noisy, street lights create odd shadows on the street; a typical Tuesday evening in the city. Sometimes the city breathes life into you, to be amongst other people sharing this uniquely human experience. For those other days, when it makes you feel alone, powerless, overwhelmed, or claustrophobic, there is the night swim. It's dark when I step out from…
I have been a swimmer for as long as I can remember. I have always savored the freedom of pulling off your clothes and jumping in the water, enjoyed the escape into a different world. I belonged in that world even if I couldn’t stay underwater as long or swim as fast as the other creatures. Diving down to hide before launching a surprise attack on my unsuspecting sister, fighting my…