I am sitting at Dulles International airport, sipping on some mediocre champagne. To my left is a window that looks onto the tarmac to gate C 11. When I arrived at this bar, there was a plane at the gate. But the plane was gone when I finished my first glass of champagne and plate of over-priced fish tacos.

I am the last human on Earth who ACTUALLY loves being at the airport. I am one of those people who gets to the airport earlier than they should. I do this because I want to ensure I get to the airport and my gate with time to spare. You never know what shitstorm you will hit on I-495 driving from Maryland to Virginia. I even got TSA Pre Check to breeze through security, but I am always nervous about missing my flight.

Since I am flying out to England this week, I wanted to reflect on the times I went to England and how the country influenced me as the traveler I am now. In my other posts, I mentioned how my travels changed from wandering around cities and countries to camping solo. But I have yet to share what made me first want to travel and be lost in cities or countries.

My mom and grandmother drove me to the Philadelphia airport on a Saturday afternoon. Driving there with them was a horror and comic show, but mostly horror. My mom and my grandmother kept bickering:

"I told you to stay in the lane."

"No, that's not what the GPS said.”

“FUCK! I missed the exit!"

"Well, I told you to take that exit…"

And then, there's me. I was in the back seat, tired as one could be, since I stayed up super late to sleep on the plane and hit the ground running in England. I learned not to interject after other failed attempts. Instead, I probably listened to The Fray or Flo Rida on my iPod, set to the loudest setting so I could drown out the ridiculousness. I couldn't wait to get out of the car in one piece, get to the airport, and decompress.

I have been to England thrice on spring break when I was 20, 21, and 23. I stayed with my family, who lived two hours outside of London, the first two times. And on my last trip, I visited a friend studying at the London School of Economics.

Speak up for yourself because, when you do, you never know what your words and actions will do for the next solo traveler.

In August of 2021, I went to Florida for the first time, taking advantage of my last opportunity to work remotely(As a side note, everyone I spoke with before my trip told me I was crazy to go to Florida in August because of the heat). I live in the DC metro area and am used to heat and humidity…..

Biscayne National Park

Mayday!

Within 10-15 minutes, our engine died. We tried the boat again, and it started, but then it died. Again. The captain said it was either engine failure or an empty gas tank. We all looked at each other like, how can that happen?!

He mentioned that this wasn't the boat he typically sailed with. Which one can debate if that's a good thing or bad thing….anyways!

We tried calling for help from the boat in front of us, who worked for the same company, but they never responded. So we tried the next best thing … we called Coast Guard. While we called them, we got ourselves stuck on a sandbar…..

I have wanted to write about Post-Travel Blues for the longest time. When you read other travel blogs, you don’t see this topic often, and I believe this is important to discuss.

When I return from a trip, I get into a funk for a few days or weeks. It doesn't happen all the time, but rather most of the time. And sometimes it is more fierce than other times.

I am that human who gets post-travel blues. I googled this phase a few years ago to understand what it meant and why I felt like shit when I returned from trips

Since my first long road trip to Colorado and Utah, I have wanted to write this post. Sadly, I didn't capture my struggle in a video. I did better at capturing my battle for my birthday trip in 2021 and even the suitcase skirmish of 2022. But this struggle?

What struggle am I referring to? The god-awful task of …

PACKING!

"I fucking hate your state!"

Bet you never expected me to say that. If you know me already, I love Colorado; it's my favorite state. For those who don't know me. I have been going to Colorado since 2015. I fell in love with this state because of its alpine, its mountains, the people, the views, the beer, camping, I think you get the idea. I have been waiting to move to Colorado since my second trip out. It's one of the very few places I can lose my Type A personality and just fully relax.

In the Fall of 2020, I visited Dead Horse State Park for the first time to watch the sunrise. I was speechless and a little emotional seeing the landscape turning from black to vibrant reds and browns with an accent of green of the Colorado River. When I planned this 16-day trip, Dead Horse was the first place I wanted to go back to in Moab, but this time to watch the sunset.

