Since the stay at home order was issued for DC in response to the coronavirus pandemic, I have been walking a lot – like 3-4 hours a day sometimes! It’s been an amazing opportunity to explore this city I have lived in but never really adopted as my home. I had also already declared this year would be my year of hiking and I ventured into nearby Rock Creek Park to hike the trails instead of run on the running path for the first time in February. Now that my weekends are basically wide open, I’ve been going on increasingly longer hikes in the park, which culminated last Saturday when I hiked the full Rock Creek Park loop.

After sharing that accomplishment on Facebook, my friend Ed asked me if I had seen the Capitol Stones in the park.

The what?

It only took me a quick read of the Atlas Obscura article Ed shared with me to be completely intrigued – and to start planning my next hike!

In short, the Capitol Stones are pieces of the U.S. Capitol Building that were dumped in Rock Creek Park after renovations to the building in 1958. At that time, the east front of the building was expanded and rebuilt in marble. This project was the brainchild of the Capitol Architect, J. George Stewart, a former one-term congressman from Delaware with no architectural training (seems like he would fit in well with the current administration…). While the project moved ahead, they hadn’t thought about what to do with the stones that were removed (this also sounds familiar…).

The stones eventually went to the Capitol Power Plant, where they remained until 1975. Then, they were transferred to a National Park Service facility inside Rock Creek Park, where they have sat ever since. It’s likely other stones have been added from later renovations to the Capitol’s west façade.

I couldn’t believe that these pieces of history, some of which may date back to 1818, when the Capitol was rebuilt following the War of 1812, have just sitting in this popular park in the heart of the city for the past 45 years. And when I looked at a map of where they are located, I had been just a few hundred yards away at one point when I hiked the Rock Creek Park loop. I assumed they must be very well hidden; otherwise, why had I never heard about them before?

So this morning I set off to find the stones. My mission was made much easier by the fact that REI’s Hiking Project app shows exactly where they are. Since I was up for a nice hike anyway, I didn’t take the most direct route. I usually enter the park walking along the footpath on Piney Branch Drive. From there, it’s a short walk to the Bluff Bridge and the start of the Western Ridge Trail. I followed that north, past the Horse Arena, and then switched to the White Horse Trail, which leads to the Rock Creek Park Horse Center. The center is currently closed due to the pandemic, but it was easy enough to follow the trail past the center as it turned in to what the Hiking Project app calls Cross Trail #6 or the Rapids Bridge Loop. Whatever it’s called, there is no trail sign, but the trail is obvious.

After just a couple minutes, I spotted four people up ahead of me, emerging from the trees and bushes on the right side of the trail. When I reached the point where they’d been, I found myself looking right at an enormous pile of sandstone bricks.

But it wasn’t just one pile. There were probably a dozen or more piles. Some were stacked nicely, one stone right on top of the other. But others looked like they’d just been scattered by a dump truck. While many were nothing more than rectangular bricks, some clearly had once been part of the ornamental façade. I found many that had a letter and number inscribed on one end of the brick, which I can only guess refers to its former location in the Capitol Building.

After about 20 minutes of exploring and taking pictures, I continued my hike, following the trail all the down way to Rock Creek.

There about half a dozen different hiking routes you could take to get to the Capitol Stones, depending on where you want to start and how much time you have. If you’re driving, you can park as close as the Rock Creek Park Horse Center or the Rock Creek Park Nature Center. Both are most accessible by taking Glover Rd NW south from Military Rd NW.

What’s the most unusual site you’ve discovered in your own backyard?

I arrived late at night after a long day of travel that included a prop plane flight to Maun, Botswana; an electrical fire and evacuation of the terminal in Maun; a flight to Johannesburg; and finally, a flight to Cape Town. I took a taxi to my hotel near the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront – the Protea Hotel Cape Town Waterfront Breakwater Lodge. Protea is part of the Marriott family, so I was able to use points for my stay (fun fact: Marriott points go much further in Africa than they do at home!). Unfortunately, I arrived so late, the hotel restaurant was already closed and there was nothing within walking distance at that hour, so I went to bed hungry.

Day One in Cape Town

For my first full day in Cape Town, I booked a morning tour and cooking class with Cape Fusion Tours. My guide, a white South African woman, picked me up from my hotel promptly at 9 a.m. and immediately delved into a historical overview of the city. It did not take long for me to realize how little I really knew about South Africa aside from being aware of its history of apartheid. One of the things that struck me right away was that my guide used the word “coloured” to describe South Africans of mixed race. That is not a word I am used to hearing used in the United States today and it initially made me a little uncomfortable. I listened intently as my guide rattled off two centuries’ worth of South African history in about 20 minutes, truly absorbing only a fraction of the major players and incidents preceded apartheid and vowing to learn more.

