I used to think sitting still was a waste of time. Back when I had my office job in New York, “relaxing” meant scrolling my phone until my eyes hurt. Then I spent time in places that forced me to slow down. Living with a family in Ghana, where evenings moved at the pace of…
Here is the strange thing I noticed the first time I really put my phone away for more than a day. My thumb kept reaching for a pocket that was empty. There was nothing to check, and yet I checked anyway. If that tiny detail makes you wince a little in recognition, you are exactly…
The first time I understood what real rest felt like, I was not on a beach. I was standing in a steamy stone bath hall, shoulders finally dropping away from my ears, feeling the tension of a very fast few years melt into warm mineral water. For most of my twenties I chased the busy…
The first time I seriously thought about a yoga retreat, I was not on a beach or a mountain. I was at a gray desk in New York City, shoulders somewhere up around my ears, promising myself that one day I would do something slower. It took me years to learn that ‘one day’ is…
The first time I lowered myself into naturally warm mineral water on a cold day, my shoulders dropped about two inches. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding them up near my ears for weeks. That feeling, that quiet exhale, is the whole reason I keep steering people toward thermal water when they ask me where…
I’ll be honest with you. When I first started traveling, I thought “beer tourism” was for loud groups on stag weekends, not for a solo woman who mostly wanted to understand a place. I was wrong, and it took wandering through Europe with a backpack and very little money to figure out why. Beer in…
The first time I traveled long-term, I wasn’t vegan, but I was terrified of a smaller thing: sitting down in a restaurant where I couldn’t read the menu and pointing at something random just to avoid looking lost. I remember doing exactly that in a tiny spot in Europe during my first solo backpacking trip,…
I want to tell you something before we get into the where. The best travel memory I have from teaching English in Thailand was not a temple or a beach. It was a night when a coworker’s mother stood me in front of a mortar and pestle and refused to let me leave until my…
The first time I really understood cheese as a place, and not just a thing in a fridge, I was backpacking solo across Europe with a very small budget and a very large appetite. I’d buy a wedge of something local, a hunk of bread, and sit on a curb like it was a five-star…