Let me tell you about a little-known hike in the Franconia region of Germany.
If you’re looking for a hike filled with drama—alpine meadows, yodel-inducing high altitude vistas, and bragging rights—then this is not your hike.
But how about a path through peaceful beech trees without another soul in sight? If the world has jangled your nerves and you could you use a long wooded walk, how about one with occasional views over perfectly tended vineyards, punctuated by the prettiest imaginable Bavarian villages?
Detailed itinerary with lodging for your self-guided adventure on Turkiye’s Turquoise Coast
This is only Day 1 of hiking out of Ovacik. So much more awaits you.
For 26 days in April, we hiked 243 miles on the Lycian Way in southern Turkiye. It’s a deeply rewarding hike and might be the best adventure we’ve ever had. We hiked it inn-to-inn, meaning we had a place to stay every night and did not bring any camping equipment.
Here’s the key thing: it is completely doable to plan and execute this hike without paying a company to set it up for you.
This guide includes our full itinerary, including where we stayed and how to reach tiny mountain lodges that don’t have websites, plus packing tips and insights for a successful long hike. Read on to get started on your own inn-to-inn Lycian Way adventure.
I couldn’t be happier to tell you that I have a blog series–and eventually a book–coming out about how children are taught to read in different parts of the world. As Justin and I have been traveling, I’ve been visiting elementary schools and talking with teachers. In each location, I learn as much as I can about the language, the writing system, and how schoolchildren are taught to read it. Let me tell you, it’s been fascinating.
You know where you can really see how a community is preserving its culture and expressing its values? In the local elementary school. I’ve been inside of many.
A classroom in Kenitra, Morocco.
The best part is that this series is on Reading Rockets, the fantastic, comprehensive source for all things related to how children learn to read. I relied on Reading Rockets when I was teaching, and it just keeps getting stronger in its vast archive of good information for teachers, parents, and everyone interested in the cornerstone of education–teaching children to read.
[If you’re here from No Sidebar, thank you and welcome! Please feel free to comment–I’d love to hear from you. For postcards I write from, well, wherever we are, join me athttps://launaatlarge.substack.com/. ]
As part of our new lives as minimalists, my husband and I travel full time. We whittled our possessions down to a neat row of boxes in a friend’s basement, and we travel with a backpack and carry-on suitcase each. I can sometimes feel like I know what there is to know about living a minimalist life.
But then we spent six weeks in Japan, and my understanding of minimalism deepened.
(If you came here from No Sidebar, thank you and welcome! I love comments. I also write postcards from, well, wherever we are at https://launaatlarge.substack.com/.)
Recently I heard someone use the word abundance to explain why minimalism is not for her. I want a life of abundance, she said. Such a beautiful, positive word. Me too, I thought.
I can see what she means. She’s not the only person I’ve heard speak of minimalism like this, as the opposite of abundance and all that word implies of ample everything, handfuls of plenty, big bouquets of living large. It gave me pause to consider that these two words might be on opposite sides of a spectrum. And yet here I am with very few possessions in the minimalist life I have chosen. How do I square minimalism with a yearning for abundance? Is it true that they are mutually exclusive?
Interested in life as a full-time minimalist traveler?
In addition to my longer posts here on Field Trip Notebook, I’ve begun a series of shorter essays on Substack.
They’re postcards from, well, wherever we are.
I invite you to stop by–and subscribe. My postcards will come directly to your email inbox. It’s almost like I get to put a stamp on it and put it in the mail to you. Thanks for reading!
I recently saw an old friend who had just returned from a destination wedding on the Mayan Riviera. When I asked about it, he handed me his phone so I could flip through the photos.
A beautiful wedding. It cost a lot.
A lot.
What looks like a wedding ring is actually a time machine. Each time I look at that tiny diamond, I’m reminded of how long we’ve been together and how far we’ve come. I wouldn’t “trade it up” for anything.
This blog is about minimalism and travel, so it may feel a little off-topic to tread into the shark-infested waters of wedding costs. But stay with me on this: a decision against a dream wedding, opting for a modest wedding instead, could be the beginning of a dream life.
Hello, hikers–yes, of course you should do the famous Samaria Gorge hike, but find time in your visit to Crete for this amazing hike–two monasteries and a fabulous sea cove on the peninsula northeast of the city of Chania.
The perfect dip.
It’s rugged and the scenery is outstanding. You won’t have it to yourself, but you’ll see far fewer fellow hikers than on the Samaria Gorge. Bring along your swimsuit and take a dip in a perfect little cove of clear blue-green water, just the right temperature in the middle of a sunny, sweaty hike in early November.
