I don’t want to be a nomad. I’ve seen the nomadic lifestyle up close; I don’t think I could hack the -40 winters in Mongolia. Of course, that’s not the only place you can find nomads. There’s more kinds than just the traditional kind of nomad. There’s also the less literal kind, the people that call themselves digital nomads.

A digital nomad is someone who does their work online, which allows them to travel as much as they want. Many of the digital nomads I’ve encountered online are writers or bloggers who travel a lot, or they live abroad in places that are cheaper than the country they’re from.

I may be a blogger and intending to improve my writing (to that end I am taking the MatadorU Travel Writing course), perhaps even picking up some freelance writing work. However, my goal is not to become a digital nomad.

Sure, I like to travel. It’s usually pretty fun and interesting. I have even enjoyed living abroad. But it’s not the lifestyle for me.

Constantly moving gets exhausting. But the real reason I won’t be packing up my things and living out of a backpack long-term is that being on the road like this, even with my boyfriend by my side, is kind of a lonely enterprise.

You’ll hear many people defend long-term solo travel as not being lonely, because it’s easy to meet people on the road. And that’s true, for sure. But I’d like to ask the constantly-moving blogging couples how they feel. See, being a couple on the road is kind of isolating. Often you feel that you have each other so you don’t need to reach out to others. Or, you can be like us, and attempt to reach out, only to find that many people are sort of uncomfortable hanging out with a couple, or assume that you want alone time all the time, or any other variety of reasons that means you don’t get considered in invites.

But it’s not just that. Even if you meet plenty of awesome people all the time, you’ll likely be on the move too much to see them long-term, or even if you stay put they might move around – it’s the nature of the lifestyle.

I’m sure, for many people, this is not a problem or they have ways to cope. But something I have found during this year and 5 months is that I really miss and need my close family ties and great circle of friends.

Up until college, I floated between friend groups without being that close to anyone save for a select two or three people. Then I created this amazing group of friends freshman year. The group shifted and changed but overall I maintained some close friendships through my years at William & Mary. When afterwards I moved to DC I was happy to keep up with some of those friends and make some new ones. By the time we left for Korea we had this amazing group of friends who we hung out with all the time.

And every day I miss that. Those strong ties of friendship that meant we never had to work too hard to find someone to hang out with – we just asked those people what they were up to. It wasn’t that we never hung out with other people, but it was just we could always rely upon our close friends. I’m confident when we move back to the area we can pick that up again. But in the future, I don’t want to be away from that great sort of network for so long.

Living in the US your whole life and always using the oh-so-mighty dollar, one gets used to a few things that you never realize might be different until you start traveling. For instance, it’s so easy to just google the exchange rate for dong or tugrik or kip that it’s easy not to realize that there are a lot of currencies that you can’t buy or sell freely.

How to Exchange Dong

Want some Mongolian tugrik? Well you’ll have some trouble finding it outside Mongolia. Want to sell some? Well no one is going to want that worthless paper outside Mongolia either. Want some kip? Well it’s not supposed to be taken out of Laos. This idea of imperfect exchange became salient to us when we arrived in Bangkok with a pocketful of Vietnamese Dong burning a whole in our pockets only to find that none of the exchange counters in the airport were willing to trade for the currency of their (semi) neighbor. A quick internet search led to a bunch of online forum assholes making of fun of anyone stupid enough to take dong out of a country that (as far as I could tell) doesn’t have any exchange counters in the airport. A slightly more in-depth search led me to a single company in Bangkok called Super Rich Money Exchange that will take hold of your dong with a smile. This is not to be confused with massage companies in the Patpong area. The one catch is that of their many locations, only a few handle the more esoteric currencies and only one will actually give you a decent dong rate. Luckily, that one location is in a pretty central part of Bangkok near the Siam shopping malls and we exchanged our money there easily with a good rate.

