A new country for me is all about the people and the culture. Although I love seeing the major iconic structures, it has been my conversations with locals and very hands-on traveling and volunteering that has proven the most memorable and rewarding.
And perhaps it’s this very reason why Belize caught me off guard; my expectations for the local culture have been stepped on and shattered really. They speak English in Belize for starters and the Queen herself graces the face of their coins and dollars. Though I knew all of …

The ruins of Chichén Itzá were my first stop on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. As my first set of Maya ruins of this trip, I have to say, they’re quite a bit different from the temples architecture of Asia – and a good thing too because I got really “templed out” by the end of my time in SEA and India.
The Maya ruins are a whole different ball game though; the history behind the temples and the sacrifices and religious ceremonies held at Chichén Itzá are incredibly different from …

Let’s take a flashback today to the Cambodia stop on my RTW trip…exactly this time last year; I was traveling with a friend through SEA.

I’m not sure what it is about music, but it just bridges gaps. Perhaps it’s the nature of music – inclusive; everyone who can hear it feels a part of the experience.
Laura’s green guitar and with a hand-embroidered Laotian pink strap was like a magnet for all of the children hawking bracelets and guidebooks near the temples of Angkor Wat in Cambodia. As soon as …

Images of Christmas traditionally evoke thoughts of a toasty log cabin with a flickering fire and cup of hot chocolate all while the snow quietly falls outside. Perhaps there’s even a twinkling Christmas tree nestled in the corner. Well, that’s not the case in Florida -it was 82 F here last week (about 60 F now)– but, you know, at least it is winter here!
Last year I found myself in the Southern Hemisphere for Christmas – Australia to be more exact. The sun was baking down outside and it was, …

My Nissan Micra rental car was tiny…whatever you’re thinking, think smaller. Perhaps for this reason, the decision to sleep in said car for an evening wasn’t the brightest idea I’ve ever had. But for all of the faults in the plan, it did show me just how far the Irish will go for the sake of some friendly hospitality.
Leaving from Cork, another backpacker from the hostel hitched a ride and we decided to travel the Beara Peninsula together. This section of Ireland is best known for the Ring of Kerry…but …

The is the first guest post on A Little Adrift and it couldn’t be a better way kick it off. Dave and Deb, perhaps better known as ThePlanetD.com, have a lot of respect heaped their way from me for their biking adventure across the length of Africa in the Tour d’Afrique. They haven’t stopped there and have taken part in adventure travels all over the globe and are only going to add to those adventures next month as they leave Canada and their day jobs behind and plan to travel …

Rapid confusion set in on my face as a huge, silent, sturdy Czech guy plunked my raft down into the Vltava River, hoisted up a big water-tight barrel with my purse and camera tucked away inside, aggressively shoved the barrel under the front lip of the raft in one giant thrust and then sauntered back up the slope to the cozy warm van I had just departed.
I had a inkling that this was going to happen but this now confirmed it – Helen, Caitlin, and I were all about to …

Emerging from the train station in Mostar is a pretty humbling experience as the sun shines down on the glossy newly painted buildings standing right alongside buildings that are still bombed out and vacant even ten years later.
Sarajevo has some spectacularly pretty areas of town and much of the war damage has been repaired. Mostar is different though; the rebuilding process has taken longer. The stark differences between the war-torn past and the peaceful present is visible in the jux ta position between the pristine modern buildings and the crumbling …