After we returned from the tour, we kept talking, and she asked if I was sure about my offer, and I said yes. I told her about my two times in Moab when I had no place to camp, and twice people offered me a spot on their site. And it would be wrong of me NOT to provide her with a spot. I wanted to make sure I paid it forward. As I mentioned in my other posts, the traveling/camping community watches over each other, and I wanted to help another traveler out. She was so sweet and happy she had a place. We ran to get some beer and snacks and headed back to my camp spot. We talked about our travels, heartache, and why we love solo traveling. We also swapped gear, and I gave her some suggestions for Arches. It was awesome to find another solo traveler to share this experience with and be that person, that other people were for me.

About this trail: It’s a moderately challenging 5.4 miles round trip. Most of the first mile and a half of the course is spent following a faint path in the dirt or chasing cairns from rock to rock. If you are unfamiliar with what cairns are, they are man-made piles (or stacks) of stones that denote trails that do not have trail markings. Hiking or just a life tip: Please do not make your own cairns or destroy the ones the Rangers have made. You will endanger hikers on the trail by marking the trail incorrect. This is the section that I got "off" trail a few times because it was hard to determine if that was the right carin to follow or the right dirt trail. Around this section, you are hiking on more significant rocks/ dirt, and around you are these boulder-looking rocks with these random green trees contrasting the red rocks. These rocks honestly look like they came from Mars. This is one of my favorite reasons why I love Utah, the exciting landscapes.

Then that’s when we started to talk about aliens. Naturally? The one guy was telling me how the other night he saw something in the sky. He was trying to describe this object and to me, it sounded like a satellite, but he said it was multiple of them in a line going very slow. To be honest, I thought he was that drunk and making shit up. I really doubt it was aliens. Then about 20 mins later, he yelled “they are back!” I looked up and I saw this shape of thing in the sky before. It looked like a tail of a shooting star, but it was moving so slowly, that it really didn’t look like a satellite because of the movement. It was a string of something that’s all I knew. I may have been a little buzzed, but I was even questioning what was happening.

Twice on my 16-day trip, I hit a major wall. I’ll talk more about the first time in a later post. I want to talk about the second time, the morning and afternoon of my actual day of birth. Happy birthday to me?! For me when I hit the wall in traveling that Is when everything I love doing ( hiking, camping, exploring, even a favorite states) becomes so annoying and I hate everything and become the most cranky person known to earth.

So…how does one get a moth out of one's ear, you probably wonder? That is a great question!! Well, let me tell you what doesn't work. Holding a light to one's ear to lure the moth out DOES NOT WORK! Shooting water in one's ear with a clean syringe also DOES NOT WORK in the first 6 tries. Using vegetable oil hoping the moth would slip out of the ear canal also DOES NOT WORK! Also, losing one's shit in such a situation DOES NOT WORK!

The first section was all forest vibes, with vibrant green lushes around me as I was hiking inclined. Then I hit a clearing that’s when I saw Puget Sound. In this section, you see some boats and ferries on the Sound. It was overcast with different shades of greys and blues, and you couldn’t see the Cascade and the Olympic Mountain ranges in the distance. I was bumped because all I wanted to see on my trip were the mountains! This was by far my favorite part of the hike, coming from the lush green to the open clearing of the Sound. Also, this is the point when I saw more people on the trail coming back from the beach.

I didn’t know or expect that Seattle would profoundly affect me since I went to nurse a broken heart. I thought this would be like any other trip, just to escape from my life. But Seattle made me realized my actual purpose in life and introduced me to a business idea I would love to pursue one day.

Moab and Colorado 2020

When I started to travel more, I found my second community: the travel community. I realized in this community; people support you like no other. They will provide you with advice, secrets, a good laugh, or a funny story. They have my back like Flying Buddha Community. I have been told many times I am an inspiration, which I respond with…umm, are you sure? I never felt like I was.