Author Archives: Jessica

4.5 Months Abroad: The Planning Phase

Posted on by under Uncategorized

A travel-planning-novice attempting to plan for semi-long term travel.

A few weeks ago, I was ecstatic to have made official airline reservations. I knew, I would leave SFO on March 18th, and would return on August 1st. That’s about all I knew. I realized, I really have very little experience in planning for this length of a trip. Immediately I thought about, where do I want to go? For how long? Do I need visas? How is transportation in the country? Should I book ahead, or just show up? What’s the weather going to be? And more, and more. With over 130 blank days I felt a bit overwhelmed on how I should tackle planning. It’s a bit of an awkward length of time. Not so short that I feel confident pre-planning everything, but not long enough to just wing it the whole time. I needed semi-structure. As a compulsive research-overplanner, the thought of “just showing up” causes a bit of panic. Not because I’m not flexible, but because I worry I’ll land, in say Bali, in July and every decent place to stay in Ubud is booked up. Or if I need to take a train from Yogyakarta to Surabaya, but all trains are full. What if I had only planned a bit in advance? Continue reading →

Timeless Travel Inspiration.

Posted on by under Notes on Travel, Thoughts and Musings

Reading by Lantern

“But romance and rapture, the capacity for wonder and admiration will reamin wherever there are young unregimented hearts.”

I read a fair amount. I haven’t always been this way, and in fact, until college I rarely read for pleasure at all. But now, it is somewhat of an addiction, a transportation, therapeutic, riveting, disarming.  And it would come as no surprise that I spend a decent amount of time reading travel literature. For obvious reasons, I connect with the stories of adventurers. Aside from entertaining, these books serve as inspiration and a reminder that this obsession I have with travel isn’t so strange; there are many of us out there, dreaming of adventure. I’ll read most anything related to travel from classics (Bruce Chatwin) to contemporary (Theroux) and everything in between. Continue reading →

A Year in Review: 2011 in Photos

Posted on by under Thoughts and Musings

Happy New Year!

Perhaps it’s too obvious to say, but, well it’s true: this year has gone by far too fast. It feels like it’s only been a few months since bringing in the new year in Peru. And while this year, I’ll be spending New Years Eve in the slightly less exotic Washington State, I’m glad I get to spend it with family and old friends.

It’s been a wonderful, if not slightly strange year. It was the first year I didn’t know exactly what I would be doing any given day, week, or month. And not too surprisingly, everything worked out, despite some personal concerns regarding the sort of fly by the seat of my pants situation. And in fact, this sort of willingness to change directions at any moment has provided a multitude of opportunities I may not have been able to have, had I dug in roots and made definite plans. It may seem trivial, but for a slightly-compulsive-overplanner such as myself, it was a much needed lesson in just chilling the heck out.  Continue reading →