travel philosophy – Field Trip Notebook

Learning to Read Around the World

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.

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.

The first post is coming soon–from Bulgaria!

Read more about the series here, at Reading Rockets–a is a national public media literacy initiative from WETA.

Making Space for Abundance

(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?

The Case for a Modest Wedding

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.

Three Questions to Resist the Call of Beautiful Things

(Update: Many thanks to the folks at No Sidebar for publishing this piece today.)

Lovely objects still turn my head, even long after I’ve become a minimalist.

This surprised me at first. Shouldn’t I be over all those shopping urges by now?

Curating Your Travels

*At the entrance to our street in Marrakesh.*

I had a good conversation with a dear friend of mine on the phone the other day.

“How are you finding Marrakesh?” she asked.

“I love it,” I said. Then I paused. “The truth is, I’m choosing to love it. I’m curating my experience.”

The (Mostly) Public Bus Guide to Hiking Crete’s Gouverneto and Katholiko Monasteries

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.

*Worth the sweaty hike to find these hidden treasures.*

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.

The Public Bus Guide to Hiking the Samaria Gorge

If hiking is something you enjoy, you’ll want to hike the Samaria Gorge–a 16km, unique hiking experience on Crete. Any online searching for things to do on Crete will quickly uncover this scenic, iconic gorge–it’s the second most visited site on Crete (after the Palace of Knossos). Justin and I hiked it on a beautiful October day and we highly recommend it to you.

It’s multi-step, all-day excursion. The journey forms a triangle: travel south from Chania to the gorge then hike to the sea, take ferry east along the coast, then travel north back to Chania. You may be led to believe, as I was, that it’s difficult to get there. Site after site tried to steer me to guided tours, rental cars, and even taxis. But you know what will work equally well but will cost a great deal less?

Why Bulgaria? (Part II)

I started writing this on a train from Plovdiv to Sofia, kept on writing on a plane, then on a balcony in Athens overlooking a tangle of other balconies. I spent a month in Bulgaria, and now that I’m looking at it from another place and culture, I’ve finally reached a kind of answer to that question, often posed before we came.

Which is that it’s a terrible question.

Favorites

The first section of our nomadic lives was driving around the US. We had our streamlined nomadic luggage, but we also had stuff in the car–food, extra clothes, spare shoes, all kinds of this and that.

So the real test has been these last two weeks in Sofia and Plovdiv, Bulgaria, when we each have a carry-on suitcase and a backpack and that’s it.

Why Bulgaria? (Part I)

We get asked this question a lot.

In fact it’s rare that–when we mention that we’re on our way to Bulgaria–the response is something other than “Why Bulgaria?” We’ve come to refer to it as The Question.

If you were asking The Question, I could give you a list of reasons, such as these: