Lotus fields in Southern Vietnam, February 2023 [This deeply personal post was inspired by the literary travel magazine Off Assignment’s series Letter to a Stranger—essays to the ones who haunt us. I’ve met many strangers in my travels but none haunt me more than the couple on the Tube in London, who I can’t stop thinking decades later as I board my flight back to America from after 6.5 months abroad in 15 countries. I wrote this unpublished essay exactly a year ago and it still rings true today even thought I’m half way across the world.]   To the Couple on the Tube: It was unusually h ..read more

The Acropolis in the late afternoon, Athens, Greece   Every month of 2022 felt like a different life. It was a blur of places across four continents—both new and old—and reunions with old friends. I finally feel like I’ve gotten my old life back—the one I spent over a decade building. Every year, I share a recap of my favorite adventures and photographs. Here’s the 2022 edition! I started and ended the year in my two favorite cities—Buenos Aires and Chiang Mai. These two places couldn’t be any further apart or any more different. I reluctantly flew back to the States in the spring. I s ..read more

Alfred the Globetrotting Gnome is excited to share our top travel gift ideas. 2022 has been an epic year of travel—Buenos Aires, road trips to Ocracoke Island and Marfa, hiking in Bend, Oregon, spending September on a four-mast sailboat in the Mediterranean for work, exploring Italy in October and now winter in Thailand! Now, that I’m back on the road full-time, I’ve been trying out new travel gear and clothing. I’ve collected a list of my favorite travel items that I’ve discovered this year that have made my life easier. Several of these were suggestions from friends and other traveler ..read more

Photo Credit: Stock image from Pexels.com (Please note this post was originally written in 2019 and revised in 2022 with updated pricing and other details from my experience.) As a self-employed American, the cost of health care has always been one of my biggest burdens. It’s also part of why I spend half the year abroad. Travel insurance is $40/month (now $68/month in 2022 because I turned 40) with no copays or deductibles while my U.S. insurance was $450/month in 2017 with high copays and deductibles. Health insurance is one of those topics that gets me all riled up so I’ll do my best to a ..read more

The 1882 Los Morrillos Lighthouse near the Cabo Rojo National Wildlife Refuge in Southwest Puerto Rico.  One of my favorite things to write for this blog are location guides. It’s a wonderful way to relive my trip and share my advice with you! In this post, I wanted to share a collection of my published editorial work that are also serve as detailed location guides. For the past two years, I’ve been freelancing for the Washington Post travel section writing and shooting a variety of travel stories. These stories are narrative of a portion of my trip and include a detailed “If You Go” sec ..read more

Tracy Arm-Fords Terror Wilderness, Alaska I keep a running list in a note on my phone about the random things that make my travels easier, cheaper and less stressful. Earlier this year, I shared five of my favorites and wanted to continue the series. Travel is more chaotic than ever—here are five tips to help things go a bit smoother! 1. Check your boarding pass. TSA PreCheck is one of life’s greatest inventions, BUT it has to be printed on your boarding pass for you to be able to skip the normal queue. TSA PreCheck is often NOT printed on boarding passes abroad because it’s a U.S.-only syst ..read more

The ever-changing Austin skyline photographed from the pedestrian bridge.  Austin knows the key to my heart – flip-flop weather roughly 10 months of the year, a plethora of outdoor activities, amazing food and craft beer. And, live music—of course! The capital of Texas has been my home base since December 2013. It is a nice mixture of all the things I love about the South (biscuits, grits, the word “y’all,” and barbecue) merged together with the things I loved about California (fitness-focused outdoor culture and the ability to recycle everything easily) sprinkled with a little LA-style t ..read more

trLa Résidence d’Angkor in Siem Reap, Cambodia is one of my favorite hotels where I stayed on a work trip to Southeast Asia just before the pandemic.  Accommodation, food and transport are the top three expenses in life and travel. With gas prices and inflation increasing, I wanted to share a few tips to reduce the cost of accommodation, including hotels.  1. Book Direct By booking directly with your hotel or lodging, you cut out the middlemen and their commissions. Often hotels will only give you loyalty points if you book directly through them, which is the b ..read more

Travel Banking 101 The easiest way to save money while traveling is having the right kind of bank accounts. There are two big fees that add up when using your debit and credit cards abroad. 1. Foreign Transaction Fees Most banks and credit cards charge a small fee to convert the currency ranging from one to three percent. 2. ATM fees Banks will also charge you a fee for using a non-partner ATM abroad. Plus, the ATM you use abroad will most likely charge you a fee as well. That can be as much as $15 per ATM withdrawal! That’s six meals at the street market in Thailand! Offerings in a Buddhist ..read more

Mono Lake, an ancient saline lake on the edge of the Sierra Nevada in California, is famous for unique limestone formations.   I keep a running list in a note on my phone about the random things that make my travels easier, cheaper and less stressful. I picked five of my favorite ones to share with you here. If you like this, let me know, and I’ll continue the series.   1. Rental Cars When pricing rental cars, compare airport and city location rates. I saved $350 in Puerto Rico in November by renting from a location in a suburb of San Juan. Before the pandemic, the cheapest rental c ..read more