Month: May 2026

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I landed in Bangkok for the first time in 2009 with a 35-liter backpack, a Lonely Planet that was two editions out of date, and the absolute certainty that I had prepared enough. Within 48 hours…

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I used to be a chronic overpacker. Not mildly — embarrassingly so. I once checked a 32-kilogram bag for a 10-day trip to Southeast Asia and spent three days of that trip doing laundry anyway because…

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The first time I got truly scared traveling alone, I was 24 years old on a night train from Budapest to Bucharest. A man had been watching me for two hours. I had no alarm, no…

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. It was 2013, and I was standing at a gate in Istanbul’s Atatürk Airport watching my flight to Tbilisi push back from the jetway. My bag was on that plane. I was not. I had made…

This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. I was sitting in a hospital in Chiang Mai, Thailand, at 2 a.m., watching a nurse attach an IV drip to my arm, when I realized I had absolutely no idea what my travel insurance actually…