💬 Travel Chat: Happy To Wander 🤓🙃🤗
Welcome to another installment in our Travel Chat series. This week we spoke with Christina of happytowander.com about her adventures traveling across the world! Christina started her travel blog in 2014 after a backpacking trip and now shares all her globetrotting experiences!
1. What inspired you to start traveling?
My parents took me traveling quite a bit when I was younger, but I was always too young and spoiled to appreciate it. My first real trip was when I went backpacking through Europe in 2014. I booked this trip because I was starting to feel burnt out from the pressures of university, work and volunteer commitments, which drained me so much that I felt like I never had time for myself anymore. This trip changed everything, and taught me new perspectives on happiness and success. It drastically changed the way I decided to live my life, and I haven’t looked back!
2. What's your favorite city to visit?
It’s not a city, but my favourite place in the world is the Cinque Terre in Italy. It’s made up of 5 villages along the Ligurian coastline and it’s absolutely stunning. Colourful little villages, the freshest seafood in the world, gorgeous hikes and fresh water to swim in. You can’t beat it!
3. What are 3 things you must carry on each trip?
I can’t go anywhere without my camera. It’s a beginner model Nikon DSLR, but wandering around and taking beautiful photos is one of my favourite parts of travelling. I’d also be lost without my iPhone (because I am oh so reliant on maps) and here’s a more random one - duct tape. Having duct tape on hand has gotten me out of tons of random little mishaps. Never underestimate its power!
4. Are there any things you tend to forget often/always?
My sunglasses! And when I do have them, I tend to lose them right away for silly reasons… e.g. leaving them on my head while starfishing in the ocean. Nope, never seeing those Ray Bans ever again.
5. How do you prefer to capture your memories and experiences on a trip? (photos/video/writing)
All of the above! I have a really bad memory so I rely on photos to piece together my trips after I’m done. Of course, as a blogger, writing helps capture the memories in more detail, but videos (while labour intensive) are my personal favourite. They take me forever to edit but they’re so worth it.
6. Is there anywhere you want to go but haven't yet?
Pretty much everywhere. There’s not a place in this world that I’m not keen to see. I haven’t been to Central or South America yet so I’d love to head down there sometime soon.
7. What's the weirdest thing you've eaten and where? Tell us about the experience.
I almost ate a tarantula in Cambodia, but I freaked out and couldn’t do it. More recently, I was at a food market in Munich and was trying to order a delicious-looking shrimp salad, but they misheard me and ended up giving me an octopus salad instead. As an overly-polite Canadian, I just went with it and ended up choking down these bits of octopus that were literally just tentacles with the suckers still on and everything. It tasted alright but the thing looked like it was practically still alive!
8. What's the best thing you've eaten and where? Tell us about it.
Oh the absolute best meal I’ve ever had was in Manarola, Italy, one of the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre. The seafood there is unbelievably fresh, and I just remember having a pasta dish there studded with fresh mussels, clams, prawns and squid. It absolutely changed my life! Alongside some Italian wine, it was an unforgettable experience. This restaurant also brought out free prosecco while we waited for a table, and complimentary limoncello and grappa after the meal. We took advantage…. And might have ended up going for a cheeky skinny dip in the Ligurian sea after!
9. What was the strangest experience you had while on a trip?
Berlin is well known for its nightlife, so the first time I visited, I decided to go on a pub crawl. Little did we know, we had actually signed up for an alternative pub crawl, which brought us to really niche places in the city catering to different subcultures. Think: a ping pong bar with sweaty dudes circling around a ping pong table, a gothic horror bar that blasted death metal and a gay club in the parking lot of some shopping mall. Definitely crazy, unexpected and a little scary.
10. What would you say is your most life changing trip to date?
Every big trip I’ve taken has changed my life. Honestly! My first backpacking trip sparked my undying love for travel. Last year, I did an internship for a river cruise company as a blogger/photographer. I spent 3 months in Europe and that opened my eyes to the possibility of blogging professionally… and last September, I moved to Munich for a semester abroad (which has now turned into a year abroad) and through this I’ve learned to become independent, and picked up tons of life skills including cooking! Every trip has been important in shaping who I am.
11. Trapped on an island, what's the one thing you'll take with you?
Trapped? It’s all good - I love islands. I’d bring a laptop with functioning wifi. That way, I can blog all about my stranded nomad lifestyle harpooning fish for sustenance.
12. Have you ever gotten lost? Tell us about it.
All the time!! I’m horrible at navigation - even when I have Google maps. Getting lost is part of my daily routine, even in my home city. I think my scariest ‘lost’ experience was in Venice. I had just arrived and the sun was setting, so it’d be dark soon. This was during my stint working for a river cruise company, and based on my instructions, the boat was meant to be docked at a certain spot. When I got there, nope, no boat. I asked a bunch of people, got sent in different directions, walked by the water up and and down countless times, all panicking with my big dumb rolley suitcase (which didn’t go well with Venice’s cobblestone). When I called the boat, they informed me they had docked on the other side of the city, and to walk there would take 1.5 hours. They gave me complex instructions for the vaporetto (basically water buses) which I could barely understand through their Italian accents, and I was about to break down and cry. Luckily, a man saw how distraught I was, and as it turns out, he was a Venetian who had lived in Canada for 20 years! He explained the route to me, and even stayed with me to make sure I got on the right one. I’ll never forget his unbelievable kindness.
13. One important tip for anyone who wants to travel.
If you want to travel, make it a priority. I don’t necessarily believe in quitting your job or dropping school to travel, because I understand that it’s expensive and it’s a privilege that we’re even able to do it. That said, traveling, like anything else, takes sacrifice. I worked a lot to save up money, I preferred to save this money up for travel rather than spend it on boozy nights out… Your travel dreams are possible, but you have to work hard at making them a reality, and to do that, you need to ensure that it’s something you prioritize.
14. What's your favorite book?
It’s cliched but I will never get tired of the Harry Potter series.
15. What was the longest trip you took?
During my river cruise internship last summer, I was living out of a suitcase for 3 months. This was the longest I’ve been ‘on the road’ (or like… on the water, I guess). I did ten different cruises in total, hopping through 13 countries in Europe and Southeast Asia. It was an amazing experience!
16. Have you ever gotten home sick? How do you fight it?
I’m very lucky because I’ve never been really homesick. Sometimes I’ll miss my friends and family a bit, but that’s easily fixed by good communication with them. I’m still part of my friends’ group chat back home, despite being gone for a year. I get tons of mundane messages about where they’re headed to brunch that weekend, but it’s still nice being kept in the loop!
17. What's your favorite way to travel? Plane, ship, train, car, bike, foot, broom?
You can’t beat scenic train rides, but when I’m in a new city I love discovering it by foot. You just see so much more that way!
18. What quote do you live by?
“Live for the moments that you can’t put into words.”
19. What's 2 words that best describes you?
Energetic and restless
20. Which 3 emojis do you think describe your blog best?
Thanks again to Christina for chatting with us! We really enjoyed hearing her awesome adventures and we hope you guys did too. To follow Christina’s journey check her out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and of course at happytowander.com.