We arrived to the Vienna Airport shortly before midnight feeling very hungry, uncomfortable and disoriented from our 6-hour flight on W!ZZ Air (an airline not worth mentioning except to encourage you NOT to book one of its flights if at all possible). From the airport, we drove through the night on a much-smaller-than-anticipated coach bus…
Tag: Mountains
Dubai | 2023
We entered Dubai somewhat unconventionally by driving across the Al Hajar mountain range that separates Oman from the United Arab Emirates. The drive was long—16 of us in a 17-passenger van plus some of our luggage that didn’t fit in the trailer that we were pulling for six hours—and included an inconveniently-long delay in passport…
Book review: Into the Wild
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer (1996), was a bummer of a book. Describing the ultimately fatal journey of a disillusioned, middle-class young man into the Alaskan wilderness, the book seeks to explain how and why Chris McCandless died. Through interviews with the family members he abandoned on the East Coast and the friends he…
San Francisco | 2014
Less than three weeks after I returned from my year in Paris, I was on the road again. Over the course a month I traveled west for work, paused in the Midwest for vacation, headed east to visit family, and then flew down to the Caribbean for a volunteer trip. For the first stop on…
Switzerland | 2011
Despite the financial stability of Switzerland, my bank account by this point in the trip was a little worse for the wear and consequently I did not do many touristic outings or try much local cuisine at the restaurants. The best parts of Switzerland were the continuation of the gorgeous mountains and the chocolate. In…
Italy | 2011
While in Innsbruck, Austria, we realized we were only 15 miles from the northern border of Italy. A small group of us decided to take advantage of our one free afternoon and take a train ride across the border. Not knowing much about northern Italy, unable to leave until after lunch, and needing to return…
Austria | 2011
Our trip from Germany to Austria was truly magical. The landscapes we passed were absolutely incredible. My camera was unfortunately tucked away on the drive, but I made lots of mental pictures of the scenery. The tops of the mountains were shrouded with low clouds, but spotting the occasional castle tucked into a lush forest…
Dominican Republic
Some of the most rewarding travel experiences thus far in my life have been the repeat trips to the Dominican Republic. For two years, at six-month intervals, I flew out to Pennsylvania to join a church volunteer group to travel to Rancho Arriba, a small village tucked into a valley of one of the south-central…
Kazakhstan | 2013
Kazakhstan was the first of my two study trips during my master’s program. The largest of all the “-stan” countries, Kazakhstan is tucked between Russia, Mongolia, and China and the culture definitely reflects the geographical intersection through the diversity of languages, body characteristics, geo-political orientations, transportation, architecture, and food & drink. As a small group…
L.M.Beatty 