When Colin and I told our coworkers we were going to spend a couple weeks in Panama this January, one of them asked what Panama was known for, “besides hats and the canal.”
While that is definitely their brand as a country, I loved our visit to Panama City! It was absolutely gorgeous. The photo at the top of this post was the view from our Airbnb at sunset, with no editing or filters or anything.
Mostly what we did was walk along the ocean to get coffee in the mornings, and then we would pick an area to explore and find a restaurant for dinner as we wandered around. We drank a lot of sangria and spent time in the parks with the locals, where you’d see people playing basketball or soccer late into the night. I think that’s something the United States is really missing in most areas – outdoor public spaces. Salt Lake has started doing summer weekend nights where they’ll shut down main street and have outdoor seating for restaurants, which is a great start, but we need more of that all the time. It’s so pleasant being in countries that have figured that out and being able to spend time just out in the community!
We also went into the historic district, which felt a lot more like the places where I’ve spent time in Latin America thus far. Sort of a Havana-vibe. It’s a small part of the city, though. The majority of it looks super modern and is full of skyscrapers.
Of course, the non negotiable activity for me was seeing the Panama Canal, because we couldn’t come all the way down here and not see it! It’s about half an hour outside of the city, so we took an Uber there and back. Interestingly, this was the only place that actually felt “touristy” while we were in Panama. We also went to the San Blas Islands (which will be a separate post) and even then there were hardly any foreigners, but the canal museum had a bunch of tour groups. We watched a few boats pass all the way through the locks and marveled at the engineering. Thinking about when they built this, and how many ships pass through it per day, it was really an astounding feat!
My parents and I were originally planning on Yosemite this year, but with the wildfires, it seemed like that wasn’t an advisable destination. Instead, we went to Lake Tahoe and Redwoods, which was an area of California I hadn’t been to before and it was absolutely gorgeous!
One of the things I was most excited for in this region was the Donner Party Memorial. The Donner Party is one of those things I learned about as a child and have always been irrationally fascinated by. There’s a state park outside of Truckee, California with a few hiking trails, a monument, and a small museum about the incident. There wasn’t a lot to see, but it was a fun excursion. I thought it was a particularly bold choice to include cookbooks in the gift shop.
Our next stop was Redwood National Park, which was incredible! They are the tallest trees on Earth, and there’s something so magical about being dwarfed by nature. We did a few of the short hikes and then did a scenic drive through the park. I would highly recommend a visit. The time of year we went was perfect, too, since it was the fall and the leaves of many of the other trees had changed to a stunning golden color.
The drive between Redwoods and Tahoe was beautiful. We went on some of the smaller highways and through the mountains. We tried to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park as well, but it was pretty snowy and most of the park was closed down from both the weather and the wildfires. It was crazy to go from the beach to a snowy mountain road within a day of driving.
One of the more sobering parts of the trip was coming across areas that had just recently gone through wildfires. Wildfires are a harsh reality of living in the Western US, but I’ve been so fortunate to be relatively unaffected by them myself. We went through communities that were still dealing with the fallout and trying to clean up, like the one pictured above.
Our final destination was Lake Tahoe! My mom had always wanted to stay in the Ritz Carleton there, so we had a ~fancy~ end to the trip as we headed up into the ski resort where it’s located and treated ourselves to a spa day. The whole area around the lake is beautiful, and I understand why it’s such a popular vacation destination. Overall, a great family vacation to a region I’ve wanted to explore for a while!
Chicago is one of my favorite places in the world. When Sam and I were looking at options to take advantage of the work-from-anywhere situation, that was on the top of the list. I’ve wanted to show him the city for a while, and so we booked a week here to work from our company’s Chicago office and spend some time exploring!
Chicago has stellar museums. I would always recommend the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, but the one that I made sure Sam saw was the Art Institute. Fun fact, it has the largest collection of impressionist art outside of the Louvre! It also has American Gothic, and Nighthawks, and a collection of miniatures, and beautiful stained glass. We got lucky this time and the Obama portraits were on tour there, so we got to see those up close.
