Backpacking and the struggle to stay upright


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I’m only 5-foot-3. My pack is about half of my height and feels like it weighs about as much as I do. I’m not sure how that’s possible when I’m carrying mostly granola bars. Also, why are packs measured in liters? I imagine the amount of water that could theoretically be splashing around in my […]

No Reservations: Cuba


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Think Travel; Not Vacation Cabo, going home, skiing, San Diego — the list goes on and on when deciding on your spring break itinerary. Most likely, Cuba wasn’t on your list this year of spring break destinations, and without a little creativity, it wouldn’t have been on ours either. Our decision to travel to Cuba […]

Reflections on the “Periphery”


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Bear with me, but I saw a tweet the other day that really stuck with me (I warned you to bear with me) — “Everyone from the center should live in the periphery for a while. It changes your thinking.” And while Turkey really isn’t the periphery, to a majority of the Western world, particularly […]

Shades of Gray: Journeying Across Siberia By Train


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As someone whose parents grew up in the former Soviet Union, I’ve heard my share of Putin jokes and references to communism. When people find out that I’m a first-generation Russian-American who speaks fluent Russian, they generally tend to ask one of two things: do I love the cold? (yes) and do I drink a […]

iKhaya le Langa: The House of the Sun


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The minute the clock hits 3:45 p.m., I shove everything into my backpack and make a beeline out of class and down the six-and-a-half-billion stairs that lead from the University of Cape Town to the main road. Although the idea of erecting a university on a mountainside turned out to be a gorgeous idea, it […]

Journey to Middle Earth


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Most people have only seen New Zealand in movies — specifically, the Lord of the Rings series. After spending the past weekend visiting two of the most famous Lord of the Rings shooting locations in New Zealand, I’m happy to report that the country looks exactly like it does in the movies. Now, I’m not a […]

Cuba Travel 101: Know Before You Go


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So you want to go to Cuba? Doing your homework ahead of time is a must and will give you the added benefit of making your trip legal, safe and, most importantly, enjoyable. Not only have an increasing number of U.S. citizens been traveling to Cuba recently, but also legislation that once prevented travel between […]

Rhodes Must Fall: A brief guide to UCT’s protest culture


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I was cooking some corn in the kitchen when Tumi, my roommate, told me that Patience, her friend and a student at University of Cape Town, was going to crash at our place for a few days until she got her housing sorting out. Upon further questioning, I learned what had happened to Patience and […]

Stay on the left and other rules of road tripping


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“Get out of Auckland as much as you can.” That was the number one piece of advice that I heard from New Zealanders. While the big city has plenty of perks, it’s the small towns and miles of beautiful, rugged landscape that people come all the way across the world for. Unfortunately, those are a […]

Being More than just a Tourist


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Because I’m currently on my way to France, I’m going to begin with a bit of wisdom from French novelist Marcel Proust: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” One of the greatest things about studying abroad in Europe is it allows people the opportunity to […]