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Photo Diary: Lucerne, Switzerland

May 29, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

Lucerne was probably my favorite city that I visited on my trip to Switzerland this spring. It’s a relatively small city, but it has a lot to offer, especially if you’re wandering around with a camera. Situated on the edge of Lake Lucerne, in the shadow of the Swiss Alps, there’s an unbeatable view from essentially anywhere in the city. With a ton of great shops down little alleyways (including lots of specialty chocolate shops…one of my favorite parts of Switzerland), a wealth of spectacular 18th and 19th century architecture, and beautiful monuments and churches, it’s a great place to walk around with not much of a plan at all. [Read more…]

Photo Diary: Zurich, Switzerland

May 28, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

Zurich was my first stop on my recent trip to Switzerland, and it was a fantastic way to start my travels through this beautiful country. I was staying in the Altstadt (“Old Town”), which meant I was within walking distance of all kinds of great sights. Cathedrals, museums, the lakefront, great shops and restaurants…two days was not enough time to see all that this gorgeous city had to offer! [Read more…]

Four Ways to Save Money When Traveling in Switzerland

May 27, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

Switzerland has a lot to offer a traveler: It’s spectacularly beautiful (tons of mountains and lakes? Yes please!), easily accessible from its many bordering countries, and has ridiculously good chocolate. What more could you ask?

Unfortunately, Switzerland is incredibly expensive, which can deter a lot of budget travelers. Worry not! there are plenty of ways to save money, making a trip to Switzerland quite feasible for those traveling on a budget. [Read more…]

Bop Street Records, Seattle, WA

May 26, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

Bop Street Records, located in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, is a veritable treasure trove for serious vinyl collectors (and casual browsers too).

The staff are incredibly helpful. From the moment I walked in, I was being asked about the kind of music I like, and what I might be looking for. They’ll point you in the right direction, then give you all the space you need to comb through their fantastic selection of records. They’re always around, ready to answer any questions, but without interfering with your browsing. Their prices are quite fair, as well. [Read more…]

10 Great Reads from the Travel Blogosphere

May 25, 2014 By Katy 5 Comments

Here we are, my second “Great Reads” post. I’ve been busy on the road (still trying to figure out this “posting on the move” thing), but I’ve been doing plenty of blog-reading! Here are a few of my favorite posts from the last couple of weeks:

//The Ultimate Guide to Landing a Seasonal Job (and Using It to Travel the World) – Brazen Life

Seasonal jobs are a great way to earn money on the road. Who wouldn’t love to be paid to be in a fantastic destination? Writer Susan Shain provides a ton of helpful info in this post.

//Why I Skipped the Full Moon Party — Caroline in the City

In this fantastic post, Caroline addresses an important point about the common traveler worry of missing out on “must-do’s” when you’re going to a popular destination. It’s important to do what you like, and make your own trip of things that you enjoy or think are important. If something (especially an expensive tourist trap) sounds like something you don’t want to, skip it! You’re bound to find something else you’ll enjoy, anyway. [Read more…]

A Spring Day on the Glacier Express

May 25, 2014 By Katy 3 Comments

I love traveling by rail. Even though it’s much slower and not always necessarily cheaper than air travel, given a choice between the two, I will almost always choose to take the train. It may be because I grew up on the west coast of the US, where taking the train is generally uncommon, but trains have always felt romantic and kind of old-world glamorous to me–even a short, low-rate Amtrak ride from Seattle to Portland.

Because of this love of travel by rail, I was really excited to take a day-long trip through the Alps on the Glacier Express on my recent trip to Switzerland. The Glacier express is a famous railway that goes from St. Moritz to Zermatt. I hopped on in Chur (one of Switzerland’s oldest towns), and spent the following five hours moving slowly across Switzerland, gazing out at breathtaking views of the mountains through the huge windows. [Read more…]

Plus-Size Swimwear for Her Packing List

May 19, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

In Iceland at the Blue Lagoon last year

This is my second in a series of regular posts for the awesome women’s travel site Her Packing List about plus-size travel gear. In this post, I provide resources for finding great plus-size swimwear.

Summer’s coming, and summer means bathing suits! Trips to the pool or the beach are a universal favorite when it comes to warm weather (or cold weather, if you’re hardcore) vacation activities, and you’ll want to be prepared with an awesome suit. The bathing suit struggle for plus-size women is twofold–the struggle to find a bathing suit that isn’t grandma-ish, and the struggle to be comfortable being in a bathing suit in public with a body you’ve been taught is unacceptable or unattractive.

Read the rest here!

Essential Travel Apps: TurboScan

May 12, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

So you’re headed on a long trip and you want to make sure you have all of your important documents backed up and readily accessible. Do you buy a scanner? Spending over $100 just to have a copy of your passport on hand seems excessive. What about bringing your documents to a copy shop like Kinko’s? Possible, but inconvenient, and who wants to have their passport number available to more people than necessary? Or trip confirmations available to strangers?

As I am scanner-less, I’ve spent a lot of time looking for a good/secure solution to this problem. A friend recently directed me to TurboScan, which he had used for handouts from his university classes, and I was hooked! [Read more…]

Plus-Size Travel Clothes for Her Packing List

May 5, 2014 By Katy Leave a Comment

I’ve written this post, the first in a series of posts about plus-size travel clothing for Her Packing List, a really fantastic site about travel gear for women.

As a plus-size woman looking for crucial gear for my own long-term travels, I’ve found that good plus-size travel clothes are few and far between. Most versatile women’s gear, like convertible dresses or shirts, only work for people that are very thin, and many plus-size options, when you can find them at all, are designed for the retired cruising set, and not necessarily for backpackers.

Read the whole thing here!

The 9 Worst People You’ll Meet at a Hostel

April 13, 2014 By Katy 4 Comments

Hostel traveling has a lot of benefits, with the low price and heightened sense of community being the most prominent. I much prefer hostels to hotels as a rule, but the more I stay, the more I realize that the same types of ‘bad neighbors’ seem to present themselves over and over again. The following are, in my experience, the nine worst and most common offenders, whose obnoxious behavior can detract from the generally positive experience of staying in a hostel. Don’t be these people! [Read more…]

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