Sam was shocked to find that The Bean is in fact, a large metal bean shaped sculpture! Millennium Park is always fun to wander through. I have two other recommendations I always make for first time visitors. The first is an architectural river tour. It’s a great way to see the city, and Chicago is a city known for the architecture! I’ve done the boat tours twice and learned a lot. Never call it the Willis Tower, though. It’s the Sears Tower. Always. The second recommendation I have is to go see Second City. They’re a great improv group, and a lot of SNL alumni started there. When I go, I always hope one of them will make it really famous and I’ll have gotten to see them early in their career. When Sam and I went, it was the first live show I’d been to since the beginning of COVID, and it was magical.
Depending on the season, try to go see a game at Wrigley! The tickets are a little more expensive now that they’ve broken the curse, but the stadium is super cool and historic. I’ve sat everywhere from the upper nosebleeds to right behind home plate, and it’s always been a fun afternoon experience.
We were there over the 4th of July, and got to walk along Lake Michigan as the fireworks went off. It was such a good week, and I’m already trying to figure out when I can go back!
After having to cancel our planned New York trip in 2020, Emmy and I were finally able to meet up in Denver for a long weekend! She grew up on the East Coast and hasn’t spent much time in the West, so it was a fun opportunity to show her the mountains. Up until very recently, she didn’t think tumbleweeds existed in real life, and was convinced they were just a prop in western movies.
We started at Garden of the Gods, which I had never visited either! It was a hot day but we brought water and wandered around. It was pretty busy while we were there. Personally, I’d recommend finding the higher trails that aren’t paved, as those had some cool views and felt a little bit less “on the beaten path.” There are some fun breweries near by in Colorado Springs too, so if you go in the morning, you can make a day of it.
The next day, we headed up to the top of Mount Evans! I told Emmy we were going to go to the top of a 14er and she asked me what that meant, because she lives at 14 feet of elevation. One big note here, the drive to Mount Evans requires reservations now. It didn’t use to, and 2021 was in fact the first year they started doing it. It took me a little longer than expected to get reservations because the system had a few technical difficulties at first, but once they got it sorted out, it was really easy – we just showed the ticket at the base of the mountain.
That view on the drive up is incredible! It’s a pretty limited window in the year when the weather is nice enough, and definitely watch the forecast when you go. We lucked out and had absolutely beautiful weather. Once you get up to the parking lot at the top, there’s a short walk to the actual summit, just so you get to feel as though you’ve accomplished something. One of my cousins reported that you can hike up to the top as well, and we saw lots of people mountain biking their way up to the summit, but our route was significantly easier.
We did accomplish Emmy’s two goals for the weekend, which were (1) seeing the blue demon horse at the Denver airport and (2) seeing a tumbleweed. The second one was only a tiny one on the side of the road as we went back to the airport, but it still counts!
The last few days of our Belize trip were spent on the islands. Belize, fun fact, has the second longest barrier reef in the world! It’s known for having fantastic snorkeling and diving. One of the best places (allegedly) is the Great Blue Hole, although I can’t speak to that because I’ve never been scuba diving. I had a lovely time snorkeling, and Caye Caulker was so welcoming!
Caye Caulker is one of the smaller islands. It’s just south of San Pedro and Ambergris Caye, which are known for having a more developed tourism industry. Caye Caulker is a little quieter and it felt a little more local. Honestly, part of that might have been that we were traveling in May 2021, and there were still lower numbers of tourists when we went, but I loved the feel of getting to know the coffee shop owners and tour guides.
We got there after a long drive back to the coast and an afternoon ferry ride, and immediately fell into that low-key island life. The cocktails were strong, the ocean was beautiful, and we had a great time exploring.
For our first full day, we headed out on the Wanderlust for a full day of snorkeling! There were three stops, and each of them was amazing in its own way. At the first, there was less sea life overall, but we got to see manatees! As you may remember, my first time snorkeling in December 2018 was in Florida to see the manatees. They are amazing, and we were able to see them up close in some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen.
From there, we went to Shark Ray Alley! This is a fairly famous snorkeling spot in Belize. Essentially, back in the day, fisherman used to clean off their fishing equipment there, which started attracting sharks. Now that it’s become a tourist attraction, some of the boats actually feed the sharks. Ours didn’t, but every time they see a boat, the sharks swarm. It was very alarming at first! I questioned whether I should get in the water, but after a few minutes, they settled back at the bottom of the ocean, and at that point, it felt like swimming with normal fish. The barracuda we saw under the boat was scarier, to be honest.