After a stop at a crowded coffee shop, we drove around the area known as District Six and dropped into the District Six Museum. This was high on my list of must-sees in Cape Town, so I was disappointed when we only spent a few minutes in the lobby. Given the timing of my visit and other activities I had planned, I wouldn’t have another chance to visit. District Six was a lively inner-city neighborhood populated by about 60,000 people in 1966. My guide raved about the music scene, likening it to New Orleans. Under apartheid, though, it was designated a “white area” and those thousands of people were forcibly removed, their homes bulldozed. The demolition led to an outcry throughout South Africa and beyond and as a result, was never really redeveloped as planned. Much of it still stood vacant when I visited in 2017.

Our next stop was at the home of Gamidah Jacobs in the very colorful Bo-Kaap neighborhood. And when I say colorful, I mean colorful: if you have seen a picture of Cape Town with rows of homes painted bright green, pink and blue, you’ve seen a picture of the Bo-Kaap. This is the heart of Cape Town’s Muslim community and many, if not most, residents are descended from slaves brought in by the Dutch from India, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and other parts of Africa. They became known as the Cape Malay and I was going to Gamidah’s home to take a Cape Malay cooking class.

Gamidah was an absolute delight and it was a wonderful introduction to Cape Town and South Africa to get to spend a few hours in someone’s home, learning how to cook their native cuisine. I admit, I don’t cook much at home. But I love taking cooking classes and food tours when I travel to learn more about the local culture and cuisine. This is especially true since I have Celiac and must be careful to avoid anything with gluten. With Gamidah, I learned to make a chicken curry, samosas (which I couldn’t eat because they’re made with wheat flour), a flatbread made from chickpea flour called socco and chili bites, which were sort of like spicy falafel. And spoiler alert: I actually made the chili bites once I returned home!

After lunch, I did a short walking tour of the Bo-Kaap and then decided to make the most of the sunny afternoon and head up to Table Mountain, the most iconic landmark in Cape Town. While I had thought I might spend a day hiking to the top and back down again, the weather forecast for the next couple days was questionable and I didn’t want to miss the chance to take in the view on a clear day. Once I disembarked the cable car at the top, I realized how ill-prepared I was to fully explore: I was wearing jeans with the temperature well over 80. I forgot sunscreen. I didn’t have any water. And, because I arrived late in the day, I didn’t have enough time to make the short hike to Maclear’s Beacon, the highest point on Table Mountain. At least the views did not disappoint!

Day Two

For my second day in Cape Town, I got out of the city and took a group tour along the Cape Peninsula with Daytrippers. This was a whirlwind day, but an easy way to see all the major sights on the peninsula. We stopped first at Houts Bay, where we took a boat ride out to see the seals. Then we did an optional bike ride in Cape Point National Park to a spot for our picnic lunch. From there, we drove to the Cape Point Lighthouse, where we hiked to the top for some incredible views, followed by a short hike out to the Cape of Good Hope. Finally, we barely made it to Simon’s Town and Boulder Beach before it closed. I may have cried if we hadn’t made it because Boulder Beach is where you get to see hundreds of penguins up close. We had about 30 minutes there, but I probably could’ve spent hours.

Day Three

The questionable weather I’d been anticipating arrived on my third, and last, full day in Cape Town, but luckily the wind and rain stayed away long enough for me to take a trip to Robben Island first thing in the morning. The island had been home to political prisoners for centuries before Nelson Mandela arrived in 1964. The last political prisoners weren’t released until 1991 and the island became a museum, and later a UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 1999. Visiting the island requires a short ferry trip (which can be very weather dependent) to the island. Once there, you take a bus tour around the island and finally, a tour on foot of the prison building itself. While former inmates typically lead the prison tours, my group was instead led by a twenty-something who seemed to step in at the last minute because there weren’t enough guides available. While she did her best to describe what the inmates, including Mandela, would’ve experienced, it certainly wasn’t the same as hearing it firsthand.

