Category: Travel Tips
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Porto: What to See & Where to Eat
A general summary of things to do and places to eat in A Cidade Invicta. This page is largely for our wedding guests but also other readers that may want a consolidated look at what there is to see and do in Porto. As the name suggests, Porto has a long history as an important…
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COVID Life in Portugal
Last night I got to do what so many of my American friends cannot, and it’s unclear when they will be able to again: I sat in a large theater and listened to an orchestra. The theatre reminded me of a sparse lecture hall because people were so spread out. Everyone wore masks, including those…
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A Tale of Two Boxes: Don’t Ship to Portugal
Before I moved to Porto I looked up the logistics of shipping my goods from Thailand to Portugal. Reviews and blog posts screamed: DON’T DO IT. My packages were held up in customs for months, one man said. I had to pay extra tax, despite already paying tax when I bought the item, another blog…
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How To End Up In A Sexy Convertible VW Bug In Hawai’i: A Short Story
When you’re jet lagged and running off maybe two hours of sleep, you forget to check the open/close hours of the place where you booked a rental car in Honolulu (which you only booked because it was so much cheaper than picking up at the airport). You take a city bus to the rental place.…
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Expectations in India
While flying down an Indian highway at 100 km/h, I didn’t have the normal thoughts someone would have during their first trip to India: This is awesome! I’m in India! On a motorcycle! Why is there a cow in the road? Instead, at nearly 11 p.m. at night, after driving 470 km, all I could think was: Oh…
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Surviving Songkran: A Step-By-Step Guide
When I asked my Thai friend about Songkran, she looked me up and down, laughed, and said, “You’re a walking target.” “What?” She used her spoon to dig out a chunk of mango from our shared bingsu. “We throw water at foreigners,” she said. “You’re going to get soaked.” I’d heard about Songkran when I…
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Oh, the Faux Pas You’ll Commit!
When you move to a country that has a completely different culture from what you’re used to, it’s easy to commit a faux pas here and there. When one of my friends first moved to Thailand a coin rolled down the floor of her classroom and she stepped on it to make it stop. “The…
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Buy a SIM Card, Meet Ryan Gosling
Don’t be a hero, fellow travelers (and fellow millennials). You may think you can stay in a new country for an extended period of time without the need for cellular data, but you can’t. I mean, obviously you can, but why? When I first landed in Indonesia I had no plans to buy a SIM…
The Wandering Writer 