Everyone low-key hates
a travel brag,
but if you ever feel inclined, ask me about that time I lived in a different country every month for four months.
Just kidding! No need to ask. Since you’re here, let me share with you a quick highlight reel of my time in Croatia, Portugal, Spain, and South Africa in the Summer of 2019. ✈️
Croatia
Home to old limestone palaces, rushing wild waterfalls, golden sunsets, and ketchup-flavored potato chips. It never got old to pass by ancient corinthian columns on the way to the cafe bars at the city center.
Local life in Croatia is sitting on the Riva with a cup of coffee and good company. It’s living a laid back life, as in Pomalo, or “Take it easy!”
APRIL 2019
Portugal
Living in Lisbon meant: A weekend taking the train to Setúbal, where your new friends try to turn you into a beach person, then spend the afternoon eating pizza on a catamaran looking at dolphins.
Living in Lisbon also meant: living on the fifth floor in a historic district that didn’t have elevators. No longer finding cobblestone sidewalks charming because they get slippery whenever it rained.
In the end Lisbon felt like a challenge with all of its hills and steps, but always made itself worth the climb.
MAY 2019
Spain
I landed in Valencia and walked straight into the euphoria of the city learning that their soccer team had won the Copa Del Rey. The streets were filled with people cheering, blasting fireworks, cars honking at each other, and the best kind of chaos you could find yourself surrounded in.
In it’s quiet moments, the city felt like a little neighborhood where all your friends lived in, during an endless summer day. Siestas encouraged. Ride your bike to a friend’s house. Have a picnic. Appreciate the bat-shaped hedges and motifs. Stop and smell the oranges.
JUNE 2019
South Africa
There are many things to say about South Africa that I don’t really have the words for even after a lot of time has passed. It’s a place rich with culture and nature and amazing food, but if you get the chance to visit, please don’t go without learning the history that made it.
Going to the museums, learning about apartheid, visiting and seeing a township, listening to the people who experienced it and even seeing it’s influence to the people today is fascinating, complicated, and sad. Regardless of their history, no matter who I talked to, it seemed everyone was proud to be from South Africa and so eager to share the things they love about their country. Life is lekker in Cape Town, but it can be lekker anywyere, if you make it.
JULY 2019
