The Art of Roaming: Travel Tips for the Independent Globetrotter

Polizzi Generosa, Sicily, 2025

During a team meeting at work several months ago, a 20-something colleague asked about traveling abroad. He was interested but hesitant. Should he do it? The answer from the team was an unmistakable yes. 

A few of us lit up as we talked about the benefits of a journey abroad. There was consensus that international travel is a great way to expand your horizons, get a new perspective, keep your mind active, build confidence by navigating new places and unfamiliar languages and cultures, learn about the world, and maybe learn a few things about yourself. 

This conversation coupled with my recent trip to Sicily (Story coming soon!) got me thinking about travel advice. Here are a few practical tips for anyone wanting to explore the planet.

There are endless places to go and many, many ways to strike out on an adventure. This is my advice based on 15+ trips abroad since 2000. Your advice, which you can leave in the comments section of this post, is welcome but please be kind to novices and don't tell me "you're doing it wrong." I am well aware that there many things I've left out and not all tips works for all destinations.

Skiing Quadrant Mountain

Over Easter weekend Mike and I joined a few friends for a spring ski tour up Quadrant Mountain in Yellowstone National Park. 

Elements of mystery are inherent in many spring ski tours. Will there there be sufficient coverage? What will the weather do? Will the snow conditions hold up? What about the creek crossings?

As I began writing up this post I realized that our outing was very much like our tour up Sepulcher in 2021 where we asked the same questions, didn't know what to expect, and a web search that revealed nothing about skiing it. As with Sepulcher, we got very lucky and everything worked out perfectly. 

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2024-2025 Snow Update

Montana's Steenburg winter ends on February 24 so it is time to check in on this winter's snow conditions. In Bozeman we've had steady storms since just after Christmas with no real melt-downs. After 10" of snow overnight in town, about 26" of snow sit in my yard and deep piles of snow line the streets. It feels like real winter and is an especially nice change after last year's disaster.

From Sea to Shining Sea

My writing practice has really stalled. Here is another one stuck in my drafts folder. I wrote up the New York City piece shortly after I returned from that trip (Over a year ago!) but the San Francisco trip report (Last March) never materialized so I'm including a short paragraph and a few photos. 

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Things That Go Thud, Puff in the Night

A Bear Story From an Autumn Backpacking Trip
in Yellowstone National Park

Over the past decade, Mike and I have done tons of backpacking in Yellowstone National Park, throughout southwest Montana, and beyond, many times in grizzly bear country. While we have a healthy respect for bears when we are in their backyard, we do not fear them. I suspect this is due to a combination of our nature and the fact that we have seen so few of them during our many miles of backcountry travel. 

Here is the story of a spooky bear encounter we had in Yellowstone over the weekend. (As an FYI, we explored the Upper Pebble Creek/Bliss Pass area of the park and stayed in campsite 3P2.)

If you have a bear story to tell, please share it in the comments section of this post.

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A Trip to Glacier National Park

I never got around to writing about my August trip to Glacier so I'll just plop in a few photos and maybe get around to writing about it at some point.

Gardening Bliss on a Tenth of an Acre

Recently, Mike and I had houseguests that couldn't stop gushing over our house. I was flattered by this endorsement and it got me thinking of the reasons I love our house. I wanted to share a few photos and a few thoughts but the words that flowed out of my pen were mostly about the yard and garden.

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Walking Ireland's Wicklow Way - A Guide for Independent Travelers

Over the years I have come to revel in walking inn-to-inn. Although the experience isn’t as remote, wild, or free of people as backpacking, arriving at a destination on foot is still very satisfying. I have come to appreciate the convenience of carrying a smaller pack and having lodging and town services waiting for me at the end of the day. 

For our most recent trip abroad, Mike and I spent 14 days in Ireland including six days walking along the Wicklow Way. The outing offered the chance to explore a new country and the slower pace of travel allowed us to become fully immersed in a landscape different from home. In addition to the territory we discovered along the trail, our daily arrival gave us a chance to explore another new place whether it be a town or just a small inn.

Marley Park, Dublin

While many Wicklow Way trekkers go the self-guided route (A guide company books your accommodations, transports your bag, and provides support), Mike and I carried our bags and made reservations on our own. Below is a description of our walk and advice on logistics. While we walked more or less to our destination each day, there were still logistics to workout.

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Sky on Fire - Aurora Borealis May 2024

Montana’s fabulous big sky has rightfully earned its reputation as something spectacular. Stretching from horizon to horizon, even the most jaded long-time residents admire the expansive and seemingly endless overhead canopy, and visitors seeing it for the first time "oooh" and "ahhh." This past weekend, Montana’s always pleasing sky was filled with even more magic as we were treated to a display of northern lights.

If you haven’t seen them before, they are a “So this is Yale" moment that lives up to the hype. 

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Treading Lightly on the Planet

Thoughts on thrift and 14 ways I lessen my impact on the earth

When I was a little girl, I sometimes made cookies with my mother. I can still hear her say, “Your grandmother could make a dozen cookies with the batter left in that bowl” when I put what I thought was an empty bowl into the sink. I don’t know if my mother was able to get 12 cookies out of what remained, but the lesson made an impact on me and was one of many messages on thrift that I heard throughout my childhood.

My parents instilled in me the importance of taking only what you need and not wasting things. These beliefs were passed on to them from their parents who lived through the Great Depression and reinforced to them as children during World War II. I remember waiting in gas lines in the 1970s, and Jimmy Carter’s plea to turn the thermostat down and put a sweater on* was taken seriously by my family. In addition, my hometown, Randolph, New Jersey, started mandatory curbside recycling in the early 1980s and my parents were avid proponents from the start. With these messages during my formative years, it was easy to begin modifying my behavior when the evidence became overwhelming that human activities and consumption were having a major impact on climate change. 

Lately, I have been thinking about what I have been doing to lessen my impact on the planet. Here is my list. Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section of this post.

2023-2024 Snow Update

Bleak. Meager. Sporty. Lame. All of those words have been used to describe this year's winter. I have long said that a long, snowy, cold winter is just what we need to drive out all of the poseurs but this year is not the one to do it.

Glory days from last winter