How to See Shanghai By the Seat of Your Pants
Some people are planners. Some people are pants-ers, meaning they fly by the seat of their pants. I’d say that I’m about a 40/60 split. Whether in regular life or travel, I wing it most of the time. For my recent trip to Shanghai, I totally pants-ed it. China is not my favorite place so it’s no surprise that I couldn’t find the motivation to do a great deal of research for the trip. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t need to like a place in order to travel there. I’m always going to choose travel if the other option is staying home. I visited Shanghai during the Ching Ming…
Travel as Self-Care: 4 Places to Visit When Throat-Punching Your Boss Isn’t an Option
It was about two weeks before it became clear that one day soon, I’d lose it and throat-punch the principal the next time she chastised me for not having a seating chart.
4 Things to Know Before Moving to China
Are you considering moving to China? Is it a good country for foreigners? I did a quick Google search of the best countries for expats and in particular, black expats. Guess what? China (excluding Hong Kong) was rarely listed. Yet there are more and more foreigners moving here each year. If you’re looking for a locale with a low cost of living and strong savings potential, then China might be the right place for you. Did you catch my use of the word “might”? China is a country of contradictions. Things will often defy logic. Stuff won’t make sense. If you try to understand China using western sensibilities, you’re setting…
Traveling While Woman
Recently, I was a guest on the Fancy Face & Friends podcast. I discussed my experiences traveling as a woman, mostly solo. I kinda sound like a dweeb but you can listen below, if you want to.
Why I Will Not Fly WOW Air Again
WOW airlines has positioned themselves as the budget upstart that can do transatlantic flights better than the big boys at much cheaper fares. For an airline founded just five years ago, they are definitely making a name for themselves. Let me preface this post by stating that I am no stranger to budget airlines. I regularly fly Spirit and Frontier so I know what to expect or at least I thought I did. My flight out of MIA was scheduled to depart at 4:40 PM on July 15. I was connecting from Houston with another airline and was supposed to arrive just before 2:00 PM. So you can imagine my…
Honduras Cost of Living: Rent & Utilities
NOTE: This post has been written for at least 3 months…all I can say is better late than never. I’ve been meaning to do a series of posts on the cost of living here in Honduras. You know, the kind of information I could not find online as I prepared to move to Tegucigalpa. Every time I sat down to write the posts I was easily distracted by something: an episode of Supernatural, a nap, a trip to Spain. You get the idea. So in the spirit of paying it forward to possibly help someone who is now where I was a year ago, I give you the first installment of the Honduran…
A Tropical Thanksgiving in Honduras
As I mentioned before one of the perks of teaching at an international school is that we get time off for both local Honduran and US holidays. Last month we had a four day weekend for Thanksgiving, a holiday which local Hondurans do not celebrate. My experience at Lago de Yojoa reminded me that I am not the outdoorsy type at all. For my next trip, I wanted something a lot less “tropical jungle hostel” and a little more relaxing. I had no interest in any more hiking, trekking or exploring. I just wanted to sit on my ass and read books on my Kindle. From the minute I moved here…
Celebrating Día de la Independencia at Lake Yojoa
One of the cool things about teaching at an international school is that we recognize both Honduran and U.S. holidays. The month of September is a pretty big deal across Central America. Most of its countries gained their independence on September 15, 1821. Unlike the United States which generally contains its independence celebrations to a single day, we had 2.5 days off of school in addition to the weekend. This was the perfect excuse to get out of Tegucigalpa and see a little bit more of Honduras. I’m lucky that one of my teacher peeps has explored most of the region and put together a quick getaway for our crew.…