Our third stop was in the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. It’s beautifully preserved reefs, and we saw all kinds of fish and sea turtles.
Despite my multiple applications of sunscreen, I got sunburned so badly in Belize! I had three-quarter length tan lines from my rash guard for months afterward. It was rather painful for the next several days, so I was grateful that we spent the last part of our trip taking it easy.
The following morning, we went to get our COVID test to get back into the US. We all packed into a tiny building on the beach, Venmoed the clinic, and got our noses swabbed. Luckily, everyone on our trip tested negative!
Once we had all breathed a sigh of relief, we wandered around the island a little more and stumbled upon a beautiful beach. The nearby hotel focused a lot on the preservation of wildlife, and so we saw pelicans and stingrays and eels from the dock, along with tiny seahorses in a habitat made for them. I was grateful someone from the hotel was there to point them out, because I never would have spotted them on my own. They also feed the stingrays there, so there was a sign saying the stingrays would be in the area around 6 pm and they were absolutely right. One of the employees told me that the stingrays know to come there if they get trapped in a net or are having trouble, because the people of Caye Caulker help them there on that beach.
That part of the beach is also one of the most incredible places to see the sunset! The next day, we took the ferry to a taxi to the airport and began the process of going home, but that last night on Caye Caulker was a magnificent end to our trip to Belize. I would highly recommend it. There are few countries of that size that can offer such a diversity of experiences, from ancient ruins in the jungle to spotting a manatee in the wild, and it was a great re-introduction to travel as pandemic restrictions eased.
Before I go back to my irregular and unscheduled travel content, I’d like to say that I am incredibly thankful to everyone who worked on the vaccine, and I feel so lucky every day to live in a country where I was able to get a dose so quickly. Science is amazing, isn’t it?
As soon as I knew when I would be two weeks out from my second shot, I planned a trip. I mean, I went to see my parents first, but then I also met up with my college roommate in Belize for a week, which was incredible. I love flying, so I’m excited any time I get to be on a plane, and this one was an exceptionally beautiful flight. The second leg of my trip was from LAX to Belize City, and flew over the entire length of Mexico, which is stunning, and obviously I need to figure out a trip down there at some point soon. I also had to laugh, because in LAX I ordered a glass of wine and in a “screw it, I’m on vacation” moment, asked for a double pour and ended up with a truly enormous adult sippy cup of wine to consume on my layover. Needless to say I was pleasantly buzzed and very happy.
Riya and I booked a tour through Intrepid, who arranged our hotels, transit, and most of the activities we participated in, which was nice to have all of that handled. Our guide, Fidelio, was awesome. Our first night was on the outskirts of Belize City. Belize City is known as…. well, not the safest area in Belize, and everything I had read said not to stick around, as there aren’t many cultural attractions either. We ended up eating dinner in our hotel and I tried panades, which are a Belizean empanada and absolutely delicious.
The next day was packed with activities! We headed off to the Crooked Tree Lodge, which is in the middle of a bird sanctuary on the edge of a lagoon. Once we arrived, though, we had a quick temperature check and we were off again, on the way to visit Mayan ruins!
The Lamanai Archaeological Reserve is only accessible by boat, so we took a 90 minute boat ride down a river each way to get there. It was gorgeous. There were sections full of water lilies, birds soaring over perfect mirrored water, orchids growing out of trees, and a baby crocodile sunning itself on a log. We also passed a Mennonite community, and our guide talked about how they had moved to Belize and what an important role they play in the agricultural industry. One of the most interesting moments was when we passed a boat of young Mennonites who were using their phones – apparently, they’re the rebels in the community who want to use technology, and so they go hide out on the river to secretly use their phones away from the rest of their families!
Lamanai was amazing. We were nearly the only tourists there, unless you count the Mennonites, who apparently came there as a spot to have dates and picnics. What I was most surprised about was that we could climb the pyramids! I would have expected them to be off limits, but our guides at Lamanai and at later Mayan sites advised us that we could go anywhere and explore the entire site. We also spent time walking through the jungle and saw all kinds of plants, including oregano, rubber, turpentine, and allspice, which, honestly, I didn’t expect to see. When our guide had us smell and it reminded me of gingerbread cookies, it felt so out of place in a tropical location. A few other highlights of the jungle walk: a plant called horse balls, which were large green pods that produced a glue like substance, and a green and purple plant that they called Moses in a Boat, because they looked like little boats with white flowers inside.
