There’s been a little movement throughout the travel community – an attempt to unite travel bloggers and create a list of the most unique travel destinations and secretly amazing places to visit. Nellie over at Wild Junket nominated me to participate in Tripbase’s “3 Best Kept Travel Secrets,” and that’s a pretty hard task because there are some amazing places out there.
But there are a few places and experiences that particularly stood out in my mind as I backpacked around the world:
1) India’s Festival of Color, Holi
Holi …

“Umm, did you hear that sound?” I oh, so casually ask Laura as we drive out of minuscule town of Doolin, on our way to the Cliffs of Moher.
Laura, partially deaf in one ear bless her heart, gives a definitive shake of her head and then re-launches into her story as I can’t shake the nagging feeling like something just happened to the car after the absolutely massive pot-hole I ploughed over at speedy 55 kilometers an hour.
With an ear tuned toward Laura’s story I continue carefully navigating my puttering …

I approached Andy via email before I arrived in Edinburgh for Fringe show recommendations and to give him warning that I fully hoped to meet up for coffee and drinks while I was in town. Before he would send over a list of his recommendations he asks me:
“Fringe can be pretty experimental and risqué, are you ok with nudity and profanity in the name of art or do you take offense easily?”
Well, after watching his favorites – it’s probably a good thing I was warned!
Edinburgh Fringe is unjuried and entirely …

Exiting the bus station in Edinburgh, Scotland I’m lured down the street toward the distant sounds of street music and cheering crowds on Princes Street that mingle alluringly with the more immediate rush of cars and the other pedestrians vying for space on the sidewalk. I’ve got two hours to kill before my host for the next week gets off of work and that means wandering the streets of Edinburgh in search of entertainment and grub.
by Mario Cutroneo
Stepping foot in Edinburgh was a culminating moment for me – in high …

We head back in time today to the east coast of Australia for a flashback to my questionably successful attempts to learn how to surf. Now, this post is not intended to startle and confuse my loyal readers, but at the time I skipped over a few places along the way when the blog got too behind real time.
So, we rewind the clock and land back on the sunny and incredibly touristy east coast of Australia to the surfing town of Byron Bay. I am game for just about …

A matte, vibrant, solid pink, nearly naked derriere was bent over and pointed in my direction as I approached the green park in the city center of Ljublijana, the capital of city of Slovenia. My first thought?
Ahh…welcome home.
I love theatre completely and with the whole of my heart and interactive street theatre is so up my alley (those who know me from way back remember the days of 16th century Renaissance Festival costumes). But, the situation at hand was tricky because fast approaching me now was another member …

Having Jenn join us for this leg of the trip has really given me a bit of perspective about the months spent traveling in developing world. For me, after five months of backpacking I really lost track of the delineation between my developing world experiences and life back home in the states.
Jenn though had no such confusion when she arrived with shiny-clean clothes and a backpack that smelled distinctly better than mine (what is that funk!?!). Jenn knew two things about herself when deciding to join a leg of …

Hands down one of the best days in Italy (and a top day on the RTW trip actually) was the Tuscan bike tour we signed up for –it was done on a bit of a whim since the price was a bit high at Euro 60 for the day, but after our long hard day of absorbing art and culture at the Uffizi and the Accademia we decided to splurge. Besides the pretty pictures in the brochure and the note on the Web site to bring sunscreen, we just …