After returning to Cape Town, I grabbed lunch and then started a Hop-On, Hop-Off bus tour with City Sightseeing. This was a great value as it included three possible routes, plus two free walking tours and an optional township experience add-on. I started with the free historic walking tour, then took the blue route to the Imizamo Yethu township, where I ended up with a private walk through the township by a local resident. Imizamo Yethu was settled in the 1980s by Xhosa job seekers coming to Cape Town from the Eastern Cape (Xhosa is the second largest ethnic group in South Africa after the Zulu). Small shacks packed tightly together on a hillside house some 30,000 people. Most lack running water, electricity or a sewer system. On my tour, I visited several shops and a preschool and day care and had a chance to speak with a few residents. While I stayed in poor rural villages in Mali in 2014, I don’t think I’ve seen so much urban poverty so up close before (and I took no pictures out of respect for the residents).

If I Had More Time

I was able to see a lot in Cape Town in just three days, but it was very rushed. Five or six days would have been better. With extra time, I would have been able to visit some museums, including the District Six Museum. I could have spent a day visiting the nearby wineries and another day hiking up to Table Mountain. And I would have had more time to simply wander and get a better feel for the city. Of course, now I have a reason to go back some time soon!

I fully admit, I didn’t pay much attention to the coronavirus through most of January and February. I recall hearing about it for the first time while I was in India in late January. My friend Kevin, who I was traveling with, was flying out of India on Air China through Beijing. We wondered what his experience would be like and what kind of screening he might be subject to, both transferring through Beijing and landing in California. But then I flew back home via Paris and thoughts of the coronavirus quickly left my mind, not to return until early March.

I can’t say I remember my thought process, or what triggered me to start paying attention, but I clearly was by the first week of March. Ironically, on March 6, I both shared an article on Facebook about how the country was botching its coronavirus testing and launched the group for my annual March Madness pool. On March 7, I shared my experience traveling in West Africa during the Ebola crisis in 2014 and what happened when I returned to the United States and bemoaned the fact that we didn’t seem to be taking any of the same precautions against the coronavirus. But even then, I was moving ahead with plans to fly to Las Vegas on March 13, hike in Death Valley and drive down to Palm Springs for the Indian Wells tennis tournament. I booked flights to Chicago for the following weekend to reconnect with friends I met doing improv almost a decade ago and run the Shamrock Shuffle. I exchanged emails with someone in Bosnia about my plans to hike the Via Dinarica trail later this summer.

Around the same time, the university where I work had brought students home from studying abroad in a handful of countries and started discussing plans to keep students off campus for the two weeks after spring break, which was the week of March 16. The Indian Wells tennis tournament became the first high-profile sporting event in the U.S. to be cancelled, but I planned to go ahead with my trip, spending my time hiking in Death Valley and Red Rock Canyon instead. Then, on Wednesday, March 11, my boss directed our division to plan to work from home starting March 18 (as staff, we got a couple days off as a mini-spring break). That night, I devised a new plan to still fly to Vegas, spend a few days hiking and then rent a car to do a several-day road trip to Chicago while working remotely. In my mind, it would be safe. I’d be far away from people while hiking in the desert. I’d cut out two flights from my original plans.  And even if the events I planned to attend in Chicago were cancelled, I could spend time catching up with old friends one-on-one or in small groups.

I cancelled flights, changed hotel reservations and updated my car rental. Then I popped onto Twitter and saw the news about NBA player Rudy Gobert testing positive for Covid-19, followed shortly by the announcement that the NBA was suspending its season. I saw images of Nebraska basketball coach Fred Hoiberg hunched over on the bench during a Big Ten tournament game and read he’d been rushed to the hospital after the game. I realized if Hoiberg tested positive, the Big Ten tournament would be off and most likely all Big Ten teams would be out of March Madness. When word came back later that he *only* had the flu (but still, don’t get me started on how irresponsible it was of him to try to coach in that condition!), it seemed like maybe the Big Dance would be safe.

And then, on Thursday, March 12, shit got real.

For those of us who lived through 9/11, I feel like there will always be the United States pre-9/11 and the country after. For me, being overseas at the time, I can still remember landing back in Chicago two weeks later and feeling like I had landed in a different country.

I can’t help but wonder if years from now we will look back at March 12, 2020 in a similar light: the country before Covid-19 disrupted our daily lives and put an abrupt end to the pastimes that typically bring us together, and the country after. News poured in throughout the day: The Big Ten tournament cancelled. Other tournament games stopped mid-game. March Madness cancelled. Major League Baseball cancelled. The National Hockey League cancelled. And then, around 4 p.m., I stood in a colleague’s office and somberly watched Maryland Governor Larry Hogan announce public schools would close immediately, large gatherings were banned, and he activated the National Guard. As we filed out of the office that day, we said goodbye, unsure when we would see each other in person again.

