It’s really hard to believe that this week exactly a year ago I was well into my around the world trip and diving on the Great Barrier Reef – and right now, a year later the RTW trip is over. Instead, I’m plopped on my bed in my childhood home working hard to save up the cash I’ll need for Central America in February.
With a new travel plans in the works, for posterity’s sake let’s recap my RTW travel route and some of the more interesting adventures. We’ll do it …

Huddled under one lone awning in the middle of the Outback, as the rain poured down around us, we all looked forlornly at the broken down tour bus while Jess presented us with a choice:

admit defeat and return to the previous night’s campground near Uluru
head a couple hours down the road toward Kings Canyon in hopes that the river hadn’t overflowed – if it hadn’t we could hike the Canyon in the morning.

At this …

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 …

You know it’s about to be really good when a local tells you it’s his favorite drive in all of Ireland. I was cozied up to the bar at a little pub in Connemara, map spread awkwardly all over the bar top, attempting to plan a route from Galway to Clifden that would take quite a bit of time since getting there was really my only task for the day.
The bartender placed my steaming cup of soup in front of me, turned my map around to face him, and asked …

In addition to Ireland’s most scenic coastline and sights: Slea Head Drive, and Fungie the Dolphin in Dingle town’s harbor, there are two other parts of the Dingle Peninsula that I really loved.
Forging Dingle’s Connor Pass:
My photos from Connor Pass don’t even look real, and I swear to you they are unaltered. I was emphatically warned about attempting the Connor pass since I wasn’t particularly skilled behind the wheel on the left side of the road (so sue me, I’m an American, we don’t drive on that side!)…and I …

I half to admit, I owe one to the Universe now. What do I owe, you might ask? Well, I have return a kindness done to me and pay it forward by opening my home and my time to a traveler visiting my home state.
On an icy-cold evening in Northern India I met two other backpackers, sisters, nestled into a tiny restaurant in McLeod Ganj. We shared a table, there was not a seat to spare in the warm and cozy one-room restaurant, and backpacking stories during the hot meal. …

The green sheep pastures of the Lake District in England were so stunning that they actually caused me to go into spontaneous dances of joy. I mean, if you know that you’re completely and truly alone with only a sheep as witness is there really anything else you could do?
I reckon not. I made a pact with myself at the beginning of the trip that I was going to teach myself a cartwheel by the end of this year of traveling. I still can’t do it (drats!) but I spent …

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 …