AXW Travels

What was supposed to be a normal Seattle to Raleigh-Durham flight turned into a six-hour ordeal, complete with a surprise landing in Baltimore, a broken ramp, and enough lightning to keep us parked on the taxiway. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, you find out fast what you should have packed. Here's how it went down, and the habits that got me through it.

This wasn't a Box Trip. It started with a conversation right after my mom died, a wish list from my dad, and an itinerary that happened to hit both Bergen and Svalbard. What followed was three weeks of fjords, a glacier hike that cost my husband a crampon, one disappointing tour day, and my dad finally seeing an island he'd wanted to see his whole life.

We commissioned a shark cake topper because we thought it was funny. What we didn't plan - and what nobody mentioned, including the photographer - was the shark who showed up in our wedding photos and apparently decided to attend in person.

My husband reads faster than I do. I've known this for years, and it's never mattered less than the moment it almost ruined the best surprise of our wedding - the one that's been sending us around the world ever since.

Packing for a cruise that spans multiple climates — think 90-degree penguin reserves and 40-degree Cape Horn winds in the same trip — requires a completely different mindset than a typical vacation. After 17 days on a Viking Ocean cruise through Chile, the Falkland Islands, Uruguay, and Argentina, I've got the layering strategy, laundry logistics, electronics tips, and hard-won lessons that will help you pack smart, pack light, and actually enjoy your trip.

After decades of travel across the world, my relationship with travel has changed. A reflection on confidence, curiosity, standout moments, and what makes travel meaningful now.

This was one of those trips that felt big before it even started. A cruise from Valparaíso, Chile through the Chilean fjords, around Cape Horn, over to the Falkland Islands, and back via Uruguay and Argentina isn’t exactly a casual getaway. It’s long. It’s weather-dependent. There are a lot of sea days. And if you’re anything like me, you spend weeks wondering if it’ll all come together the way you imagine. Spoiler: it mostly did, just not always in the ways I expected. Getti

People often ask me how I plan my trips. Planning, for me, is just as exciting as the trip itself! Here are eight easy steps anyone can follow to plan a fantastic trip abroad.

If you’re going to go on a cruise during the Covid pandemic, pick Viking ocean cruises. They have numerous controls in place from start to finish to ensure that everyone remains as safe as possible on the confines of a cruise ship.

In September 2020, my husband and I decided to visit three national parks in the western United States – Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton. Each park was amazing and gorgeous, but a few areas raised some concerns about our health and safety related to COVID-19.

By far, our favorite dish in South Africa was bobotie. I equated it to a shepherd’s pie with an eggy topping instead of mashed potatoes. For the holidays, we decided to make bobotie for our families. My sister-in-law is vegetarian so a traditional bobotie recipe wouldn’t work for her. My husband found the recipe below for a vegetarian version of this dish and it is delicious! Thank you to the original poster of this recipe.

You’re planning a trip and find an incredible tour on a big-name travel agency website but then click into the details and see the price is well outside your budget. Don’t give up!

One of the advantages of working for a global company is the opportunity to travel to offices in other locations… and tack on personal travel to those trips. I was planning a trip to the London office in February 2017. I’ve never been anywhere with tons of snow in the winter so I decided to tack on a trip to northern Finland to see the northern lights!

We stopped in a little town north of Reykjavik called Borgarnes. It was a weird little place with a little saga museum. We walked through the saga museum and found a little restaurant at the end. Feeling hungry, we decided to have some lunch. It had some of the best food we had in Iceland. My husband had mashed fish that was new to us (but good!) so we decided to share a mashed fish recipe.

Flying first class was way too expensive, but we still wanted to be comfortable for an overnight flight so we purchased the middle seat between us. That way we had an entire row to ourselves. On a completely booked flight, we got a lot of angry looks when we started to spread out in our row. Totally worth it!

Gallo pinto is a simple breakfast recipe from Costa Rica based on leftovers from the night before. It’s a simple black bean and rice recipe but it’s ever so tasty. I highly recommend adding a fried egg and/or breakfast sausage to this for an extra tasty breakfast. Thank you to the original poster for this recipe.

Sometimes, when the weather is bad and flights are delayed and canceled, things seem to work out. I was at a customer site in Columbia, SC for a few days. On the third day, there was snow in the forecast. As you can probably guess, Columbia doesn’t get much snow so they don’t handle it very well. Around noon, the customer told me we should cancel the class for the rest of the day and I should try to get out of town asap.

My first trip to Asia took me from the energy of Bangkok to hiking through northern Thailand villages and, eventually, to the overwhelming scale of Beijing and the Great Wall.

Travel with me through Cape Town, Namibia’s dunes, Botswana’s safaris, and Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls — a wild mix of adventure, beauty, and surprises.

Two years after moving to Cleveland, a disappointingly flat 'difficult' hike convinced me to move back to Seattle. The plan: drive across the country solo, then fly back for my cats, Shea and Leah. It nearly fell apart before sunrise, when my taxi never showed and I was standing on a Cleveland sidewalk at 4 am with two cats in crates and a flight to catch.