I got home that evening and cancelled everything. It was overwhelmingly clear that I should not be getting on an airplane to go anywhere. I spent Friday “working from home” while glued to the TV, watching the constant updates from across the country and bemoaning the abysmal response from our federal government. By that night, I knew I needed to get away for a few days for my own sanity, so I booked a rental car and made plans to drive to Shenandoah National Park on Sunday to spend a couple days offline and away from people. I considered it “extreme social distancing” although since then, I’ve seen the parks discourage exactly what I did.

While I was in Shenandoah, hiking for up to 10 hours a day, I started thinking about writing again. Long-time readers of this blog know that I’ve had a few stops and starts since I came back from my career break trip in 2012. As the travel blogging industry evolved and as I got pulled increasingly back into “normal” life, it became more of a challenge to keep up with my writing and do everything I needed to do to have a “successful” blog. On top of it, I wanted to throw myself into finally writing a book about my career break trip and I just didn’t have enough in me to both write the book and keep up the blog.

Now, that all looks very different. Without the endless distractions of sport to watch, work events and social obligations, I have more free time than I’ve had since I was traveling the world back in 2011-2012. I am still spending my 9 to 5 every day working (mostly), but my evenings and weekends are suddenly free of any commitments for the foreseeable future. I know I am very lucky in that regard. I want to try to take advantage of that extra time and start writing again on a regular basis. Not only do I have a draft of my book to revise, but I have tons of past trips that I would love to write about. I also sort of hope that writing about my past travels will be therapeutic at a time when I have no idea when I’ll be able to travel again.

So consider this the first of what will hopefully be many blog posts to come. I’m not sure yet if I’ll try to pick up where I left off, writing about my trip to Africa back in 2017 or if I’ll start with my most recent trip to India in January, but whatever I write, I hope at least some of you will find it enjoyable or helpful as you dream of what you might do and where you might go when this is all over. In the meantime, stay safe and stay home!

It was still pitch-black outside when I heard the ring of my iPhone alarm go off, signaling that it was time to crawl out of my cozy warm bed to get dressed before my morning tea arrived. My iPhone screen showed it was just 5:30 a.m. – a god-awful time to be waking up while on vacation, but that’s how a safari vacation works. Animals are the most active in the early morning and at night, so you must be an early bird to make the most of the safari experience.

This morning would be a bush walk on Chief’s Island in the Okavango Delta, so I skipped showering and just slipped on a fresh set of clothes and washed my face before I heard the call of someone outside my tent, bringing me hot tea to kickstart the morning. About 15 minutes later, I peeked outside of my tent and saw that it was just light enough outside for me to venture to the main reception area on my own – because animals like elephants and hippos can come through camp at any time, we were required to be escorted to and from our tents in the dark. But with the sun just starting to rise in the distance, I could safely go on my own.

After a very light breakfast, we hopped in a motorboat to take us to Chief’s Island to start our bush walk, spotting a nice herd of elephants along the way. The bush walk itself was a little nerve-wracking since we were just walking through the bush without much of a path and animals could be anywhere. Since two National Geographic explorers had recently been charged and stabbed by a buffalo, I was particularly nervous about running into that least attractive member of the Big Five.

Not long after we started the walk, we spotted elephants in the distance. And then suddenly, they weren’t so far away. And then, one was almost right in front of us, heading in our direction! Our guide, who was not carrying a gun, was carrying some noise-making device and used that to scare the elephant away – but not until after urgently whispering to the rest of us to get behind him and walk slowly backwards away from the elephant.  I don’t think we were ever really in danger, but my heart certainly skipped a few beats!

During our three-hour walk, we also saw zebra, wildebeest, impala and baboons – all from a good distance, with no more close encounters!

We returned to the camp around 11 a.m. and had brunch/early lunch and then enjoyed a few hours of downtime before afternoon tea and another boat excursion. I took advantage of the sun popping out (it overcast throughout our walk) to take a shower in the outdoor shower attached to my tent. And then I spent a couple hours sitting on the deck outside my tent, reading and staring out at the bush. It was so incredibly peaceful and so nice to get away from everything for a while (have I mentioned I did not have internet access?).

Our boat excursion that evening took us in the opposite direction from where we had gone previously. Not that I really knew where we were going anyway – the Okavango Delta is like a never-ending swamp with no road access and just a whole maze of “rivers” and tributaries and streams that weave around dozens of islands. Because our close call with the elephant that morning wasn’t enough, we had a close encounter with a hippo during this boat trip. We spotted three hippos not far from the boat and as we were stopping for photos, one of the three dipped all the way under the water and seemed to be swimming toward us. Almost as soon as he did, our guide instructed us, “you take pictures, then we leave fast.”

