One woman's journey through the world
For a few years in my early twenties, I worked for a travel agency and had access to travel brochures and guidebooks galore. The term ‘bucket list’ didn’t cross my mind but during that time I compiled a lengthy one. Blackwater rafting the Waitomo caves, hiking to Everest base camp, diving in the Galapagos Islands, climbing Mount Kinabalu, taking a train across Australia, meeting the Masai Mara in Kenya, watching
Welcome to the new iteration of Chasing the Unknown! If you’re reading this on the website, you can see that things look a bit different. If you’re reading this in email, please click over to see the changes! Not only was I ready for an updated look, I wanted to make this site a proper home for a business: one that I can be proud of and excited about. Writing
Diving in Gili T is pleasant. Diving Amed off Bali’s northeast coast is awesome. I’m going to keep the text to a minimum on this post and let the photos tell the story. I recently went for a weekend with three new friends met in Ubud, each of differing dive experience. Three of us did five dives over two days including one of the best night dives I’ve ever done.
It’s been a little more than three weeks since I arrived in Bali, one of the 17,000+ islands of Indonesia. Yet it wasn’t until a few days ago that I threw myself into the ocean. Even then, it wasn’t on Bali but on the neighboring island of Gili Trawangan. In Bali I’ve settled inland for a little while, thinking it would do me good to not be distracted by diving
“If you can, stay a night in Helsingborg and cross over to Denmark to see Hamlet’s castle.” This came as advice from a friend about how to use my limited time in southwest Sweden. With a BFA in theatre who once had the nerdy high school habit of reading Shakespeare by candlelight, it’s hard to believe that the idea hadn’t occurred to me in the first place. It had been
With a change in elevation of 863 meters (2831 ft) over 20.2 km (12.6 mi), running between the end of a fjord and a small mountain town, Norway’s Flåmsbana makes for one scenic ride. The track passes multiple waterfalls, goes through 20 tunnels, across one bridge, and is doubled in only one spot so that trains traveling in opposite directions can pass one another. The rest of the way, there’s
When my parents asked if I had interest in visiting a glacier while in Norway, I was in Africa. I had proper hiking boots with me and, thanks to the generosity of friends, warm clothes to layer. So when I wholeheartedly said yes, I thought I’d have these things with me. But life had other plans and as it happened, I gave away most of those warm clothes and the
Having spent more time outside of the U.S. than in it over the last 3 years, I’ve become accustomed to life without safety railings and liability waivers. If you’re crazy enough to hike along or stand atop a sheer cliff edge, then you should know that all could go terribly wrong and you’d have no one to blame but yourself. Or the person who knocks you over the edge when
“This can’t be right.” I’m pushing my way through grass so high there are seeds at the base of my neck. A moment before, I was certain I saw a path there but doubt is creeping in. Is it time to turn back? Shouldn’t the path be veering to the right to loop back? Didn’t the staff say this was an easy trail to follow? And what happened to the