Holla!
I’m Alex. I voyage around the world, alternating between swashbuckling skullduggery and gallant gallivanting depending on the alignment of the stars.
… or so I’d like to think.
Actually, I’m just a scruffy twenty-something from the United States who decided to quit her desk job and screw off to travel the world for a while.
I live out of a backpack, enjoy wandering hither and thither, and often get lost with purpose (as well as without). My current trajectory is taking me through uncommon destinations such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. You won’t find me sipping coconut water on a beach in Bali!
(Not yet, anyway.)
Checking out the “mineral rich and clean” glacier water in Sost, Pakistan. (Travel tip: don’t believe everything locals tell you.)
Let’s start with the basics: I’m crap at planning, a self-proclaimed ice cream Addict with a capital A, and love having absolutely no idea what’s going on around me.
My story began on the east coast of the United States, where I lived until 2013. No crazy origin stories here; my life was pretty straightforward, but I was lucky to have a family who encouraged travel from day 1 (though they’re still telling me to come back and get a “real job” these days).
Half of my family is Filipino, the other half English, so living in the United States meant growing up amongst a trifecta of cultures… and my parents didn’t stop there. Summer vacations always included adventures such as choking on yak hairs in my milk on the Mongolian steppe, or being sprayed in the face by unnecessarily advanced toilets in Japan. By the time I was old and supposedly responsible enough to fund my own travels, I was addicted.
After graduating with a degree in Fancytalk from an Esteemed Institution of Pretentious Learnings in 2013, I transplanted myself and two suitcases over to the Netherlands so I could bask in the presence of inhumanly tall people and uncreative fried foods.
Oh, and also to live with a Dutch boy I fell in love with, though that didn’t pan out in the end. But no regrets!
While in the Netherlands, I honed my design skills, and learned how to make websites and software marginally less painful to use (translation: graphic and UX designer). Other skills acquired in the Netherlands include:
- Riding a bike like a bo$$. Or, at least, well enough to not die in three years.
- Rolling sexy AF joints. Not that I condone drug usage or anything.
- Eating stroopwafels like it ain’t no thing. That’s a skill, right?
With my beloved kinderfiets in Amsterdam, may it RIP in its bike graveyard.
Pleasurable as it was to live in one of the world’s happiest countries, after almost three years, I was completely done with depressing weather ready to move on.
I unloaded myself of all my unnecessary earthly possessions, stocked up on visas, and hopped on a flight to Tbilisi, Georgia to begin my grand adventure.
If you want to know what happened after that, I’m afraid you’ll have to read a blog post or two. Terrible, I know.
Hanging out with some lovely local ladies on Majuli river island in Assam, India
If you’re too lazy to read any of my posts, here are some sweet but wholly unusable tidbits to finish painting my portrait:
- I like parentheses (most excellent for interjecting trivial thoughts)
- I love cameras (though they don’t love me)
- I’ll eat any and all street food I encounter that does not involve rotting things or raw tomatoes (Satan’s gift to mankind)
