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Vietnam
Vietnam was the cheapest ticket I could get out of Korea. It was also a place I wasn’t familiar with, so I was interested to visit. I should have done more research or possibly learned Vietnamese because it wasn’t very accessible for a budget traveler at all. The second I arrived, there were also masses…
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Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz has a cult following around the Bay Area. Everyone has a bumper sticker of The Mystery Spot. Well, it seems that way. I finally got to visit. It definitely reaffirmed that Santa Cruz has a strange energy to it, not in the sense the attraction advocated about, but in the attitude that people…
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Macau
Macau is an interesting place that I visited with my family. When I say family, I really mean a random assortment of… people… that are distantly related to me. My maternal grandpa is one of nine children. My mom has a close relationship with great uncle #5 because they grew up in the same household.…
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San Luis Obispo
My friend was living in LA and I was a new transplant in San Jose. We wanted to meet but didn’t want to drive over nine hours to see each other. We settled on San Luis Obispo, a cute town right in the middle. San Luis Obispo was having a poppin’ weekend. They were having…
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Austin, through the eyes of a visitor
What is my hometown? I never know how to answer this question. Is it where I was born? Is it where I live now? Is it the “reason” I look the way I do? I usually change the answer depending on who is asking. I’ve lived in Austin for over twenty years. I moved away…
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Tucson
For this year’s climate-poclypse, Casey and I headed to Tucson. We packed up everything of importance into our car and drove twelve hours southeast. The wildfires were only a few miles away from us. We ended up staying two weeks. We didn’t do much while there because it’s wasn’t really a vacation. However, it’s still…
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Hong Kong
I have a love-hate relationship with Hong Kong. First of all, it is like immersing yourself in a bucket of sweat during the summertime. It is unbearably hot and you are extremely close to a million different smells and people at any given second. I don’t think New York City is as lively or as…
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Philadelphia
One of the best things about having a family member an official tour guide is all. the. discounts! She gets comped to go to museums all the time because she brings large groups of students there. So, following her around a new city is a lot of fun. Rusty took us to Philadelphia. We had…
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Samara
What is Russia like? It’s difficult to explain to people who have never been to a “second world country.” The West likes to paint Russia as a depraved place but in reality, it’s not that bad. It’s not like the wild wild west. It has nice parts and poor parts. It has problems but also…
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St. Petersburg
Have you ever been heartbroken and alone in a city? That’s what St. Petersburg is to me. I went there as a shell of a person. In Russia, I found it easy to just exist and float through life. As a foreigner, you don’t owe anyone anything. So you can check into a hostel, cry…