The coolest land animal encounter was with howler monkeys! We saw them a few times (and never heard their distinctive howl) but this lime tree was the closest we got to them. There was a whole group and they sat eating comfortably while we took pictures and observed.
The next morning, we took a boat ride through the Crooked Tree lagoon. Our guide Fidelio is an avid birdwatcher, so it was great to be on the boat with him, because he was excited to explain all about the birds! We saw vultures, herons, hawks, kingfishers, and my personal favorite of the day, limpkins, who were the oddest looking birds we saw there.
From there, we headed to San Ignacio. Fidelio warned us that we could get slowed down on our way there – apparently, Belize was experiencing protests from the teachers due to potential wage cuts. He explained a bit about the political and economic situation there, and while we didn’t experience any of the protests first hand, it was helpful to have a bit more context of what was going on in the situation.
When we got to San Ignacio, we headed first to Cahal Pech, which were more Mayan ruins. Those were super close to where we were staying, so easily accessible to any traveler staying in town! Once again, we were the only tourists there, which meant we got to explore on our own.
The next day, Riya and I had arranged our own thing. We ended up on a private tour to the ATM Cave! ATM stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal, which is Mayan for the Cave of the Stone Sepulcher. It was absolutely amazing! So cool, and I believe it’s a totally unique experience. I’ve never come across anything else like it in all my travel research. There’s a short and fairly easy hike through the jungle with a few river crossings, and then you swim into the cave and climb over rocks and wade through it until finally, you climb up on a ledge into a giant cavern. And this is where it crosses from an ordinary cave adventure to something incredible. In the cavern, there are perfectly preserved pots and artifacts from Mayan rituals. The Mayans also used this cave to perform human sacrifices. The region experienced long periods of drought towards the end of their civilization there, and as things got more desperate, the prevailing theory is that they tried various human sacrifices to try to appease the gods that controlled rain. Our guide even let us hold one of the axes used for sacrifices in 950 AD. We weren’t allowed to take pictures due to previous bad tourist behavior – someone dropped a camera on a skull, which is appalling – but I cannot express enough how much I would recommend it if you’re in the region.
If this is something you are considering in Belize, I would direct you to this website, which I thought did a great job summarizing what it was actually like – navigating the various warnings and recommendations on tour sites and blogs is a bit difficult when all you want to know is how hard it legitimately is. I found it easier than I expected, given all the descriptions of it being an “Indiana Jones-style adventure.” Sure, it would have been easy to twist an ankle if we weren’t careful, but the swimming was easy and our guide was great about warning us and letting us know about the footholds for more difficult sections.
The following day, we were off to the islands! I’m breaking that up into another post, though, so stay tuned for the snorkeling pictures 🙂
When Sam and I went to Wendover, Nevada back in March 2020, we kept seeing signs that implored us to “Explore Elko.” As with many things, we started saying it ironically and then one day, it wasn’t ironic.
As fairly avid travelers pre-pandemic, we have often joked about being “somewhere, anywhere” even as we work at home and socialize at home and spend…. almost all our waking hours without even leaving this building. And so we planned a long weekend away to Elko.
Elko was charming! There are so many small towns in America that are struggling economically, and Elko felt like an exception to that rule. As it turns out, they’ve still got active gold mining, and as such, they’re doing pretty well. Every restaurant we ordered food from was locally owned and not a chain. We stopped by art galleries, too, and there were quite a few in the downtown area.
It is still Nevada, and it wouldn’t be a town in Nevada without several giant casinos! All of the ones we saw had a more old-school vibe, as opposed to Wendover that has more modern looking places. Or, of course, Vegas. Obviously. But the biggest shock was when we accidentally wandered into the “red light district” (really just a street with a couple legal brothels). I was sort of zoning out and looked up to see…. this.
I mean, I guess they really went for the alliteration.
