Do you want to live in Hawai’i for free?! Um… maybe. The answer to this question isn’t as simple as you might think. I lived and worked on Maui for 2 months by WWOOFing. To refresh your memories, WWOOF stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and provides people with the chance to take part in work-trade programs all around the world. In exchange for room and board, volunteers work part-time as farmers. I’ve written about this program and other alternative ways to travel the world before. This time around, though, I want to talk specifically about my experiences WWOOFing, and share with you the pros and cons of…
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This Tea Tuesday, It’s Actually Ti Tuesday
I decided not to write a new post on Sunday because it was Father’s Day, and, if you don’t know why that matters, please see the previous blog entry. You don’t even have to read the post, you can just look at the title. I’m back today because it’s Tuesday, and on Tuesdays I drink tea. Well… I drink tea everyday, but I write about drinking tea on Tuesdays. Except this post isn’t about drinking tea. Oops. It’s about a different plant, which I encountered while living and working on an organic farm on Maui, called “ti.” And, yes, pronounced “tea.” So, it’s Ti Tuesday. (Ha!) And, for Ti Tuesday,…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Adventures in Travel Vlogging!
This week, I am proud to bring you your weekly travel inspiration in video form! Press play to hear about whales and the two months I spent living and working at an organic farm on Maui. Joyful discussion of humpback whales by me, filming by my boyfriend, E, editing was a joint effort. I hope this will be the first of many travel vlogs and videos to come. Let me know in the comments what you think.
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Upcoming (Mis)Adventures!
Remember my first blog post? Well this is my 100th! What?! I know, I’m excited, too. You know what else I’m excited about? My travel plans for the month of May! After six weeks spent crisscrossing New England (Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Vermont), I’m heading a bit farther afield by going on a… Road Trip! On May 10th, I’m heading down to DC to meet up with two of my best friends from college and begin a week-long road trip to Miami! Places we intend to stop along the way (but which are subject to change and subject to your input, fair reader) include: Williamsburg, VA Virginia Beach,…
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The Hana Highway and Hana Town: A Pseudo-Local Perspective
I lived in Hana, Hawai’i for two months while working on an organic farm, and, as such, I have some insights into what life is like there. I want to share my pseudo-local perspective with anyone considering a visit or a more extended stay like mine. These are the insider tips you learn from living in a place, and knowing people who have lived there longer, but they are not the lifetime of understanding that comes from being born and raised in a place. Hence “pseudo-local.” I’ve mentioned the Hana Highway twice before (here and here), but I’m dedicating a post to it now because it’s one of the main…
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The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Maui
When I first heard that hitchhiking was a “normal” way to get around Maui, I was skeptical. However, after living there for two months, I can vouch for hitching as an accepted and useful mode of transportation, particularly on the Hana side of Maui, where I was living and public transit is nonexistent (a once daily bus to Kahului that requires reservations in advance notwithstanding). I didn’t do a lot of hitchhiking on Maui; I mostly just went the 3 miles between the farm where I was living and Hana Town — a short enough distance that the one time I didn’t get picked up for a ride, I was…
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Hiking in Haleakala National Park
In which I hike 7 miles in 6 hours with 1 water bottle. Not one of my smarter decisions. You know how I recently updated my header tagline to read “travel, tea, misadventures”? This is a misadventure. Back in early March, I found myself with a weekend off from farm work and nothing to do. Another woman working at Hana Farms, let’s call her Alaska (because prior to arriving on Maui, she was living in Alaska), also had the weekend off and suggested we use our free time to go camping and hiking in Haleakala National Park. We had heard from the other farmies that the cool thing to do…
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Green Mountain Film Festival 48-Hour Film Slam
I spent this past weekend in Montpelier, Vermont, for the Green Mountain Film Festival‘s 48-Hour Film Slam. In fact, E and I came home from Hawai’i in part to participate in this event. Why was the 48-Hour Film Slam so important to us? And what the heck is a 48-Hour Film Slam, anyway? Good questions! A 48-Hour Film Slam is an event where teams of filmmakers come together to write, film, edit, and premiere a short movie (in this case, 7 minutes or less) over the course of a weekend. This film slam was important to us because it’s the third in which I’ve participated, and the fourth in which…
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Tea Tuesday: Home From Hawai’i
You may have noticed on the sidebar that my current location has changed. This time last week, E and I said our goodbyes to Maui, and returned to New England. It was an interesting first week back: Monday night we slept on a beach in Hawai’i, Tuesday night we slept on a bench in the San Diego airport, and Wednesday night, after more than 24 hours of traveling, we slept in a bed at E’s parents’ house in New Hampshire. It was our first time sleeping in a real bed in two months! After just one day of recovering from our jet lag, we were off again! Luckily, we were…
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Weekly Travel Inspiration: Wild by Cheryl Strayed
I know everyone and their brother read Wild when it came out last year, hit #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List, and became an Oprah’s Book Cub Pick, but I only just finished it, and found it to be a great inspiration. The book’s subtitle is “From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” and it recounts the author’s experiences hiking over 1,000 miles through California and Oregon, alone, at the age of 26. As such, it could be considered a travel memoir, but Strayed elegantly weaves this tale with the events which led to her taking this trip — the sudden death of her mother, and…
