Are you a Lord of the Rings fanatic that dreams of seeing the well-known Middle Earth? Well, you most certainly are not alone and I’m here to tell you that it is just as magical in real-life as it is in the movies! Okay, well maybe not really quite as magical due to all the digital editing, but it still is a place that without a doubt will take your breath away. 
 

As an amateur photographer, I always have my camera on me. I never know when I'll see something that strikes my fancy, or where I'll be when such fancy is struck. Sometimes you see things worth capturing in the least likely place…such as from your passenger seat in a car during a fourteen hour 'no stops unless the car is out of gas' road trip…which means taking a picture while in motion. Some things are just too good to pass up, even at seventy miles an hour.

The best way to see Italy - and Europe, for that matter - is with your own set of wheels. I was once told by our friend Vicenzo in his deepest Italian accent speaking perfectly broken English, "Italians like the curve on their roads and their women," and from the voluptuous Sophia Loren to the hair pin turns of the Alpe di Siusi in the Dolomites, there has never been a more true statement.

It's almost a cliche, those photos of cemeteries and crosses in Ireland. I didn't know, until I  was there, how powerful these spaces are. And, it's like your camera has a mind of its own, and you end up with 500 photos from a single hour spent there, and still have time for quiet reflection and solitude.

Machu Picchu had been on my Travel Bucket List for a few months. When I finally got the news that I would be studying abroad in Chile (a country that shares a border with Peru), I immediately asked to work extra shifts to pay for the trip there! (I am glad I did because it was not cheap.) The first week of orientation, while we had some time to discuss and plan future trips, everyone in our group unanimously wanted to go to MP. The following weeks were pages in a photo album.

I’ll never forget my first visit to a night market in Taiwan. It was a total affront on all senses. Too many people jostling for space; too many unrecognizable odors drifting through the air; too many animal organs skewered and on display for growling bellies.

The idea of travelling abroad alone has always intrigued me, because I believe I could discover so much about the country and myself with tremendous amount of flexibility. Japan seems like the perfect place for female solo travelers, given its safety, convenience, and culinary satisfactions. Nevertheless, I have to admit that the only knowledge I had of Japan was obtained from a couple of Pokémon episodes I watched during my childhood, if that qualifies as part of Japanese culture.