How to Keep Your Money Non-Worthless

The next luxury that US-centric readers might be accustomed to is money that doesn’t lose value no matter how gross, or bent, or damp, or ripped, or written on it is. As long as more than 50% of your bill survives, you can always exchange it for a crisp one. This is not the case elsewhere. The larger the bill, the closer it gets scrutinized. I had a taxi driver in Vietnam reject a five dollar bill for being a bit worn. When you’re dealing with fifties or hundreds, many places will reject your money for the smallest rip or bend. Many money changers even have posters with detailed pictures of the many defects that will cause them to reject a bill. As far as I could tell these included rips, missing pieces, holes, water damage, burns, and countless others that I couldn’t even identify. So how can you safeguard your value? First, start off with your large bills in very good condition. Most ATMs or banks will dispense them this way. Next, store them somewhere safe. Most places will accept a high value bill with one fold in it as long as it is otherwise in good condition. If you don’t have a good place to keep your bills flat, a folding wallet probably won’t ruin them. Consider checking any large bills you get in change. In China there are a fair number of counterfeits floating around and it’s not considered impolite to scrutinize a bill and ask for a different one if it looks or feels odd.

How All-mighty is the Dollar?

Now for a piece of good news: Many of the places with the most marginal currencies use one or more internationally respected de facto currencies. For example, despite the existence of the riel, transactions in Cambodia are primarily conducted in US dollars. ATMs even dispense them. There are no coins in circulation in Cambodia and riel bills are mostly relegated to the role of small change. This means that, oddly, it is common to pay or receive change in multiple types of currency in one purchase. In Vietnam, most guesthouses accepted dollars and we used dollars to hire a taxi when we got stuck at a train station without an ATM or exchange counter. In Laos, many places accept kip, Thai baht, and US dollars interchangeably and you might get any currency as change. In each of these places there is a generally recognized exchange rate that you quickly pick up on and most places seem to honor. Watch out though, the more dominant the native currency is, the more likely it is that you will be overcharged for using any other type or you won’t be able to use it at all.

So what does this all mean for you? Have a small stash of dollars with you wherever you go. Whatever you think about the US economy, the dollar is still the worlds primary reserve currency. If you’re in a tight spot, people are more likely to recognize and accept it than anything else and exchange counters everywhere accept it. Even if you have dollars though, it’s still a good idea to have some native currency when you cross the border. We’ve been surprised at how many international disembarkation points have no currency exchange facilities. Finally, change your money before leaving a country, in case you can’t change it elsewhere.

It hardly needs to be said at this point that we love eating. We’re certainly foodies but not necessarily gourmets – in other words, we aren’t too bothered about how expensive the restaurant is (as long as it’s within our budget) or how fancy it is, as long as the food is good. But still, we love to eat at tasty restaurants. We have pretty consistently been able to find some of the best food in the places we’ve gone. But how? Here are our secret weapons in finding great places to eat (come to think of it, figuring out the delicacies of a region or best foods in a certain city is a similar process).

Ask a Local

If you’ve followed our advice for meeting locals, you now have the ability to ask a local what their favorite restaurant in the area is. For this I would highly recommend seeing first if the person is as excited about food as you are, and if so, follow their advice to the letter. Sometimes if you ask someone who doesn’t really care about good food (it’s hard to believe, but this applies to many people) they will recommend places that aren’t necessarily the best. If you aren’t sure of the trustworthiness of someone’s recommendation, do a quick search for “Name of Restaurant + reviews” and see what comes up. Generally though, you can be sure that a local will know a good place to eat. This goes for hostel/hotel staff as well – it never hurts to ask.

Look in a Zagat or Michelin guide

Go into a bookstore. Look for some kind of best restaurant guide and jot down or take a picture of the ones that look tasty or are in your budget. Note that in some places this can be difficult because they shrink-wrap every single book (looking at you, Malaysia) or they have no guides in English (thanks a lot, Shanghai).

