This morning I started listening to the podcast The Travel Diaries hosted by Holly Rubenstein. On each episode of the podcast, Holly talks to her guests about their travel experiences by guiding them through eight chapters, or questions, to compile their own travel diary.

Hearing others describe their life in travels is fascinating; you can pull out similarities to your own thoughts and narratives on the world and pick up new insights and considerations you might not have had otherwise. The list of destinations on my “travel to next” list keeps growing!

After listening to a few episodes, I decided to answer her questions and write up my own travel diary.

Chapter 1: Earliest Travel Memory

Camping with family all around the state of Michigan. For a few years, we went camping every weekend, and sometimes for multiple weeks at a time, across the state. From Lake Michigan to Lake Superior, Tahquamenon Falls to Copper Harbor. We saw it all. My family didn’t travel much outside of the state until I was in high school, when we took a road trip from Michigan to Yellowstone National Park. The first time I left the state by myself was my junior year of college, when I road tripped with my girlfriends to Daytona Beach Florida for spring break. That was the trip that really made me realize how much more to the world there was outside of Michigan.

Chapter 2: First Place You Fell in Love With

This is a tough one, as I tend to fall in love with every European city that I visit.

The first place I ever said “I would retire here” was Nice, France. I fell in love with its cerulean blue beach, delicious pain au chocolat from the daily market and the abundance of rosé. My first international destination was London, where I learned how to wander as a way to explore a city and find hidden gems. I fell in love with the incredible market scene in Barcelona and the champagne culture in the Champagne region of France. In Greece, I fell for the sunset views and fresh octopus. The first place I got excited about snow was Copenhagen after a fresh dusting coated the candy colored city.

Chapter 3: Trip You Learned the Most About Yourself

Poland: Piotrkow Trybunalski, Szczecin, Elblag and Warsaw

A two-week work trip covering three different cities on both sides of the country, my plan was to fly into Warsaw and rent a car to travel to each destination. Upon arriving at the rental car counter, I was informed that I would not be able to rent a car because I did not have an international driver’s license. After standing dumbfounded in the airport about how to manage making it to each destination on time, without a car, I found myself on a two-hour long taxi ride to Piotrkow Trybunalski and arrived at my hotel to discover no one spoke any English. I think this is the first time I cried in a foreign country.

Long story short, after many hours of research on spotty hotel Wi-Fi, I was able to secure a cab ride back and forth to the hospital I was working at for the next 3 days, a taxi to the airport in Warsaw to catch a propellor plane across the country to Szczecin, a six hour train ride from Szczecin to Elblag where I walked many miles to the hotel and hospital and finally a taxi to the Gdansk airport where I would catch a flight back to Warsaw before my flight home.

It was during this trip that I learned that I was capable of making the most out of any situation I found myself in. Instead of letting the unfortunate events ruin my trip, some quick thinking got me to where I needed to be and allowed me to enjoy the destination, pierogis and vodka included.

Chapter 4: All Time Favorite Destination

Mallorca and Barcelona Spain

This destination tops my list because it is a trip that I got to experience with my parents. For my thirtieth birthday, I asked my parents to go on their first international trip with me. We flew to the island of Mallorca where we spent four days before flying to Barcelona where we spent the next three. We explored by bike, boat, foot, and train. We ate delicious food from the markets and beachside restaurants, drank sangria, Spanish cerveza and one too many glasses of cava. We toured Sa Colobra and the Torrent de Pareis, bottled our own cava to bring home and enjoyed a tour of Barcelona by bike before tasting some of the most delicious tapas.

Being able to enjoy the company of my parents while traveling in a foreign country was an experience that I will always remember.

Chapter 5: Your Hidden Gem (A Place You’d Recommend That People Might Not Know About)

The Azores, Portugal

A destination I had not heard of before a couple of years ago, The Azores is a group of 9 islands in the Atlantic Ocean almost halfway between the coast of Portugal and the East Coast of the US. Often referred to as the Hawaii of Europe, the islands are made up of active and dormant volcanoes, lava fields and a range of tropical plantation.

I visited the largest island, São Miguel, and covered every inch to explore Furnas’ hot springs, the twin crater lakes and Boca do Inferno and Arruda Pineapple Plantation, where the pineapple mojito is a must.

Chapter 6: The Place You’d Never Go Back To

Kiev, Ukraine

I traveled to Kiev in 2015, after a work trip to London, to meet my friends who were backpacking Europe for 6 months. Every person I told I was going to Ukraine questioned my decision, so even before landing I was anxious about the choice to meet up there. I allowed what other people had told me to persuade my illusion of the city, in turn making it difficult to enjoy my experience. We had issues communicating with our AirBnB hosts and after missing the walking tour we had planned to join, we learned a bomb had been set off in an area that the walking tour would have stopped.

Despite these mishaps, I did manage to enjoy some of the trip, including relaxing at a beach along the Dnieper River, my first experience walking out of a club at dawn and a Ukrainian massage.

Chapter 7: Your Next Big Adventure

South America: both Brazil and Colombia have been piquing my interest for some time and once its safe to travel again post pandemic, I look forward to finally visiting.

Chapter 8: Destination at the Top of Your Bucket List

Italy, more specifically a month-long Italian road trip. My retirement plan is to move to Italy so I need to do some exploring to discover where I might want to call home.

You can listen to The Travel Diaries on Apple Podcasts or by clicking here.