And that’s exactly what we did.

As the sun started to set, we stopped on a small island for a “sundowner” – a fancy word for enjoying a drink as the sun goes down – and then it was back to camp for dinner and another early bedtime. Although I was in bed by 9:30, though, I laid awake for hours listening to the sound of an elephant splashing around in the marsh not far from my tent. I learned the next morning that it was right next to the tent just down from mine and they could feel their tent shaking throughout the night!

The next morning was another bush walk with plenty of zebra, wildebeest and impala sightings, as well as an elephant and a buffalo from the boat on the way back to camp. After brunch, we had the option to do another boat ride during the afternoon – kind of unusual as normally afternoons on safari are rest time, but of course I said yes. After a quick stop back for tea time, we headed out once more, this time in dugout canoes called mokoros. As we departed, I commented to our guide that I still hadn’t seen a giraffe. Well, ask and you shall receive!

Our guide had been with a different group in the morning and had spotted a group of giraffes. He managed to spot a couple near the same spot as we were in our mokoros. No one else saw them and we were confused when he pulled up on a riverbank and told us to get out of the boats. But after walking just a few feet, we spotted the first one, and then as we walked further, could see a couple more! They were so beautiful.

I had one more morning before I was scheduled to fly out to Maun and that was spent on yet another bush walk. And within minutes, we spotted another family of giraffes. I was so thrilled! We followed them for what seemed like an hour and as the sun slowly rose, the lighting was perfect for giraffe photography.

After we finally left the giraffes (or really, they left us), we continued the walk and almost immediately spotted a big pile of buffalo poo. This freaked me out because of the recent incident with the NatGeo explorers and it is known to be one of the most dangerous animals to encounter in the wild. After our guide pointed out some buffalo tracks heading in one direction, I was quite relieved that we headed the other way. My fears rose again, though, as we made our way back to our boat at the end of the walk. The guide stopped after hearing some rustling in the trees to the left of us and quietly muttered, “buffalo.” As soon as he did, I picked up my pace and wanted nothing more to return to the boat!

By mid-morning, we were back at the camp and I was taking a quick shower before transferring to the airstrip for my flight to Maun. From there, I would connect to Cape Town and start what would be more than two full weeks in South Africa. But it was safe to say I was already hooked on the safari experience!

After spending less than 48 hours in Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe to kick off a three-week trip to southern Africa, I headed across the border to the airport in Kasane, Botswana to start my journey to the Okavango Delta – a trip that started with just a bit of drama.

My ultimate destination in the Okavango Delta was Gunn’s Camp and I had booked my flight from Kasane to the camp through the camp staff. To get to Kasane, I needed to book a transfer car from Victoria Falls, which I did through my hotel, the Ilala Lodge. Simple, right? Not so much.

Even prior to my arrival in Zimbabwe, the Gunn’s staff kept asking me when I would arrive in Kasane so they could confirm my flight. And the hotel staff kept asking when my flight was so they could schedule my transfer. Chicken, egg, chicken, egg.

Long story short, I ultimately left Victoria Falls by private transfer around 11 a.m. to get to the Kasane airport for a scheduled 2 p.m. flight. The border crossing between Zimbabwe and Botswana was painless and quick and the only hiccup was that the driver who was supposed to meet me at the border didn’t show up, so my Zimbabwean driver ended up taking me all the way to Kasane.

I arrived at a one-room, mostly empty airport around 1 p.m. My airline, Moremi Air, didn’t have its own counter, so I checked in at another one, receiving a handwritten boarding pass after my bags were weighed and checked. I was taking a puddle-jumper flight to the safari camp, so luggage regulations were strict: only 15 kilograms total and luggage had to be soft-sided; no rollerboard suitcases or backpacks with frames. After checking in, I learned that my flight had been pushed back to 2:50 p.m.

Around 2 p.m., I looked up from my Kindle and realized that the entire airport had cleared out and it seemed like the few remaining staff were packing up to go home. Butterflies started churning in my stomach and I started formulating a plan B in case there actually wasn’t a flight going to the Okavango Delta that afternoon. Of course, I panicked for nothing. Promptly at 2:15 p.m., another group arrived, and I could hear planes landing on the runway. There were six others: two German couples and two Austrian women. To my shock and amusement, the two Austrian women were traveling with massive hard-sided suitcases, which quickly earned them the wrath of the check-in guy, who said he would have to check with the pilot to see if he would allow the suitcases. I bit my tongue as they claimed that their travel agent told them their luggage was fine; I had received multiple instructions throughout my booking process reminding me of the restrictions, so I can’t imagine they didn’t as well.

