I love to travel. I haven’t written much about my travels here on Raincity Librarian since my focus is primarily books, but when I discovered this tag on the blog Travel in Retrospect, I knew I just to take a spin at it.
Where are you from? Vancouver, Canada
Where have you been around the world? So far I’ve travelled through Canada, the USA, Mexico, the Caribbean, England, New Zealand and Japan.
What is your favourite City? Vancouver – I’m a homebody. But Tokyo and Auckland also have places in my heart.
What are your dream destinations? Back to Japan, and then on to Croatia!
Best item you have purchased overseas? ….. OK, since this blog is a judgement-free zone, I’m just going to come out and say it: a selfie stick. Yes, yes, I know, I know. But when you’re travelling alone or with a partner, getting pictures can be tough! We bought a selfie stick in Tokyo and it quickly became our new best friend.
What time of the year do you like to travel? I love travelling in the fall – it tends to be cheaper, cooler, less busy, and often exceptionally beautiful (see above!).
How many times a year do you travel? Not nearly as often as I’d like to, but typically at least once a year. We used to travel more, but school + work + mortgage = sad bank account.
What are some new and exciting cuisines have you tried on your travels? Unfortunately, due to my severe food allergies I can’t be too adventurous when it comes to sampling local cuisine. I did have fish for breakfast in Japan, which was pretty adventurous for me, since I’m typically a cereal kind of girl.
Have you ever lost something while travelling? I did get a camera stolen in Seattle years and years ago. I’d only just bought it, too, which made it all the more annoying.
What are your favourite travel activities? Walking around local neighbourhoods and exploring grocery stores. My partner and I usually end up staying in residential neighbourhoods, and I love just wandering around and experiencing life the way the locals do. It sounds crazy, but exploring grocery stores can be a fantastic way to experience a culture, and it’s free!
I am also a sucker for a museum, which is why London was such an incredible experience for me – free museums!!
What are your must have travel accessories? Earplugs. I’m not typically a light sleeper, but after having camped immediately beside a busy set of railway tracks I never leave home without a set of earplugs.
What is your favourite accent in the world? I love all accents!
If you could live anywhere where would you live? I’m not sure. I really enjoyed Tokyo, and New Zealand has a similar laid-back feeling to Western Canada, so maybe Auckland?
Why do you enjoy travelling? I appreciate being taken out of my world and my comfort zone, and I love meeting new people and experiencing new cultures.
Do you have a travel buddy? I’m very fortunate to have a very laid-back, easy going partner of 14 years who is a very good travel buddy, especially when things get stressful – he’s the epitome of calm under fire!
What are some of the interesting places you’ve visited and the different cultures? The most interesting place I’ve visited so far has been Japan, with a language and culture that was entirely foreign to me, yet also remarkably welcoming.
Have you ever had any bad travel experiences? I spent my last night in Japan in the emergency room in a local hospital, having contracted an extremely bad case of food poisoning from a sushi restaurant. It’s actually a pretty amazing story – we were staying in an Air B&B apartment without a phone, so my partner came down to the apartment building lobby in the middle of the night to call a taxi to take me to the hospital. A woman who lived in the building became our superhero – she called a taxi for us, went with me to the hospital so my partner could pack for our flight the next morning, checked me into the hospital, and stayed with me until my partner arrived (saying “you are a good girl” over and over again in her limited English). It was a terrible experience at the time, but pretty incredible to think about afterwards.
Advice for those who want to travel but think they can’t? What do you mean you can’t? Of course you can! Even if it’s just a quick visit to a neighbouring town, you can always travel somewhere. Research, save up, and do it.
Show us your favourite travel picture? Just one? Here are a couple from over the years.
Rapid Fire
Road Trip around your country or Plane ride to exotic location? Plane ride! Canada is BIG, so you’d better side aside plenty of time for a road trip.
Hotel or Hostel: Air B&B all the way!
Summer or Winter: It really depends where I am – I’m not a fan of muggy, humid summer days, but the grey sogginess of a Pacific Northwest winter can be downright depressing.
Window or Aisle seat: Aisle. I like being able to easily get out and walk about whenever I need to.
Book or Movie on the Plane: Movie. Endless, endless movies. I don’t typically see many films in theatres, so flights are a chance for me to get caught up.
I hope this little deviation from the typical bookish post was interesting in some way, and if you decide to write about your own travels, do let me know, I’d love to read about it and travel vicariously through your expeditions!
I love the photo of the Japanese Where the Wild Things Are!
When you go to Croatia, you should definitely also make your way to Sarajevo, Bosnia. I had the very good fortune to live there for 2 years and it’s a beautiful city. There is very old (+1000 years) Turkish architecture and elegant classical Hapsburg architecture, a rich and varied religious history, struggling but interesting museums (The Tunnel Museum, for one!), delicious food, and warm and friendly people. And it’s only a relatively short bus ride from the Croatian coast.
Oh wow, that sounds so good, adding it to the list!
L&P! A bit sweet and sickly for me, but that picture reminds me of driving up to Auckland from where I used to live.
My grandmother lives not too far from Paeroa, so we just had to stop in and visit. 🙂
Wow, you have been to quite a few places! More than I have at least since I’ve never been to Europe or Asia. I live in the US, but I have been to Canada at least! Plus Mexico and some places in the Caribbean.
I love that the best thing you bought was a selfie stick lol. But it makes sense! It sucks going somewhere with just one other person and all the photos are just, like, one of you standing next to something, and then one of them standing next to something, and you hardly get any pictures together. And when you do, it’s pretty much just your faces lol.
That’s so cool that you stay in residential neighborhoods and explore the grocery stores and whatnot. That does sound like a really interesting way to see the area and learn about the culture. And I love what you said about even just visiting a neighboring town. One of the best days I ever had was when I went to this state park just maybe an hour’s drive or so from my university. Only spent the afternoon/evening there, but I swear it felt like a legitimate little adventure!
This was a fun post 🙂