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This week’s travel piece is another postcard. It’s from a guest blogger who’s posted on these pages before–Emily Gold from Paper Cake Scissors. Here’s her postcard from Tuscany loaded with winding roads, rolling hills, rich history, and of course plenty of pasta and vino!

Gustare!

Italy was never at the top of my travel wish list until my mom told me that she and my dad were considering a visit over the holidays. The conversation with my husband over whether or not to go was brief, leading to a quick call back to my parents to say YES. I didn’t regret our decision for a minute, especially when, two hours after landing in Rome, we were already exploring the Pantheon. We focused on Tuscany except for one hop across the border into the Umbrian city of Perugia and a brief cruise through Rome during a five-hour layover on the way to Florence. And yes, my parents and husband and I all got along, and we had a very memorable holiday captured in hundreds and hundreds of pictures.

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The Seattle Public Library

I’ve always loved to travel; maybe it’s the Sagittarius in me. But, lately I’ve come to the realization that we travel a lot. And I’m not exaggerating when I say a lot. Last year, on average, our travel worked out to be almost one trip a month-and almost all of it was to visits to family and friends. Most likely this has to do with the fact that my husband and I both come from large families (four kids in each of our families, plus nieces and nephews all around) and have close friends in our hometowns we still regularly keep in touch with. So between weddings, graduations, baby showers, birthdays, family vacations, and holidays, being out of town often is a bit of an understatement for us.

Charleston, South Carolina

This year though, I’m trying to find a balance with the travel. Because in 2009-despite a recession and job loss-here’s where we went last year (in no particular order):

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Cincinnati, Ohio

Santa Cruz, California

Birmingham, Alabama

New Orleans, Louisiana

Seattle, Washington

Vancouver, BC

Siesta Key, Florida

Charleston, South Carolina

Destin, Florida

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Another check-in with Eric & Beth, our friends from the blog El Mundo.  This postcard proves to be an adventurous one … Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Another stop on their trip around the world.

Since in today’s tech age the physical postcard has now been altered to text messaging, here’s the abbreviated (somewhat) summary with photos…

ngoại động từ (English translation from Vietnamese-enjoy!).

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The Rock Boat-Photo Courtesy of Sixthman

Work life for me has always been a delicate balance of finding something I’m passionate about and how that fits into my life in the bigger sense. Now that my husband and I are both in the market for full-time work (click here to hear all about the highs and lows of job loss), it sometimes makes you look at what you’ve done in the past career-wise to see if you’d in fact, like to revisit it.

Thankfully, I’ve enjoyed most of the jobs I’ve had throughout my career (give or take … bosses, now that’s another story, ahem, I digress). Before I became a full-time freelance writer, I was a publicist-a senior publicist to be exact–at a top entertainment boutique firm in Atlanta. Most of my clients were in the food realm, but I did assist on other accounts, and one of them, was by far the most fun … Sixthman.

This niche travel company has booked some of the best known musicians in the world on its music cruises, which essentially put musicians and their fans on the same boat at sea. On any given ship you get to see impromptu performances, as well as your favorite singer hanging out on the Lido Deck. Sixthman charter boats have booked everyone from The Barenaked Ladies to Josh Rouse to Lynyrd Skynyrd … a ship full of fans signing “Sweet Home Alabama” in unison is something, let me tell you. Oh–and even this guy, whose time on a Sixthman ship created quite the Internet buzz with this photo.

I recently got a chance to chat with Sixthman founder Andy Levine who, by the way, seems to have mastered the balance of one’s passion, one’s work, and one’s life.
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Eric and I figured this would be a good place to write you because this city is way more than people realize and it's been one of our favorite stops.

As promised, a check in with Eric & Beth, our friends from the blog El Mundo.  The first postcard proves to be a good one … Dubai, a great stop on their trip around the world.

Since in today’s tech age the physical postcard has now been altered to text messaging, here’s the abbreviated summary with photos…

فِعْل : يستمتع بـ . يَنْعَم بـ
(English translasion from Arabic–enjoy!)