Google Search

Hopefully you have internet available, because all the rest of our methods require it. First off is doing a Google search for “best restaurants + City Name” (or you know, use whatever search engine you want – we are just under the opinion that Google is best). Look at a few of the top lists that come up. Compare them. Try out other similar searches like “good restaurants + City Name” or “best budget restaurants + City Name.” You will get better results if you have a particular thing is mind, like “best dimsum restaurants” or “best noodle restaurants.” Write down the ones that keep showing up on all the lists, or ones that look really tasty to you.

Check best of lists in Time Out and the like

Many cities have magazines that will do 50 or 100 best restaurant lists yearly, and these can be found online. One that we like and is in many places is Time Out, so do a search for “Time Out + City Name” and see if that’s available.

Yelp or local equivalent

We absolutely love Yelp, a US-based restaurant review site. It’s slowly but surely making its way to other countries but is still most helpful in the US and Canada. Luckily there are similar sites in other countries, like Open Rice in Hong Kong. Do a search for “restaurant reviews + Country Name” and you may be able to find it. Here you can look at what users think about various restaurants. Usually the really popular stuff is bound to be good – unless we are talking about Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC (it’s just famous because it’s famous… not because it’s good). Also check Chowhound, which has threads for many countries.

Find a site geared to local expats

You might be able to find blogs or websites geared to expats or simply in English (if you speak the local language, good for you!). For example you can use the Beijinger for Beijing or Seoul Eats for tasty restaurants in Seoul.

If it looks like we spend a lot of time researching restaurants, that’s because we absolutely do. Food is important to us so we want to try the best. That’s not to say that every meal is planned out – sometimes we just see a place with a long line or with a good-looking menu or eat somewhere out of convenience. But we do try to eat at well-regarded places and famous places, because often it’s obvious that they deserve their reputation. We also depend on lists of places to eat from other food and travel blogs – some of our favorites include Migrationology, The Road Forks, and Boots in the Oven.

How do you find delicious food on your travels?

When you’re traveling long-term, you often don’t want to just be passing through all the time. Sometimes you want to take a moment and meet people and make local friends. Also, making friends with locals is a fantastic way to get the scoop on the best restaurants and coolest things to do, often beyond the usual tourist scope. If you can find someone who knows the language to show you around a bit, all the better as it often gives you access to things that you wouldn’t otherwise find. This is an important goal for us while traveling. I love meeting new people and experiencing new cultures, as well as getting a new perspective on the places I’m going. Here’s how we manage to accomplish it.

-CouchSurfing – I’ve mentioned CouchSurfing before as a cool way to sleep for free. But also, your host lives in the city you’re staying in and can often give you great insight into the area. Hosts are not always free but often they will take the time to at least make you a list of cool stuff to do, if not go around with you and show you things.

-CS meetups – Maybe you couldn’t get a host on CouchSurfing or you did get one but want to meet more people. Look on the CouchSurfing website for the group based in the city you’re in. In the information section (if it’s an active group) they will often detail the weekly meetups available. Often these are on a weeknight and involve going to happy hour at a bar or eating dinner together. Look for a thread about this week’s meetup, sign up, and go! You will meet lots of cool people and often they will be up for doing stuff with you later in the week. Another option utilizing CS groups is to look for threads about other gatherings, or make one yourself – for instance, you might find a few people getting together on Thursday for a short hike and cliff jumping, or you might want to go to Disneyland but not by yourself so you make a thread and hope people want to join you.

-Meetup.com – My final recommendation for meeting locals is to use the site Meetup.com. Make an account and search for meetups in the city you’re going to. Look for things related to your interests and join the group. Then hope that there’s a good-looking meetup while you’re there. For example, we went on a midnight bike ride with Beijing Outdoor Adventurers, and went to the weekly board game night of the Hong Kong Board Game group. These were both things we really enjoy, and the people that came also enjoyed it. So you instantly have something in common with everyone there, which is cool. You also get to do something you like, at times things that are difficult to arrange on your own (like a board game night – you have to know people to get in on that).

