We knew we had stayed in the right Airbnb when we drove through the isolated gravel road surrounded by yellow grass fields to our home for the next three days in the Dark Sky Reserve. As novice astrophotographers, this would be our chance to take those pictures we had always seen on National Geographic, where the Milky Way meets the mountain tops and shooting stars dart across the night sky in vivid reds and greens. Driving along the bumpy path to reach the house, the rolling

Opening the Substack home page has felt like a strange homecoming I didn’t know I needed. Getting lost in a rabbit hole of someone’s archive, scrolling through notes that seem oddly personal and vulnerable, and exploring the host of recommended readings like a chat with a librarian, has brought me back to Earth as if I’ve been on a whirlwind jet ride that's taken me far from my world and myself. In the era of social media algorithms and doomscrolling, I became an unwilling pa

In the wake of COVID-19, families everywhere discovered something surprising: life doesn’t have to be tied to one place. Worldschooling became a popular trend as more people saw that they didn’t have to be location-dependent - they could continue their jobs and education while being elsewhere in the world. Working on a beach in Bali or hiking Machu Picchu on a weekend became a possible reality. Traveling as a family, whether for one month or five years, is the perfect opportu

Roasting peppers over open fires, bubbling chocolate in ceramic bowls, and blue maize hanging above doorways. These are sights and scents that make you feel like Oaxaca is one of a kind in the world. Throughout the centuries, this region has fought to keep its indigenous Zapotec traditions alive, transforming this colonial city into a destination rich in stories, culinary traditions, and artisan practices that go further back than the arrival of the Spanish. For 10 days, I ex

For centuries, the mythical city of Troy from Homer’s Iliad was pure myth. However, by the 19th century, archaeologists and explorers began to wonder whether those legends had some archaeological truth. It remained speculation until one man, Heinrich Schliemann, decided to test his luck. In a mound in Western Turkiye, near the modern city of Çanakkale, he began excavations in the 1870s. What he found shocked the world. Fortifications with evidence of destruction, golden artif