I created the “Travellers’ Tales” section to give other travellers an opportunity to talk about their travels on my blog. Today I would like to introduce you to Luke and Meagan, travel bloggers based in Virginia, USA. They blog at Two Restless Homebodies.
I would love to hear about your travels too. Go to “Travellers’ Tales” , fill in the quick questionnaire and email it to me with your blog links.
We’re Luke and Meagan - we met about 6-7 years ago at a local rock climbing gym, were friends for a few years, and have been ~together~ (you know, partners and travel ride-or-dies) for about 5 years now. Neither of us had the chance to travel nearly as much as we wanted to as kids/teens, so we started planning out trips almost as soon as we got together.
For Luke, it’s road-tripping to Maine from Virginia to visit extended family, and getting to listen to all his French-Canadian relatives speaking Franglais at meals. For me, it’s taking the train from Orlando, Florida with my mom to visit my aunt in Miami. Everything looked so tropical, and I most clearly remember going to the Parrot Jungle and being fascinated by (but terrified of) having birds landing on me.
We both had conferences for our day jobs in San Francisco right around the same time in October, so we spent two weeks in San Francisco, and then in Carmel-by-the-Sea, being lazy tourists when we weren’t working.
We found - and devoured an obscene amount of - REAL RAMEN. You don’t understand. We’re from Virginia. Our ramen here is B-, at best. Did you know they have Michelin-starred ramen in San Francisco? Neither did we! And now we’re spoiled for life.
This is the HARDEST question we ever get, and our answer is pretty much constantly changing. Right now, we agree that one of our favorite trips was to Belize, when we split one half of the trip inland at an incredible jungle compound, and the other half at a beautiful beach hotel. We journeyed across the border to Tikal.
Puerto Rico. Between the food, the beaches, and the wonderfully warm culture, we’re always at our happiest in Puerto Rico.
Take a food tour! Obviously, we love traveling to eat, but Puerto Rico was where we discovered that food tours are one of the best ways to get a genuine window into a new place’s culture for us. For instance, both food tours we took in San Juan were also walking tours, so we got a really comprehensive overview of the history of the city.
Then, every time we sat down for a taste of something, we got an explanation of how it reflected the culture that it originated from, be it one of many African cultures, native Taino culture, Spanish culture, or another influence. Now, every time we visit and sit down for a meal, we have some context around why we’re eating what we’re eating, not just what we’ve ordered.
Each other! We like to travel very differently, which can sometimes be problematic. But Luke grounds me when I want to pack our itinerary to the gills with stuff to do, and I nudge him along when he wants to spend his entire trip flopped next to a pool with a cocktail.
Oh gosh, phones and chargers. They keep us occupied in downtime, and have saved our butts more than once in a pinch.
Particularly if you’re traveling with another human, COMMUNICATE CLEARLY. It’s the number one key to making sure you don’t want to murder each other by the time you go home!
For Luke, it’s Rome - the history has him absolutely enchanted. For me, it’s a tie between Kenya and Thailand.
Oh man. We took a winter trip to a few cities in France that had catastrophe written all over it. First, our flight on the now-defunct Wowair got wonky, so we missed our connection by about 15 minutes and they didn’t hold the plane. So, we ended up camped out in Reykjavik airport for almost 13 hours. Then, the airline put us on a flight to Brussels and bused us into Paris at 2am local time. We got up at 6 am to catch our train to Reims, looked at the weather, and found that a freak cold front meant we had drastically under-packed for our trip and ended up on a scavenger hunt for warmer clothes.
Then, as if things couldn’t get even more dicey, while we were in Dijon, I managed to get sick with some kind of stomach virus and ended up being down and out for days. We went on to Strasbourg as planned, but because my resistance and strength were already down and my coat was no match for the wind coming from the mountains, I ended up perpetually nauseous and having problems regulating my body temperature due to exposure.
Sadly, we didn’t see nearly as much of beautiful Strasbourg as we wanted, and barely left our flat once we got back to Paris (#selfcare!). To make matters worse, our flight back home after this two-week debacle of a trip also got delayed, meaning we missed ANOTHER connecting flight through Reykjavik, this time by only 5 minutes. You really haven’t traveled unless you’ve sat in a queue at the airline help desk, bawling quietly due to frustration and exhaustion.
We ended up on a competing airline’s flight back to the States… but they connected us to the wrong airport. So, we ended up having to Uber from Washington DC to Baltimore (believe it or not, it was cheaper than renting a car that day) so we could get back to OUR car. And then we had to drive the 3 hours back home to Richmond, Virginia! Needless to say, we’ve taken a wee break from France for a while….
(Editor’s note -wow, this sounds like a real nightmare of a trip!)
You can find our blog at Two Restless Homebodies and you can catch us on Facebook and on Instagram.
Thank you, Luke and Meagan, for sharing your fascinating adventures with us!
I would love to hear about your travels too. Go to “Travellers’ Tales”, fill in the quick questionnaire and email it to me with your blog links.
Who will I feature next? I’ve got an exciting line-up ahead. Make sure you subscribe to the free newsletter so you don’t miss out on some exciting travel tales.
Sara Essop is a travel blogger and writer based in South Africa. She writes about family travel and experiences around the world. Although she has been to 50 countries thus far, she especially loves showcasing her beautiful country and is a certified South Africa Specialist.