All these options are pretty easy ways to quickly make local friends in a place you’re visiting. Of course, they’re mostly limited to urban areas so you might have trouble finding things out in the countryside. I’ve also found that using any of these options nearly requires having a local phone number, or at least a phone that can be used internationally. I never thought I’d need a phone while traveling, but it has actually come in handy much more often than I expected.

Can you think of other ways to meet locals?

Week 42 of the Indie Travel Challenge asks what’s on your travel playlist.

This might be strange, but I don’t really make playlists. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy music, but I don’t listen to it as much as I once did and I am sort of lazy about it. I tend to jump on Grooveshark and put in some of the popular songs or some band I’m currently obsessed with. Since I have a new-ish laptop I don’t actually have much music on it (all my music is uploaded to Google Music though). However I do have my old iPod with a bunch of music. I no longer have a laptop or an iPod so I pretty much have no way to listen to music anymore.

But here are just a few songs that remind me of certain places or travel situations.

South Korea

If you only ever watch one K-Pop video in your life, make it “Gangnam Style” by PSY. But who am I kidding, you have obviously already seen it. It has exploded wildly worldwide, which is great because it is hilarious. If you can’t understand the Korean, don’t worry. It’s basically a satire of people who live in Gangnam, the super-rich part of Seoul, and how the rich culture in Korea is very superficial. I was sitting in a donkaseu (pork cutlet) restaurant the first time I heard it. My coteacher asked me if I’d heard this new song. I hadn’t. Shortly thereafter everyone I knew in Korea had a link to the video in their Facebook status. In no time at all it was literally everywhere, which is the way things work in Korea. But it wasn’t just Korea, as I found when my friend who is living in Dominica asked me if it was as big in Korea as it was there. Considering how many times I heard it before I left, the answer is probably bigger. So even though there are tons of other K-Pop songs that will always remind me of Korea, I will always remember that I was there when Gangnam Style started.

Florida

I know what you’re thinking. How the hell can a song called “California” by Phantom Planet remind you of Florida? Well, it’s sort of a case of you-had-to-be-there. But one time I took a road trip with Jeff and our friend Trevor to Orlando, Florida for spring break. For some reason my iPod kept coming back to this song and we changed the lyrics to “CaliFLORIDA here we come.” So I always think of Florida when I hear it.

Road Trips

Road trips are great. One of my favorite songs to play on a road trip is “Life is a Highway” by Tom Cochrane.

West Coast US

“Kids” by MGMT is again not an obvious choice for the West Coast of the US. But this is another case of hearing a song a lot on a road trip – we heard this constantly in August 2009 while driving up the West Coast. Jeff also sings it every time we walk by a playground.

What are your travel songs?

Often when we’ve met people along our travels they have been rather perplexed when we tell them we travel mostly by train. We mentioned our difficulties buying train tickets to Hong Kong at a CouchSurfing meetup in Shanghai, and people simply couldn’t understand why we didn’t just buy plane tickets. Well, we may be a little unusual but we avoid flying whenever possible and hope to travel overland (preferring trains to buses) for the great majority of our trip. Here’s why.

-We hate airplanes. Seriously, completely, hate them. Jeff hates getting to the airport really early (which you need to do) and having to wait a long time. He also hates progressively more intrusive security, uncomfortable seats, and gross recycled air. Also, air travel makes him feel ill and dizzy. Rachel feels similarly, with the added bonus of recently panicking anytime she’s in the air. Not to mention that air travel is nearly always much more expensive than the alternatives.

-Trains are usually pretty comfortable. The middle or top hard sleeper bunk on a Chinese train isn’t great, but at least you’ve got plenty of space to lay down (if not sit up). Plus, there’s no barrier to walking around like there often is on planes. In addition, you don’t have the bumps or hard turns of crazy bus drivers to contend with (and no turbulence). It’s generally a smooth ride that doesn’t set off Rachel’s motion sickness, which never occurred until she rode on Korean buses.

