Songkran, also known as Thai New Year, is one of the highlights on the calendar of any Thai, expat or visitor to the country. Songkran traditionally falls on the hottest day of the year in Thailand, and is thus quite appropriately celebrated with a mass, country-wide water fight and street party. For years I had read…

The fantastic dive I had at Southwest Pinnacle would have been enough for me to call the day a complete success. However the Scuba Gods must have been smiling on me because I had yet another beautiful dive coming up- at Shark Island. Probably my favorite jumping in shot ever! Shark Island is so named for…

This week I’m back in Brooklyn after my trip back home to Albany. I was sad to leave my mom, my friends, my dog and my gym routine upstate but I just love NYC too much to stay away for long. Yesterday my friends and I took advantage of having my car here and drove to…

After the seriously stomach-crushing day that I had at Sail Rock, I wasn’t exactly dying to get back onto a dive boat. But the sudden realization that I would soon be off the island and not know when my next dive was coming prompted me to give a resounding “Yes!” when another all-girls dive trip was…

Since I left home last June on my Great Escape, I’ve been doing (very delayed!) monthly roundups. As this blog is not just a resource for other travelers but also my own personal travel diary, I like to take some time to reflect on not just what I did, but how I felt. I also like…

My blog is usually about two months behind “real time” for a myriad of reasons, most to do with scheduling and turn-around time. Occasionally, though, things are just too painful to write about straight away. The incident which is the subject of this post happened back in January when my family and friends were visiting Mark…