The six of us arrived at Tayrona National Park groggy and simultaneously over- and under-prepared. Ally’s backpack contained two and a half liters of water and three packages of lunchmeat (necessary), but also a bag of rice he’d forgotten to take out that added a kilo of weight (less than necessary); Sean was carrying a single plastic grocery bag full...
Almost exactly six months ago, I left my winter coat behind on one of the uncomfortable grey boarding-area chairs in Newark International Airport and boarded a plane to Santiago. Since then, I’ve been to six different countries, spending about a month in each, exactly as I planned to do. I knew it’d be good for me and I knew I’d...
I’m leaving the Galapagos Islands in two days. I started packing yesterday, only to find that mold had colonized my big backpack, my hiking boots, my makeup bag, and every other cloth-based item in my possession that I hadn’t used daily. Each was covered in a thin layer of yellow-green fuzz, a result I perhaps should’ve foreseen when I stored...
The thing I miss most about home—more than good pizza, more than the wildly efficient superstores where you can get your shampoo and your asparagus and your prescriptions and a pair of socks all at the same damn time—is the sense of having my own physical space. Of having a room (because let’s be honest, in New York, a room...
I have well-worn grooves in my reading history. Just like I have meals or clothes or television series I enjoy going back to over and over again, there are types of stories that I gravitate towards. My literary comfort zone is some amalgamation of sprawling epics detailing the web of connections between a group of people and/or places (The Interestings...
Friends, family, readers—below is the first travel post on Kath Meets World! I wrote it about my trip to Catalina Island this spring, to get back into the habit about writing about my travels and to have an example of one of the types of posts I’ll be sharing here. For others, explore the categories above, and for my version...