Books to Fuel Your Wanderlust

Ring Road, Iceland, September 2015

The only thing I love as much as reading is traveling (excluding my husband, of course). I'm always dreaming of visiting a new city, state, country... you get it. I've recently found some A+ travel-themed material, which is really outside my regular reading zone, and thought I'd share the wealth.

Here are some titles that make me want to hit the road ASAP:

1) No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love and Wandering by Clara Benson

A memoir, as the titles suggests, about traveling (overseas) sans baggage, but also a look at the author's struggle with severe anxiety and depression years before her journey. Benson's around my age and so hilariously cynical, to boot, that I couldn't stop turning the pages. Her experiences are both totally relatable and then completely foreign at the same time. Weird, right? There's also the guy she meets on OKCupid who suggests the whole thing, and a home in a garbage compactor, but I'll let you read it to get the other juicy bits that make it so good. *One of my favorites of 2016

Favorite passage:

I'd have saved myself some heartache if someone had informed me that life isn't a linear, teleological climb that culminates in some final plateau. It tends to look a lot more like a rolling tumbleweed that gets blown off arroyo cliffs and trapped in barged cow fences just as often as it rolls smoothly down the road. I wish I'd known how many forces are completely out of our control and how often we fail to get exactly what we want (and the disappointment that sometimes follows when we do get exactly what we want). I wish I'd know to hold everything a little more loosely; to be more accepting of the millions of messy, glorious forms a single life can take; to quit acting like the human experience was a geometry equation with a firmly established, correct answer. And hell, I wish I'd known it's perfectly acceptable to have a little fun with the whole business of being alive.

2) Lonely Planet's Ultimate Travel: Our List of the 500 Best Places on the Planet - Ranked by Lonely Planet

I actually read through all 500 picks and have never wanted to race to the airport and randomly select a destination so badly in my life. So many beautiful landscapes and interesting places! Naturally, I made a list of the locations I'd already visited and found I'd only seen 25/500. Looks like I've got some traveling to do! *Scroll down to see my own images of some of those 25.

3) The New York Times 36 Hours: 125 Weekends in Europe by Barbara Ireland

More a coffee table book than a guide you'd cart around (this thing is pretty hefty), the 36 Hours collection (I want them ALL) is not only beautiful, but also informative. I'm going to be honest and just come out and say that I love this one for the incredible photography packed within its pages. I sometimes find myself flipping through whilst daydreaming of my next getaway. The itineraries are more for people who enjoy hunting down cocktail joints and getting nightclub action in over finding new bookstores, so, again, I mainly use it as inspiration for my own photo work rather than travel guide.

Schloss Neuschwanstein, Germany, 2014

Versailles, France, 2014

Eiffel Tower, France, 2014

Jökulsárlón Glacier Lagoon, Iceland, 2015

*All images (aside from book covers) are my own. 

 Have any favorites that tempt you to pack up? Let me know!

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The Wanderlust Weekend Edition- Scottish Highland Festival

Happy Sunday, bookworms!  Sundays have unofficially been dedicated to posts that offer insight into the world of nature, life and accomplishing the things you most desire from life. The 8 to 5 can no doubt leave you tired, cranky and a little lost.  I use my weekends to do all the things that provide motivation through the just-outta-college, entry-level grind.  Perhaps my endeavors will motivate you, too.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the annual Scottish Highland Games festival at Stone Mountain Park.  Stone Mountain Park is already one of my favorite places to relax and unwind, given that it's a relatively short distance from the city, and will no doubt illicit warm childhood memories of summer days spent there with my three younger brothers.

I've been to the Games before as my Grandmother is a staunch proponent of understanding and seeking one's ancient family heritage, and has carted my brothers and I, rain or shine, to participate in the activities.  My Mother and Grandmother are detectives in the field of genealogy and refuse to accept a dead end, traveling great distances to accrue another piece of the puzzle in the long line of people that existed before us.  That being said, I, too, have developed an interest in the generations of my ancestral family that appear as characters in a folk tale at this point.  

The festival was quite enjoyable.  Seeing my Mother smile is no doubt reward enough.  I realize that there is much about the Scottish Highland culture I am ignorant of, and I understand that it does encompass more than bagpipes, games and traditional dancing; all and all, it was a real treat and ecourages me to learn more about the culture. Piping and drumming bands from around the country came to compete against one another with difficult musical compositions and synchronized performances.  I've always loved the sounds of a bagpipe so perhaps I'm a bit partial, but it was very entertaining and inspirational to see individuals who work so hard to perfect their skill performing for such a large, appreciative audience.  

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