Amtrak Adventures

Jake and I celebrated our 17th wedding anniversary on June 23rd and decided to take a quick 4-day trip for the occasion. For our own reasons that are completely ridiculous we ended up settling on a train trip from our home in Red Wing, Minnesota to Portland, Oregon and back with only 4 hours off…

Travel Soundtrack

I love to put together a travel soundtrack relevant to the places I’m going but I have some standard travel songs that I almost always include. These songs just ignite that passion to hit the road (or the skies.) What would you add to this list? Leaving on a Jet Plane performed by Peter, Paul,…

Lessons learned from HGTV

I don’t have cable TV at home but whenever I’m somewhere that does, nothing sucks me in faster than HGTV. Not the travel channel but the Home and Garden network. Even though they primarily air shows about buying and selling homes and I’ve lived in my home for 11 years with no intentions of moving…

Van Go

In the US my favorite way to travel is by car or, more specifically, by van. For the record, I love the combination of traveling via mass transit and staying in funky little hostels probably best of all but neither of those are really feasible when traveling throughout most of the United States. There’s also…

Travels With Charley

Awhile back I read Travels with Charley – In Search of America by John Steinbeck. I was not expecting much since I’ve not been a fan of Steinbeck’s works of fiction but I really fell in love with his writing in this book. It helps of course that it’s about travel. Travels with Charley is…

Packing for 4 days in Miami

I spent 4 deliciously sunny days in Miami this past week and here’s what I brought with me… Left to Right, Top to Bottom (more or less) Two paperback books for reading on the beach, my journal, and notebook. Two lightweight scarves (an old pashmina that’s been to 4 continents with me and a beautiful…

Should You Pack It

I’m heading out on a little mini-trip in about 36 hours so it’s time for everyone’s favorite game show… Should You Pack It?! starring me and my little 20 liter backpack. To help, I’ve created this nifty little decision tree. I’ll admit that I wasn’t always a light packer. I remember the feelings of despair I felt…