There’s a moment that happens in every traveler’s life at least once. You’re standing on a busy street in a city you don’t fully know yet, you smell something extraordinary cooking nearby, and you have absolutely no idea what it is or whether you should walk toward it. I know that feeling well. Growing up…
There is a particular kind of excitement that comes with looking at a map of Patagonia for the first time. The sheer scale of it. The way it stretches across the bottom of two countries, funneling down toward the end of the world, framed by glaciers and granite peaks and a sky that looks wider…
Chile stopped me in my tracks the first time I looked at it on a map. It is one of the strangest-shaped countries in the world: a narrow ribbon of land stretching over 4,300 kilometres from the driest desert on Earth in the north to the wild, wind-battered glaciers of Patagonia in the south. That…
Colombia was not on my radar for a long time. I think, like a lot of people, I carried an outdated mental image of it shaped by news headlines rather than reality. It took friends coming back from Medellin and Cartagena practically glowing, talking about the food and the music and how warm and alive…
There is a version of travel where you plan your whole trip around food. Not restaurants necessarily, not Michelin stars or fancy tasting menus, but real food, the kind tied to culture and history and the hands of people who have been making it for generations. That kind of travel changes you. South America is…
One of the first questions I ask myself when planning any new trip is simple: can I get around without relying on taxis and ride-shares the whole time? Not because those options are bad, but because hopping on a local metro or bus tells you something about a city that no Uber ride ever will….
There is a version of Latin America that most visitors never see. It is not hidden, exactly. It does not require a secret handshake or a well-connected local friend. But it is completely invisible to anyone who spends their trip moving between air-conditioned tour buses, recommended-by-the-guidebook restaurants, and neighborhoods that look suspiciously clean and curated….
There is a particular kind of travel high that has nothing to do with a famous skyline or a landmark you have seen a hundred times on Instagram. It is the feeling you get when you find yourself in a city that most people overlook, wandering a neighborhood that is genuinely alive and breathing, talking…
There is a particular feeling that hits when you are standing at the edge of a city and the ocean is right there, enormous and present, and you realize the whole place was built in conversation with the water. The city smells different. The food is different. The rhythm of daily life is different. That…