All posts tagged: travel

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Naomi Jackson

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I spent the summer of 2012 working on my first novel, The Star Side of Bird Hill, in Barbados. While I was there, my days were simple – writing by longhand every morning, eating a mango every day after lunch, watching bad TV at night to give my brain a break. I spent many long afternoons hanging out, reading, and drinking overpriced, but great tasting coffee at Surfers Cafe in Oistins. The cafe is right on the beach and when I was there, I felt the sense of being exactly where I was meant to be. That summer of writing alone in Barbados was made possible by many years of practicing the fine art of enjoying my own company.  An appetite for solitude is an essential quality to cultivate for any writer, and traveling alone has taught me to confront myself when I have nowhere to turn besides more deeply inward. I certainly had plenty of time to wrestle with myself and my work during that summer in Barbados. That said, it’s hard to feel truly …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Ayesha Malik

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I was taking photographs at a photography convention in Saudi Arabia.  I was already excited by the simple fact that I was in an environment where photography was being celebrated, which meant I could roam freely with my camera.  In Saudi Arabia, it is technically illegal to photograph people in public without direct permission, so I tend to keep my camera hanging around my neck instead of attached to my face.  Set aside such technicalities, I never want to offend anyone and steal a photograph of them, especially in Saudi.  On this day, my camera spent less time hanging.  I met her through my viewfinder, through an iMac, in Photo Booth.  She was passing by and decided to fix her scarf in the webcam.  When she noticed me in the background, she smiled…I could tell from her eyes.  She said, “Do you like this…me fixing my scarf?” I said yes and we made this photo together.  It was such a contemporary interaction.  The world is huge, but globalization, and all the technology that comes with …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ George Abi-Hanna

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

Travel for inspiration, such a beautiful phenomenon, to escape the mundanity of routine and inject one’s self with positive experiences from around the world. A voluntary timeless blood transfusion that delivers on many intangible levels. For musicians, that’s the never ending pilgrimage for musical influence, leading some to claim a home away from home.  Growing up in Lebanon during turbulent times, travel was reactionary. Plucking families like dandelions seeking a safe haven away from political turmoil. That “somewhere” evolved into Brooklyn for me. A beautiful borough with raw character, sharing inspiration beyond its borders, which reminded me of Beirut. Walking down either’s streets you get a sense of immense creative energy seeking an outlet. Graffiti covered walls incubating bands tucked away in packed alley bars. A comparable music scene in Lebanon giving Arabic rock and hip hop a platform where Arab artists can express themselves. A sense of sonic unity that Brooklyn taught me to appreciate. This journey for clarity has bought things full circle for me.  Now I find inspiration in seeing the work …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Flo Cheiron

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I have been practicing capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art for the past 8 years with my instructor Professor Tiba from Capoeira Luanda in New York. When you join a capoeira group, you become part of a family, a community. You make new friends along the way.  You meet people from your own city and from all over the world through capoeira events and practice. Every time I travel for business or fun, I always bring my capoeira uniform and make sure to visit a local capoeira class. I have always been welcomed and invited outside of the class to discover the local culture. I’ve found that traveling as a capoeirista is far more superior than traveling as a tourist.  I’ve had the opportunity to experience various cities as a personal guest of a fellow capoeirista and have often even had the option to stay in someone’s home at no cost. ” – Flo Cheiron   078/100 of #100DaysofConfessions Instagram Project

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Sarah Granger

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“The power of Machu Picchu is difficult to express without being there. Photos don’t do it justice. You really do feel like you’re on top of the world, yet transported back in time. I suspect it’s similar to what you feel in the mountains of Nepal. The people are descendants who pass on ancient traditions and wisdom. The air has a special crispness to it, and the view is breathtaking. If you climb up to areas where most of the tourists don’t attempt to go, you can see for miles. I thought it would be like Stonehenge, where you stare at it for a few seconds, scratch your head, and get back on the bus. The difference is the setting. Where Stonehenge is in the middle of a field that could literally be any field anywhere, Machu Picchu is set in jagged yellow-green mountains, nestled among the clouds. It’s this bizarre geometric terracing experiment and raw evidence of human innovation. I did not expect the immenseness of it all. Those mountains are fierce and inviting …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Nishad Avari

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“One of my most memorable adventures this year was trying to get off the island of Zanzibar! Not the worst place to be stuck, but still a mad, mad morning! It had been the most relaxing holiday, and I was sunburned and happy. We had booked ferry tickets the night before we had to leave, and even treated ourselves to ‘business class’. The next morning, we left the hotel to walk 15 minutes to the ferry terminal to pick up and pay for our tickets well in advance. Imagine our panic when we were told tickets booked online had to be picked up more than three hours in advance or they got cancelled! So, after wasting 40 minutes in line, we had no tickets and all the ferries were full. If we didn’t get on a ferry that morning, we would miss our flight to Nairobi and the connecting flight home from there, which really wasn’t an option. Sent from one counter to another, running around the whole terminal, we finally found someone who looked …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Andrea Wien

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“Stepping off the plane in a new city, I inhale, searching already for the closest food stalls or local markets. In the same way people travel to gawk at the Great Pyramids or to climb the tallest mountains, I travel for the cuisine. A city can lie its way into a traveler’s heart, but in back alleys down winding, brick-laid roads, the bubbling curries or crispy delicacies are beacons of pure honesty.   Food teaches me about the mundane, the beautiful, the oppression, the squalor and the extravagance of a place in a way that nothing else can. A people’s history lives on my fork, dances across my taste buds and nourishes my soul as it warms its way through my body.  For me, inspiration comes in the form of turmeric and paprika, galangal and ginger. It weaves a path past city squares, ducks behind bright doorways, moves to the rhythms of a tea kettle and explodes in color over the rice paddies, bringing me back to where it all started, and gathering strength for where it has …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Tracey Friley

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I started traveling with teen girls in the Spring of 2010. I was SO excited. It had been a dream of mine to expose teen girls to the world, so I started off by taking that first group to St. John in the United States Virgin Islands for what I called CampCaribe with a little money from me and a little money from them. It was a travel experience and an outdoor water camp experience all rolled into one. I had 8 girls and 2 lifeguard staff in tow. And because you don’t need a passport to get into the USVIs, I had a bunch of original birth certificates with me. At the time, I remember thinking about how important it was for the girls to have passports, and I even had a conversation about it with a U.S. Customs Agent. Funny how seeds get planted and how those seeds ultimately bloom. On our way to St. Thomas, a guy on the airplane asked what kind of team we were. “Do you play basketball?” he …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Avi Wisnia

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“Imagine Hell. Now imagine being rescued from hell, and returning… I can’t. I am trying very very hard, and I can’t. I am on a bus about to enter Auschwitz-Birkenau in the south of Poland, watching my grandfather as we slowly drive by the wooden-shelf bunks where he slept as a prisoner in the concentration camp for 3 years of his life, and I can’t even imagine. Can you? We started in Warsaw, where my grandfather grew up. We traveled through the Polish countryside to end up where my grandfather ended up during the Holocaust, in Auschwitz. He often says he has two lives: one before the war, and one after the war. It was immensely intense to witness those two worlds overlapping here.  There is something profound about traveling back to the land where your family comes from and touching its soil. Poland in winter is not a particularly inviting place, but I nevertheless felt the warm pull of the land’s history. It was like there was something still lingering in the air, waiting …