I had a vision for my time at the Regina Coeli Language Institute (a.k.a Dutch Princess School), and that vision involved biking to and from school, in order to give myself a physical break after a long, mentally challenging day. I admit that almost an Eat Pray Love-style cliche, but I don’t care. I’ll own that’s it’s something almost exactly like this European fantasy.
I searched the Google maps nearby towns looking for a B&B, and mapped out my route using Google street view. It looked like the total commute time by bike would be 30 minutes, 45 tops. After my freakout about how it would work and my test drive in Delft, I found out that the Netherlands really makes biking easy, no matter where you are.
Video of my daily ride after the jump.
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Tags:bicycles·Netherlands·Regina Coeli Language Institute
When I used to travel for a living, updating travel guidebooks, I would often think to myself: Why isn’t this making me happier? After all, for lots of people who don’t know better, being a travel writer is a dream job…in theory.
I realized that when you’re being paid to do something, it’s work. Period. It might not be anything as difficult as working in a coal mine, but it still is work. When I was in the Netherlands, rocketing from place to place, I would sit on the train, noticing the neat bicycle lanes that ran out across the flat fields into infinity. Where were people biking to on those paths?
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Tags:Amsterdam·Holland·Netherlands
We’ve had an unseasonably gray and dour June in Seattle, which is why I’m in love with this photo series from Amsterdamize called “Love Is Bike.”
This one is a favorite, of two people catching a quick smooch, probably at a stop light:
I’m also fond of this photo, which shows a dad clearly gleeful about taking [...]
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Tags:Amsterdam·bicycles·happiness·love
But for this weekend, to visit a traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan, I wanted to do as much as possible under my own steam. The journey still involved a diesel-powered ferry, but for a trip to Kyoto without an airline ticket, it seemed like a fair trade.
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Tags:Bainbridge Island·Japan·Kyoto·Regina Coeli Language Institute·Seattle
Yesterday was truly the first beautiful day of spring in Seattle. I dusted off my Dutch bike to ride into work, and loved how this dark purple tulip looked next to its Dutchie kin.
Readers of this blog know that I’m obsessed with the Dutch, and with Dutch biking in particular as the ultimate, elegant solution for [...]
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Tags:Amsterdam·bicycles·Copenhagen·Seattle
Travel + Leisure’s May issue has a decent slideshow of the Best Airport Hot Spots. I was most struck by the amazing image of the Best New Terminal in Montevideo in Uruguay. T + L’s description is as follows:
Inspired by the region’s characteristic cuchillas, or low hills, this terminal from New York–based, Uruguay-born [...]
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Tags:airports·Kuala Lumpur·Uruguay
A few weeks ago, I tried US Airway’s Club at the Philadelphia Airport. I want to report that it was a waste of money; that the people on the other side of those slidey-glass double doors are no more or less happy than we hoi polloi are; that there’s no discernible difference.
I wanted to lie [...]
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Tags:airports·Philadelphia·travel
Being of the techie sort–a girl who Google-maps out her trips–and the traveling kind, I often get emails from friends and friends of friends seeking advice where those two worlds overlap.
Here was the question from a friend:
You have an iPhone, don’t you? Have you used it internationally? I’m thinking of getting one, [...]
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Tags:iPhone·phone bills
I had a fabulous long-weekend trip to New York. Recently, I overheard some Seattleites discussing how they hated New York–the crowds, the noise, the general dirtiness you feel in your hair and on your shoes at the end of the day.
So here’s my passionate defense of the city as an awesome place for travelers to enjoy, and why [...]
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Tags:New York City
Betty knows I’m obsessed with train travel, so a photo slideshow on the world’s fanciest train cabins is right up my alley. I get excited about train stations and virtual train rides, so clearly some tricked-out hooptie of a private train cabin was going to take me to my happy place.
As I flipped through the [...]
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Tags:Africa·Paris·trains