If we’d been there in the summer, I would have loved to do some hiking on the Ruby Crest Trail! It looks stunning and seems, from all my research, to be a fairly undiscovered gem. But alas, it was rather cold and snowy, and we had a fairly chill weekend. We did wander along the trail next to the Humboldt River. We also saw a snow squall, which was a new experience for me. The phone alert system texted us both to tell us to stay inside, and sure enough, within 15-20 minutes it went from sunny to blizzard conditions.
Our Airbnb was absolutely amazing. We stayed up in this neighborhood with streets named after trees, and all of the houses were historic but well-kept. It was an easy walk into the city from there and our host was so great, giving us plenty of suggestions of places to go and giving us a quick tour of the new property she was working on.
Also, the drive out to Nevada is beautiful! The Bonneville Salt Flats are a great and easy day trip out from Salt Lake, and of course, we always love this view of the mountains over the lake.
It’s not exactly a hot take to say that the pandemic has changed travel. And I have desperately missed taking flights, and exploring new countries, and even the basic things like sitting in a restaurant or seeing the bottom half of a stranger’s face without worrying about whether they’re going to get me sick. But it has been a good push to spend time in places a little closer to home, places that I might not have considered as a travel destination when the whole world was open to me. Now that Sam and I are vaccinated, we’re exploring options for safe travel that are farther afield, but it’s nice to take the time to explore places like Elko every so often.
Interestingly, Delta, Colorado is almost directly in the middle of two extremely wealthy mountain towns. They’re about two hours from Telluride and two and a half hours from Aspen, and so we visited both during our trip. The other cute small town recommendation out here is Ouray, which, honestly, I’m still not quite sure how to pronounce.
Let’s start with Telluride! I’ve wanted to go here for ages, but it is so far out of the way from almost everything else in Colorado that I’d never gotten the chance. They had some fun with their COVID posters, as you can see below. Overall, beautiful scenery, a great town to walk around in, and we spotted some fun restaurants – I would have loved to be here in a non-pandemic time to eat in some of those restaurants, but alas. Takeout will have to do for now. If we’d had more time there, I also understand there are some scenic hikes nearby.
Our third featured mountain town is Ouray! This one was a recommendation from our Airbnb host. It’s not quite as glitzy as the others, but it was charming. If we’d had more time, we might have gone beyond it, because apparently there is a very beautiful mountain road that leads to more cute and historic old mountain towns.
I think the night coming back from Ouray was the night of the deer. We saw so many. I don’t know if you’ve read The Only Good Indians, by Stephen Graham Jones, which is a deer-related horror novel, but it felt a little like that. Several passed in front of the car that we could see, and we were terrified we were going to hit one. The worst, though, was when we came up over a small hill and I found myself looking directly into the eyes of a deer that was contemplating whether it should cross the street. I stared straight into its soul, I think, and it was just me and the deer for a few seconds before I finally managed to say something to alert Sam to its presence. Luckily for both the deer and our car, it stayed on the side of the road.
On the subject of rural life, I’d like to take a minute to note the advantages of our farm stay. The place we were staying had a herd of cows, horses that regularly wore jackets for the cold, chickens, and goats of both the fainting and non fainting variety. Some days we would go out to wander around their various pens, and we even got the chance to feed some of the animals while we were there! I love being in a city most of the time, but it was really great to get away from it all and wake up to cows mooing in a field. We used to joke they had some sort of daily standup meeting because they would all congregate in one area and moo at a specific time each morning.
All in all, I cannot stress enough how underrated southwestern Colorado is. It was never really on my list, but when COVID shifted my travel plans to be closer to home and pushed me to look at places for outdoor-focused road trips, it created new options of places to visit. I’m so glad we took a chance on Delta and had the time to really explore the region.
I didn’t plan it out so that we were in the middle of nowhere during Election-Week-From-Hell, but I also wasn’t mad about it. It kept Sam and I from staring at the CNN predictions for 24 hours a day while we waited for all the states to finish counting ballots, which… let’s be real, we needed that distraction.
And when I say the middle of nowhere, I mean the middle of nowhere. My coworker asked me where Delta, Colorado was, and when I said, “oh, it’s about an hour east of Grand Junction,” he said, “but there’s nothing there?” Which, again, wasn’t exactly my plan. These vacation days were originally earmarked for Ireland pre-COVID, and then we went through a couple of other ideas even after it was clear our Europe trip was off the table. Northern California and Oregon road trip? Nope, literally on fire. South Dakota? Nope, crazy high COVID rates. And so we ended up finding an Airbnb through a coworker of my mom, which was a farm stay in Delta.
