The idea of strapping on a backpack and heading off with a loose plan and a tight budget is romantic right up until you actually have to do it. Then the questions pile up. How much do I bring? Where do I sleep? What if something goes wrong? I remember the mix of excitement and…
People love to tell you they got a cheap flight like it was a stroke of good fortune. As if a magic price appeared and they happened to be looking. After booking a lot of flights over the years, I can tell you the truth: cheap flights are almost never luck. They’re the result of…
Cheap and worth it don’t always go together. Plenty of places are inexpensive precisely because there isn’t much reason to be there. What I’ve been chasing for years is the sweet spot: countries where your money stretches remarkably far and you still come home with a phone full of photos and stories you can’t stop…
For years I believed travel was something other people did. The kind of people who had spare money lying around, or jobs that paid for flights, or parents who footed the bill. I was none of those. So when a friend casually mentioned she was spending three weeks in Southeast Asia on less than what…
Not everyone has the luxury of long, sprawling holidays. For most of us, travel comes in short bursts — a long weekend, a few days squeezed between commitments, a quick getaway that has to count. There’s a temptation to feel that short trips are somehow lesser, that you can’t really experience a place in just…
For years I was a chronic overpacker. Every trip began with a bulging bag stuffed with things I was sure I’d need, and ended with me hauling that bag through stations and up stairs, having worn maybe half of what I brought. The turning point came on a trip where I lugged an enormous suitcase…
There are two ways to visit a place. You can move through it as a tourist — hitting the famous sights, eating where the crowds eat, staying in the areas built for visitors, and leaving with the same photos everyone else takes. Or you can experience it more like someone who lives there, getting under…
There’s a particular kind of misery that comes from a badly planned trip. The frantic mornings, the missed connections, the arguments over what to do next, the growing sense that the holiday is happening to you rather than being enjoyed by you. I’ve had those trips, and I’ve had the other kind — the ones…
The idea of traveling alone can sit somewhere between thrilling and terrifying. On one hand, complete freedom — go where you want, when you want, answer to nobody. On the other, a quiet worry: won’t it be lonely? What if something goes wrong and there’s no one there? I asked myself all of these questions…