There is something almost primal about lowering yourself into steaming mineral water with a volcano in the background and a sky full of stars overhead. No itinerary. No alarm. Just warmth. Hot springs were never something I planned my travels around, not at first anyway. It was only after spending time on the road, learning…
I grew up in New York City, which means I never really had to think twice about finding food that matched my diet. Want a fully vegan Korean bowl at 11pm? Done. Oat milk latte in three different directions from your front door? Easy. New York spoils you that way, and if you’ve ever eaten…
There is a moment in every good trip where something shifts. Not the Instagram moment at the famous viewpoint, not the guided tour of the historic cathedral. Something quieter than that. For a lot of travelers I’ve talked to, and for me thinking about my own experiences in places like Ghana and Thailand, that shift…
There is something quietly extraordinary about holding a cacao pod for the first time. It’s heavier than you expect, the outside almost leathery, and when someone splits it open in front of you, the white pulp inside smells tropical and bright, nothing like what you picture when you think of chocolate. That moment, the one…
There is a moment that happens to almost every traveler, usually on the first full day in a new country. You are standing in front of a market stall or a tiny restaurant with a handwritten menu, and you realize you have no idea what anything is. You want to eat like a local. You…
Something happens when you sit down at a restaurant and the server explains that the potato on your plate grew in soil 3,800 meters above sea level, tended by a farmer whose family has cultivated that exact variety for generations. The food stops being just food. It becomes a story, a place, a reason you…
There’s a moment I think every food-focused traveler knows. You’re sitting somewhere you’ve never been, a plastic chair, a picnic bench, maybe a wobbly stool near the water, and something arrives in a bowl or on a plate that completely changes how you think about a place. That’s what seafood in Central America does. It…
I grew up in New York City, which means I grew up thinking I already knew what a great cup of coffee tasted like. The city has a cafe on every corner and a fierce, unapologetic loyalty to its own coffee culture. But it was not until I started traveling, really traveling, that I understood…
There is something genuinely disarming about standing in a vineyard for the first time. You pick up a glass, the wine is a deep garnet color, and someone across the barrel table is explaining soil composition and altitude with obvious joy. And instead of feeling lost, you feel curious. That is the feeling wine travel…