When I was younger, I did not travel too much, but I have made it a point in my adult years to visit places I haven't been to before.
I wanted to celebrate my birthday by getting away from town. My friends and I spent the night in this small town outside of Vancouver. It was such an excellent time and I lament that I only set it to a single night, but next time!
This city has been on my bucket list for an extremely long time. I took Amtrak Acela from DC all the way up--it took about seven hours. Boston Common was very gorgeous and I now am a Red Sox fan much to the chagrin of my brother--he cheers for the Yankees.
Fenway is such a gorgeous baseball park and I cannot wait to go back.
Came back for one more event (this time Flame Fatales 2022). Got to play tour guide for an American friend who had never really been to the area aside from the airport. I have some photos elsewhere showing my visit to one of the Smithsonians as well.
I had the privilege to see my first MLB game with Washington facing Cincinnati!
I flew in to be part of Frost Fatales 2022. It was my first time in nearly four years returning to the DC area, but my first being in and around the beltway primarily. We raised a lot of money for an excellent charity that week!
Unfortunately I neglected to take a lot of photos, but enjoy the pickup truck I had as a rental.
My mother and I took a trip to the provincial capital. It was the first time she and I had gone somewhere together in a very long time and likely the first in my adulthood for that matter. It was just after I got my first round of COVID-19 vaccinations so we decided to celebrate.
I took a day trip to Bowen Island which was as far remote as was permissible under restrictions imposed by the government in response to the pandemic. We took a nice hike around the island and were lucky to see some wildlife off-shore.
The island is accessible by car ferry, which itself is a 20-minute ride from Horseshoe Bay. It is for all intents and purposes part of Metro Vancouver, but due to it being an island with no fixed link to the mainland, it is fairly rural and feels detached from the region.
Still limited by the pandemic, I ventured out to the Sunshine Coast for the first time to go camping. It was the roughest camping experience I ever had as the place we camped at did not have any running water and had a logging road that I later learnt caused some damage to my car's alignment. It was otherwise a fantastic place to go camp and I'd return given the opportunity.
One scary event was that a tree collapsed right in front of my campsite, fortunately falling into the ravine behind us.
Part of a small getaway to Victoria, this trip was a bit different as the day we were to leave to go visit, the Canadian government announced a closure of land, air, and sea borders into the country, effectively making it aware that the COVID-19 pandemic was to be treated seriously. As a response, the provincial government ceased dining services for all restaurants so upon our arrival, it was difficult to find food to eat indoors. The hotel we stayed at was quiet with almost nobody around.
I am glad that we did manage to do this trip because hiking up the mountain gave me a gorgeous view.
Normally a trip to Seattle is not all that special as for a while I had been dating someone in the city (she was special but the city not so much), but in this case it was my last international trip (despite being only 200 KM away) for sometime and my first trip since a hospital stay during the summer. I was attending an all-women's security conference and the photo is interesting because during my last trip, there was a bi-level expressway which was replaced with an underground tunnel.
A friend of mine invited me to come with her to a wedding and so I decided to spend a few days there. Toronto is a place I have spent a lot of time in outside of Vancouver and I probably know it as well as if I were a resident. It was the last time I took a flight to go do something relaxing for a long time.
Instead of going home from Toronto, I had another trip lined up to attend a conference in Washington. It was a mixed affair to do this trip as I had become injured and was walking with a cane, meaning I could not do as much as I was used to. It wasn't my first trip so fortunately I did not feel like I missed out.
I got to meet former American Secretary of State, Madeline Albright on this trip and while I could have asked a lot of loaded questions, I opted to not and instead kept it to the topic at hand.
In all of my Toronto trips, I somehow always managed to never spend enough time in Kensington Market. This time around, I was on business for the week and had a lot of free time when not working.
On my way back from New York, I spent a few days in Toronto to visit a friend. I rented a car and we drove down to Niagara Falls as it was on my list of things I wanted to do in my life. The falls were neat and all, but it felt like being in Vegas, which isn't a positive thing at all. However, the nearby butterfly conservatory was amazing and is enough for me to come back to the area.