-You get more of the local flavor. Who rides trains? Local people. Most people traveling, like those we met in Shanghai, find our desire to ride on trains strange and would rather just have a quick flight than sit on a train for 18 hours. So even though on our last train ride we couldn’t actually talk to anyone due to the language barrier, we were still helped with luggage, regarded with smiles, and offered Chinese liquor.

-Train travel is nearly always cheaper than air travel, often by a lot. Buses can be even cheaper but are also not great for us (see, earlier mention of motion sickness) and take longer. When you think about it, an overnight train for 400 RMB beats a 2-hour 700 RMB flight not just for the difference in transportation cost, but also because for that 400 RMB you are getting to the other city and getting a night’s accommodation.

-There’s no extra hidden fees for train travel. You buy your ticket and that’s it, unless you want to buy a meal. But you don’t need to pay extra for having lots of luggage – you just have to find a place to shove it. As I mentioned before, I overpacked for this trip, and if I was taking regular flights those extra baggage fees would really add up.

-The food is better on a train. Airplane food sucks, mostly. There are a few exceptions like Singapore Air, but on the whole it’s pretty gross. On the other hand, trains that have a restaurant car are actually making the food in a real (if tiny) kitchen. Just this addition of freshness makes the food way better. I had some tasty borscht going from UB to Beijing and a great tofu dish on the way to Hong Kong. Much better than anything I’ve had on a plane.

-Trains give you a sense of distance. In this age of go-go-go all the time, it’s nice to sit back and get a real feel for how far you are going. Flying in a plane is like strangely warping to wherever you’re going – unless you are taking a real whopper of a flight it feels like you haven’t gone anywhere, but suddenly, disorientingly, you are somewhere totally different. If you take the train, you can see the landscape passing by (another bonus!) and really know things like “holy crap, China is freaking huge.”

-Finally, train travel relaxes us. Every time we get on a plane we are a big ball of stress and nerves. But on a train, you have the time to take it easy, read your book, watch a movie, write some blog posts (or in your journal or whatever if you don’t keep a blog), or whatever you do to relax. Honestly, we haven’t found it boring so much; instead it leaves us more refreshed for the next place we go.

Do you like train travel?

Week 40 of the Indie Travel Challenge asks if you like to travel during the shoulder season, and if so, where?

‘Shoulder season’, for those who don’t know, refers to the time between high and low season. Generally that means spring and fall, though of course it varies depending on your destination.

To answer I say yes, of course I like traveling in the shoulder season. Spring and fall are my favorite seasons – probably fall is best for me. I like to go to destinations when the weather is perfect and often it’s the best during shoulder season.

Of course, I don’t always get the chance to pick the ideal time to go – maybe I can only get vacation in the winter or summer. When I can, though, I choose the time when the weather will be the best. While bad weather doesn’t deter me necessarily, it can make a travel experience much less enjoyable.

We have been really lucky (or perhaps just scheduled wisely) in the weather on our trip. We’ve had barely any rain yet. It has been consistently cooling off in each destination we go to, but then we move south where it’s warmer anyway. Here in Hong Kong this week it’s been 25-30 degrees Celsius. However, it’s not really shoulder season as it is right around the mid-autumn festival. Accommodation has been extra expensive (and HK is not a place with great budget lodging in the first place).

Still, we have managed to make a good start of traveling in fall when it’s pretty nice out. No pretty leaves yet, though. We have seen some nice fall weather in the past though; here are a couple of pictures.

Leaves in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.

Gyeongbokgung Palace, Seoul, South Korea.

Changdeokgung Palace’s Secret Garden, Seoul, South Korea.

Do you like traveling in shoulder season?

If you haven’t read part 1 yet and want to know why our round the world trip has started a couple days late, you can find it here.

The suns rises on Friday morning, and we’ve been up for hours. United canceled our flight without explanation, apology, or compensation and was gracious enough to reschedule us for an early morning flight two days later. All we had to do was ask them for six hours straight. We get to the airport bleary eyed and yawning. We go up to the check-in desk. Rachel gets her boarding pass and loads her luggage on the conveyor belt. I hand over my own confirmation.

