By : Ashley Mingesz While basking in warm December sun at the top of a pyramid in Uxmal, Mexico, I mused at a familiar feeling I have every time I find myself in a beautiful new place. I’m amazed by how few material possessions I require to be fulfilled when they aren’t available to me….
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Fact: We Find What We’re Looking For
By : Angela Noel Lawson Vegas reminds me of a little black dress I once owned. The dress served its purpose. Coupled with a pair of very swanky heels, it attracted the attention I craved. Wearing it felt like I’d stepped into a different world, one I wouldn’t inhabit nine-to-five. But one day, when I…
How to Speak Howler: A Trip to the Community Baboon Sanctuary in Belize
By : John Garry When I reached Burrell Boom in the Cayo District of Belize, I thought I’d heard every possible language spoken in Central America. Belizeans flip between English, Creole, Spanish, and dialects of Mayan with minimal effort—an impressive fact for an unenlightened monolingual American like myself. I expected this; I read about it…
How to be a More Mindful Traveler
By : Elisha Donkin I have a confession to make: on more than one occasion on my travels, I have had to stop and think long and hard about where I’ve actually been, and I don’t mean what countries I’ve been, but literally the town I was in yesterday or even that very morning. In…
The Blind Massage: A Twist on The Southeast Asian Spa Experience
By: Alison Spencer Winding through the men’s section, a distinct thwacking sound echoed down the narrow hallway. I’d had massages previously but never heard such noises, clearly made from hard and repeated skin on skin contact. As I neared the ladies’ area, the cacophony of smacks and thumps only grew, reaching its peak as I…
Overcoming Cultural Differences in the Classroom
An excerpt from Given’s memoir, At Home on the Kazakh Steppe, which tells the story of her two years teaching English in the middle of Kazakhstan. By : Janet Givens As I opened my frayed notebook, I saw my list that Gulzhahan and I had been working on over the past six months or so,…
What I Learned About Life (And Myself) from Cycling in Copenhagen
By : Anastasia Matveyeva I like riding a bicycle as much as any other grown up kid. But while living and biking in New York, I was all too familiar with the dangers of commuting on two wheels. To limit my exposure to angry drivers, my destination choices were restricted to parks and waterfront paths….
Rambling in Denver
By: Madeline Weinfield This fall, already antsy and nostalgic for the freedom of summer’s easy travel, I gathered two friends and looked west. Friends from an east coast childhood, we were now thrown in different lives—one suburban, one urban, one decidedly more mountainous. Denver, it seemed, was a perfect in between city for an in…
Fat, Salt & Self Control: Hunting for Truffles in the Provencal Countryside
By : Alexandra Shuman “I never wanted to be a farmer.” Straw-hatted and heavy-booted, Johann is first and foremost a businessman. Not an inch of the farm he inherited from the grandparents who raised him is untouched by his entrepreneurial hustle, the kind you expect to find in New York or Silicon Valley. And yet,…