I went back to New York for the first time in six years. Sadly a relative I would have normally seen had since passed and while I was due to see other family, I had fallen sick and opted to not make my cousin's partner succumb to whatever I caught as she was due to have a child any day. A portion of the trip was for HOPE as per previous years, but I also stayed with a friend for a few days and joined her for a concert.
Second time in my life I had been inside of Dallas, but first time I ever ventured away from the airport. Went to visit a friend in the city and we did lots of cool things including visiting the National Video Game Museum.
I had a life-changing situation occur earlier in the year so it was super important that I got out of town for a week and did something different. I had always gone to Montréal on business, but never had the chance to just outright explore the city as there was never enough time. I'm going to need to do a trip like this in the city again at some point as I know I didn't cover enough ground.
Went to attend a friend's wedding in a small village outside of Bristol and on the way back, we stopped in Bath. Driving in this city was quite the adventure as this place was a resort of sorts during Roman times.
Continuing on from Bath, a stop was made at Stonehenge.
Finally made it to the centre of the Earth. London was an interesting trip as it was in the infancy of post-Brexit, so the odd time you'd see businesses showing signs they were pro-EU and then places which were not.
I really, really wish I could have said that I loved visiting Paris and the city in itself was gorgeous, but I could not enjoy this trip at all. There were things about to happen in my life that I guess were weighing down on me. That said, I really enjoyed visiting Disneyland Paris which was a bit out of character for me on trips like this, but amusement parks are still fun regardless where you are in the world.
Off with their heads. This place was really neat, but I couldn't shake off my reading of the place when I was still in university about how the lack of latrines lead to the use of corners in a fashion I won't elaborate much on.
Most gorgeous place in the world I would argue. Llamas are weird that said.
I could only spend a whole day here, but I am dying to go back.
This trip wasn't planned but I guess it was going to be the only time I'd ever visit the country. It was far cheaper than Reykjavik, which is where I was just a week before.
I cannot find any of my Belgium photos aside from this one where I was waiting to take a train to Ghent, but honestly this city has been one of my favourite places I've ever been to. The people were really nice and the food was fantastic. I even had the chance to attend a comic con of all things which was not planned for.
Not my greatest photo, but this place was really neat because it's where the North American and European continents physically meet above ground. The gap below is a space you can actually walk through and it's actually the divide itself. With some effort, you can touch them simultaneously.
This trip was bananas. I had to travel to Halifax, Montréal, and then Toronto for a business trip and found myself having to rearrange everything due to a storm. It was the first trip I ever took out to this part of the country and I did manage to visit again a year later.
The cool part of this trip was that I found an Irish bar on the outskirts of downtown that actually felt like a proper Irish pub. How did I know this? They had a broken hurling stick on the wall.
I had to visit [major computer company] for a week to try out some product that my consulting firm was considering partnering on selling. I took a photo of the "Chicago bean" on the one day that wasn't absurdly windy and cold.
The trip was a bit hard for me though as I had lost my maternal grandfather the week prior. He was a really important person in my life and I still feel sad thinking about him no longer being around even as I write this.
Visited by cousin and his husband for a few days and took a tour around the city. Despite my being Irish, I have little interest in hanging around Dublin again.
Went on a short visit to the north with the main goal seeing the basalt columns that led to the folklore of a bridge connecting Ireland to Scotland. It was clear enough on the day I was there that you could almost make out the other side of the Irish Sea.
While I am a vegetarian these days, I had one of the best beef-based dishes ever. It was my first trip to France and unlike Paris, which I visited a few years later, I actually want to go back here.
The opulence of this place is absurd. That said, it is one of two Formula 1 racing courses I've managed to set foot on.
I had a really great time visiting this city. Sadly I was sick for a few days so it was a bit rough getting around. Visiting the Palatul Parlamentului ("Palace of the Parliament") was fascinating as it provided a glimpse into the mindset of former Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu. Curtains that weighed 200 KGs and were hand-sewn were amongst the absurdities that went into creating one of the heaviest structures ever built.
This was the first time since I was a child that I paid a visit to San Francisco. I was there for a Cuban salsa congress (dance festival), but managed to squeeze in a visit to the local hacker space and visit a few friends.