“This is just a stand-by ticket” says the woman.

The bottom drops out of my stomach, our helpful friend at the United desk had lied right to our faces. They will never let us leave Korea. The remainder of our lives will be spent in a hellscape of long lines and trimly dressed desk jockeys. Our flight will never happen, our big trip will never happen, hope has seen its last hurrah.

“We’ve been waiting for two days. We were promised that these seats were confirmed.” I said with terrifying intensity.

“One moment please.”

Some time later we both had boarding passes and Seoul to Ulaan Baatar luggage slips. We were on our way.

The turbulence of the flight reflected the turbulence roiling within. We were stressed and tired and more than ready cry away our 4 hour layover curled in the fetal position on a bench somewhere. Unfortunately, we still had the difficult part of the day to deal with.

When I tried to get my boarding pass in Beijing for leg number two, my protestations of being promised one fell on deaf ears. And, shrewish boarding pass lady was pissed that anyone would dare question her. After many a glare, she gave us the number for United which we could call (If we had phones that would work in China, which we didn’t). In turns, we were directed to international transfers man, exit gate for foreigners man, international transfers man (again), special needs desk man, shrewish boarding pass lady (again), special needs desk man (again), aaaaaand pause. We were finally directed out of the security area, onto a train, and towards the check-in desk area. In the process our passports were stamped which might cause untold difficulties when we travel China in a couple weeks. Finally we talked to United check-in desk lady. She conferred with United check-in desk lady #2 and senior United check-in desk lady. After lengthy discussion, we were sent Air China check-in desk lady. ACCIDL sent us to Air China management desk lady who sent us back to ACCIDL #2. She had us continue our journey to check-in desk number 34F. Which… was empty. After some time, we conferred with her again and found out that she had actually meant for us to go back to the management desk. A little begging and pleading later, senior Air China management desk lady had her whole team working on our problem. Every few minutes she would come back and ask for another piece of documentation. What finally made her listen to our plight was: ONE Rachel’s possession of a valid boarding pass and TWO my possession of a tag saying my luggage was headed to Ulaan Baatar. And so, soon we were on our way with only the most intense airport security I’ve ever seen standing between us and a few relaxing hours of reassembling the broken piece of our shattered selves.

Thus ends the story of the worst flying experience of my life. Tune in soon for wonderful stories on exotic Mongolia. Have you ever had a less than stellar experience at the airport? Any questions you want us to answer about Mongolia? (note: we love it when you comment on our posts)

Let me just start by saying straight away: most of you reading this cannot get a Chinese visa in South Korea. However, I want to let you know how, in case you actually meet the criteria. And if you don’t – I have a couple of tips for getting one.

First, do you qualify?

Getting a Chinese visa seems to be getting more and more difficult. It’s not too bad, if you’re in your home country. But if you’re an expat in Korea, here’s what you need to qualify:

• an ARC (Alien Registration Card) with 6 or more months left on it; OR
• you’ve had a Chinese visa within the last 2 years; OR
• a Korean passport.

So, if you’ve been in Korea 6 months or less, and/or you have renewed your ARC and it is valid for 6 or more months, you can get a Chinese visa through a Korean company. If your ARC has less than 6 months, skip to reading Option B.

Option A – The Easy Way (you have 6+ months on your ARC)

If you do have 6+ months on your ARC (or a Korean passport), and you want to go to China in the next 90 days, congratulations! You can easily get a Chinese visa. However, you can’t just go up to the embassy and get one – that would be too easy. Instead, you will have to go through a Korean travel agency. There are many of these that will do this for you, though I have no personal experience with any of them so I hesitate to recommend any, though here is a thread on Dave’s ESL Cafe listing tour agents. Interestingly, this option is also available to you if you have been to China in the last 2 years.