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Our friends Eric and Beth are traveling the world. They are currently on the road (and airplane, and boat) for the next half year (give or take). So, they’ll be popping in from time to time with trip updates and postcards of their journey. Of course I had loads of questions for them regarding a trip such as this, which made the interview quite fun.

Here’s my Q&A session with Beth just before she joined Eric on their trip. Friday, I’ll check back in with them in Dubai.  Also, be sure to follow all their travels and updates on their fantastic blog, El Mundo.

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The simple story behind Santa Cruz (situated on the Monterey Bay) is this–in the 1960s the counterculture boom made things in San Fran a bit too crowded, so the intellectual crowd headed South, to Santa Cruz. So, the answer is yes, Dionne Warwick, they do know the way to San Jose (that’s the nearest major city in proximity to SC), a.k.a. Silicon Valley.

My twin sister’s favorite book is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley. It’s pretty fitting because she’s a journey seeker, and the whole book is an account of Steinbeck’s road trip with his standard poodle named Charley. So when she moved to Santa Cruz, California from Baltimore, Maryland this summer, she actually did what so many of us (me, me, me) dream about doing–taking weeks to travel to her new home. She visited friends and family along the way stopping and enjoying the drive as much as the destination. Even camped solo (so brave) in some of the most inspiring places in North America. One early morning before dawn in the Badlands, she woke up to a bison stampede … beats an alarm clock any day.

Now that she is settled in SC, my older sister and I met up with my twin for a bit of a girly get-away. We’ve all been busy this year. My older sister has a big-wig job, a husband who travels for his job, and two kiddos under the age of four. My twin just uprooted her life (new job, said new town, and end of an 8-year relationship), and me–I’ve been a bit buried in both work and worry lately, so it was due time to whip out the mascara and skinny jeans. But, really, more like cut-offs and tank tops, as that’s more the way they roll…

The point in my story about my twin’s travels to get to Santa Cruz is that  that’s pretty much what we did there. We stopped and took a moment to digest it all. We visited with friends and family, saw some of the prettiest places in Nor Cal, and just slowed down. If you ever need a little (or a lot of) space to clear your head–Santa Cruz squarely fits the bill. Here’s a bit about our trip, and my favorite spots along the way. This week, the pop on Eddie Vedder’s muse–Santa Cruz.

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I first visited Charleston as a freshman in college, to visit my first love, my then boyfriend who attended The Citadel, or as it’s formally called–The Military College of South Carolina. And while he’s an amazing person whom I’d predict now is a doting father and husband (if I had to guess … but I honestly have no idea where or how he currently is) the best thing out of that relationship was my introduction Charleston. Well, that and my first taste of Russian teacakes during the holiday season (courtesy of his mother). I was charmed by both, even then.

Charleston has it all including history–(um, hola Civil and Revolutionary Wars) and because of it, there’s a strong “across the pond” vibe going on–great boutiques, award-winning chefs taking local and Southern cuisine to a whole new level, and an integral, yet gorgeous harbor currently the nation’s fourth busiest container port. Celebrities love it too– Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe chose Charleston as their wedding location (hmm maybe not such a good example). My friend, travel and food writer extraordinaire Hope, says (I’m paraphrasing) that it’s the snootier version of New Orleans, and I think that’s a fair observation.

But, even so, I’ve always been more than a bit smitten with the city, much like that first boyfriend you always seem to go back to (no matter how immature and ridiculous things get). Though a side note, on this last visit, I noticed even Charleston cannot escape the housing market–there were loads of for-sale signs. One of the reasons I like Charleston so much is because of all of its old buildings (especially when compared to where I live in Atlanta), so, I was sad to see a lot of tearing down of old properties and building new this time around, which is never a good thing. But, this isn’t a piece on the economy or property development, it’s an article on traveling to one of the best little big cities in the South–the pop on Charleston.
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