Luxury Travel and Food Bloggers Work Harder Than You Think

I’ve officially been a food and luxury travel blogger since the summer of 2011. It started innocently enough with one Sunday brunch write up in India and I’m very proud to say it skyrocketed from there because my blog has introduced me to some amazing people, led me to experience new things … and it’s become my #1 favourite hobby after travelling. I don’t have a huge following on social media but my luxury travel blog is successful because it ranks #1 on Google because of the hundreds of hours of dedication I’ve put into it. In fact, it has even been written up and recommended in Condé Nast Traveller magazine because it was India’s very first luxury travel blog and because of the strict quality controls I’ve set for it. (more…)

Do I Need a Boyfriend? Reviewing Honeymoon Packages in Bali is Screwing With Me

My last romantic kiss with a man was in India on August 1^st 2013. Longing for that Indian in Bangalore played the biggest part in the first year of my quiet – good girl – celibacy but the 2^nd year until now really is more a factor of my life and being overwhelmed by circumstance than anything else. I’m now in Bali for 2 months reviewing 5-star hotels and boutique villas – and well into year 3 alone – and wondering when is ‘enough’ enough? (more…)

Bali Day 2- Learned I Can’t Be Alone Here Even When I Want To Be

It’s been 48 hours since I left Hong Kong to live (up to) 60 days in Bali. Not being in the greatest place when I left Honkers, I decided to use this time to re-connect to the old me. That includes finding an awesome new job in Asia, losing some weight and flipping the chip in my head back to always being in a positive place again. (more…)

Bye Bye Hong Kong: 60 Days in Bali to Find Myself Again

If you’ve ever lived through a period of your life that caused you an intense amount of stress or that changed you – either mentally in a negative way or physically because you weren’t taking good care of yourself anymore – then you know where I’m at today. I’ve gained more weight than I wish to document here (it’s not a few kilos but way into the double digits). I stopped socialising, stopped trying to make friends, and stopped leaving my flat…sometimes for weeks on end. I went from being a social butterfly of sorts to a solitary hermit. (more…)

Deadbeat Ex-Husband vs. Wanderlust: What Makes a Single Mom More Successful?

That photo above always transports me back to Marrakech and makes me smile because my daughter took it when we spent Christmas and New Year in Morocco 5 years ago. Travelling is a huge passion of mine (I’m now living in my 6^th country, and have travelled around 31 countries) and my daughter and I had a lot of fun adventuring around different countries together…although life wasn’t always easy or financially secure. Yet somehow, that spirit to explore…that feeling of wanderlust…was always there no matter what. (more…)

America’s Reluctant Racists: Is Trump & the Media to Blame?

In my heart I’ve always wanted to believe that racists are simply radicals who comprise a very small percentage of the population back in my native U.S.A. Sadly, that hope has been increasingly hard to hold onto over the years and it looks like 2015 might just be the year I have to admit that I’ve been wrong. (more…)

Losing Friends & Lovers Remotely: (Message, Unfriending & Ghosting)

The first time it happened to me, I was ‘broken up with’ via a message in 2011. I remember feeling truly gutted and genuinely hurt that this man – with whom I had shared more time than any other since around 2004 – ended up having so little respect for me that he could say goodbye with such coldness. Instead of talking to me, looking me in the eye when he said goodbye … he ended something special in a most undignified and impersonal way. No goodbye kiss, no respectful ‘I’ll miss you and wish you well’ and definitely no kindness. Of course, he came back a few weeks later after he’d cooled down but the hurt of his emotional heartlessness lingered. (more…)

Embarrassed by My Past (Even Though it Made Me Stronger)

We all have a past. Sure they range from fantastic to tragic to inspiring or even painfully heart-breaking but we all have one. Depending on the situation, our history can be summed up in either short- or long-tail form regardless if we are talking about who we are, where we’re from or what we do. (more…)

Un-American Thoughts on the Nagasaki & Hiroshima Bombings

You’ll have to forgive me here from the beginning. What started a couple of weeks ago as a post about simply being grateful has turned into a melting pot of emotions. As I’m sure you know, this month marked the 70^th year since the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, killing around 200,000 civilians and injuring another 70,000 (many of whom died from complications later). While I was sharing the idea for this blog post with an American mate back in the U.S., his gut reaction comment was, ‘We ended a war they started’ so now my initial being grateful post is gone and I’m riled up. (more…)

The Benefit of Cutting Out Negative People

Whenever something new happens I always feel a rush of happiness. Yet something happened recently that has made me insanely happy even though nothing new has happened to me recently. In fact, I’ve had a bit more stress lately so that makes this even more interesting to me. (more…)

4 Signs You’re a Happy Expat (or Should Be Living Abroad!)

There is an undeniable thrill that accompanies all forms of opt-in change. A new job, new car, or certainly settling into a new home all have the power to breathe new life and energy back into us. Now … supercharge that change on some crazy bionic level and that is the exhilaration someone feels when settling into a new country as an expat.

My guess is that being happy as an expat depends greatly on if you CHOSE to be one in the first place. We’ve all met the grumpy ones who bitch and moan about everything, who insist on only eating food from their homeland, and who don’t find joy in the cultural differences or challenges of living in a foreign country. Normally they are someone who was forced to move by their company but didn’t want to (or in a surprisingly large amount of cases its the spouse of that person). Anyway, hopefully that’s not you! (more…)

Guide to Use Social Media Responsibly {No #Haters #Trolls #Bullies}

Inspired by Cecil the Lion, this week I wrote all about it, encouraging others to take to social media … not only on that day for Cecil’s sake but hopefully in the future again for any other cause that needed it.

It’s every citizen of the world’s responsibility to stand up and be heard when we care about an issue, see an injustice taking place or are bothered by something when no one else around us is.

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