Option B – The Hard Way (you have less than 6 months on your ARC or don’t have an ARC)

Sucks to be you! But really, you can’t get a visa for China in Korea. So should you just give up your dreams of going to China? Not necessarily. I certainly didn’t. See, here was my problem: I knew I was going to China months in advance. However, a Chinese visa is usually valid for only 90 days (somehow, mine is valid for 1 year, but I wouldn’t count on that). Therefore, by the time I could apply for the visa, I would have less than 6 months left on my ARC. I toyed with not going to China at all, but decided to try anyway. However, the Chinese Embassy in the US does not accept mailed applications. I did a quick search and found that you can mail in your application if you live in the UK. If you don’t, though, here are a couple of options:

• Use a visa agent in your country of citizenship to procure the visa. Examples include the China Visa Service Center. This will cost you an extra fee on top of your visa, of course.
• Have a friend or family member physically take your application in for you. You will have to pay shipping costs on top of the visa fee.

In summary, it can be very difficult to get a Chinese visa in South Korea. But if you are determined, you will find a way. And then you’ll get to go to China! How awesome is that?

Do you have any other China visa tips?

This week’s Indie Travel Challenge prompt is about my favorite topic, food! Specifically, how has food connected you to a destination in your travels?

There are a few ways that food can connect you with a destination. Maybe you had the best of a certain food in a certain place, or the place is where you first tried or first fell in love with a dish, or it’s the national dish so you’ll always remember it as such. Or perhaps there was just something special about the meal that made you remember it. Here are a few of the foods that for me are linked to a certain destination.

Cheeseburgers – Arlington, Virginia

I love burgers. When I lived in the DC area, I heard about Ray’s Hell Burger, which had recently become famous because Obama went there. I went, stood in the line, and proceeded to have an almost life-changing burger experience. The meat was perfectly cooked and high quality, and covered in peppercorns. The cheese was a sharp cheddar. There was a minimum of toppings, and absolutely no need for sauce. I went back many times – sadly, the last time, the quality had decreased, probably because they were focusing more on expansion than on keeping their product quality high. However, it’s still a good burger. But I’m afraid that the burger of old may become more of a mythical creature, never to be found again. I hope to prove myself wrong the next time I’m in Arlington, Virginia.

Pesto Pasta – Dunedin, New Zealand

This is a bit of a strange one, as New Zealand is not particularly known for its pesto, but hear me out. When I was living in Dunedin, I had to feed myself. For a girl who had gone from living at home to living at college and eating in the dining hall, it was pretty much the first time I did my own grocery shopping on a regular basis. I frequented the grocery store New World, which had some fresh-made pasta sauces in the refrigerated section. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried pesto, but it was what made me fall in love with pesto. New World’s fresh-made pesto was vibrantly green and incredibly flavorful. I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s hard to find a grocery store pesto to compare, even today. The best I’ve done is Whole Food’s refrigerated pesto, which is only sold sporadically in my area.

Fried Plantains – Costa Rica

When I went to Costa Rica as a junior in high school, I didn’t even know what a plantain was. But I ate them – they were served at just about every lunch while I was there. When I returned to Costa Rica in 2010, I revisited my love for fried plantains. I tried and succeeded in making them at home later. They will always remind me of Costa Rica.

Gelato – Padua, Italy

I really enjoy gelato. Italy is of course a fantastic place to eat it. What connects it to Padua specifically is that when I was in Padua in 2003, there was a gelato festival going on. Gelato was everywhere. I sampled some and bought even more. I don’t remember the flavors, but I remember enjoying Padua a lot – perhaps because of the gelato.

There are of course more foods linked to place in my memory – kimchi means Korea. Subs with coleslaw and french fries on them means Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Food is such an important part of travel for me. It connects me to a place in memory, so that if I eat the dish later I think about where it means to me. Food is also such a rich part of culture, and eating a country’s food can help you understand the people who live there. I enjoy reflecting on the food I’ve eaten on my travels, and can’t wait to make more eating memories!