And here’s the thing – it was great. It turns out that there are amazing destinations all around Delta, and it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere for a while. I’m separating the trip into two posts. This one will be focused on the landscapes and outdoorsy activities, and the next post will be the cute ski towns we visited around here!
On the way to Delta, we stopped at Arches National Park and hiked out to Delicate Arch. It’s one of Utah’s most famous landmarks! You may have seen it before on the Utah license plates. The hike out is gorgeous, and the arch itself doesn’t disappoint. At some point, we’ll have to do a full Utah parks trip because this was the first time Sam had been to any of them.
Our next day was Colorado National Monument, which is right by Grand Junction.
Fun fact, Grand Junction and nearby Fruita actually have a lot of wineries! We went to one that my parents recommended, Red Mesa. It had great wine, and more importantly, it had Daryl, this delightful dog who sat with us outside while we drank wine.
Another important note about Grand Junction is that they have an… unusual convention for street names. Sam and I were absolutely baffled as we came across the following:
It’s a similar concept to the grid system, but the fractions are wild. We came across one that had a 5/8 and just about lost it.
Our last big National Park Service outing was to Black Canyon of the Gunnison! It’s known for being extremely steep. Just look at those sheer rock faces in the third picture. When we got our stamp at a little table outside the visitor center, the ranger told us about all the lookouts and then said that we could hike a bit into the canyon until he took a look at my shoes. They were just normal sneakers and so he immediately walked that back. But we walked along the rim near the visitor center and then went to a number of the lookouts, and they were indeed spectacular. I think it’s one of the less popular national parks in Colorado, which is probably due to its remote nature. If you’re considering visiting this area, though, I would highly recommend it!
Since we’d visited Sam’s family, it was time to visit mine in Colorado! Cue another two weeks of hard quarantine. We went in early July, so it was hot (but not as hot as it would’ve been in Arizona, haha). There are two ways to go, through Wyoming or over the mountains, and Sam chose mountains. It was definitely the better choice. First it’s down from Salt Lake toward the red rock formations of Utah, and then you go through the canyon and past all the adorable little ski towns. It’s pretty incredible to have this out your window:
It was great to see my parents. I am so thankful that I could work from home and so could they, so that we could all fully quarantine before the visit. Their neighborhood was a good place to spend some time as the cases ramped up in the summer. They back up to a park, which connects out to a lot of walking trails, and we would go on long walks every morning before work.
At the beginning of COVID, when everything went quiet and there were less cars on the roads, it seems that the animals around my parents’ neighborhood took that as an opportunity to come outside! We saw so many deer while we were there, including one that we had to gently herd away from the road and this guy, below. We were sitting on the deck eating lunch when I looked up and saw him. Surprised, I made some sort of noise, which scared him away from our backyard. Instead, he went two doors down, where he proceeded to take a nap and then utterly decimate the lettuce they were carefully growing.
We were there during July 4th. Fun fact, they cancelled a bunch of the fireworks for July 4th, both because of COVID gathering restrictions and because of the danger of wildfires. Here’s the problem, though: they told everyone several days in advance. So everyone got in their cars and drove up to Wyoming and brought fireworks back. People went all out, too. I’ve spent a lot of summers in Colorado and I’ve never seen anything like it. It felt like professional-grade shows. And while I was mildly terrified that they would light the trees on fire, it was nice to have such a spectacle in such a dark year.
We did a few day trips while we were there, too! A couple of my friends masked up and went on walks with us, and we had the chance to go to Boulder, Denver, and that hotel that they based The Shining off of. Denver seemed to be preparing for an expansion of their outdoor dining, as you can see above.
One of the things that I was pleasantly surprised by was that we could get alcohol with our takeout, which is… not a thing Utah offers (shocking, I know). But it led to this delightful cup, which contained some sort of frozen sangria slushie:
Anyway. That’s all I got. It was weird not to be able to see all of my family, some of whom still had to work in person. But it was so nice to see my parents and get a chance to show Sam some of Colorado. It really is a beautiful state!