By 3 p.m., we were in the air! Flying over the Okavango Delta was incredible; the flight lasted about an hour and 20 minutes and for most of it, we were flying low enough not only to see animals below us, but to take pictures! I saw lots of elephants, as well as zebra, giraffes and even hippos out of the water. The pilot also helped us out by pointing out the animals he saw ahead of him and dipping low so people sitting on both sides of the plane got good views. I couldn’t help but think about the fact that the flight was cheaper than my Victoria Falls helicopter excursion, but more than four times as long and was more entertaining!

We landed just after 4 p.m. and Andy, the camp manager met us at the airstrip and led us to the entrance of the camps, which was just a short walk away. As we enjoyed glasses of juice, we listened to an overview of the camp and the rules (don’t walk around alone at night!), and then went to drop our bags in our tents before heading out on a short mokoro (dugout canoe) ride, so we would at least get some activity on our first day. It was great to get out on the water as the sun set and we got to enjoy our first wildlife spotting, albeit giraffe very far in the distance.

Now, a note about the “tents” and this “camp.” These are not like old-fashioned camping tents that you pitch on the ground and snuggle into in a sleeping bag. No, these are permanent structures with solid floors, real beds, and an en suite toilet and shower that just happened to be covered in canvas walls that give a “tent” feeling. This was not roughing it by any means. That said, when we returned to our tents in the dark after returning from the mokoro ride, it was cooler than I expected, so I went to close all the tent flaps to keep in the warmth – and in doing so, I unleashed a small black lizard who had been hiding inside one of the flaps! I admit I was slightly freaked out and just stood there, staring at it until a guide came to get me for dinner. I’m sure the guide got a good chuckle when I asked him to come inside and look at it; he assured me it was harmless.

Dinner was served around 7:30, with everyone who was staying at the camp eating at a communal table together. It was a small group, though, as Gunn’s only has six tents and, being shoulder season, they were not full. So that first night it was just me, a French couple on their honeymoon and the two Austrian women from the airport, who turned out to be a mother-daughter pair. Dinner was surprisingly good, with soup, entrée and dessert courses. They even had homemade gluten free bread for me! I was very impressed. Everyone called it a night by about 9 p.m., eager to rest up for what would be an early wake up call the next morning. All in all, it was an excellent start to what would be three nights and two full days in the Okavango Delta.

I spent less than 48 hours in Victoria Falls, but I managed to squeeze a lot in to that 48 hours! Arriving on a Saturday afternoon to the Victoria Falls airport on the Zimbabwe side of the Falls, I waited an annoyingly long time for my airport shuttle to whisk me away to my hotel, the Ilala Lodge.

I picked Ilala for a few reasons, the most important of which being it was just a short walk from the entrance to the Falls (from what I can tell, overall that is a plus to staying in Victoria Falls instead of in Livingstone on the Zambia side).  I also found a good deal on Hotels.com and had a coupon, so that helped too! Ilala also made it possible for me to book several activities in advance, which I really appreciated given how little time I would be there.

Although I arrived around noon, it was close to 2:30 p.m. by the time I made it to my room – just enough time for a quick nap and even quicker shower before departing for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. Despite some jetlag, the cruise was a great start to the trip. It was on a small houseboat with just me, two couples and two women with a couple adorable kids. Our choice of adult beverage and a selection of light snacks was included. It was cloudy, so there wasn’t much of a sunset, but we floated leisurely past a group of hippos and even got close to an elephant munching away on grass on the side of the river. My first elephant in the wild!

The next morning, I was up early to head to the Zambezi for a canoe trip. Now, you may have recently read about an American tourist who was attacked by a hippo during her trip to Africa. It just so happens I took my canoe trip on the same river with the same company on this trip back in April 2017.

(Spoiler alert: I was not attacked by a hippo).

Not only was I not attacked by a hippo, I barely even saw any hippos while paddling down the fourth longest river in Africa. But that didn’t make it any less scary. It was raining when we departed for the Zambezi, driving through Zambezi National Park on our way to the launch spot several miles upriver. Before we got into the canoes, we listened to a short safety briefing, grabbed life jackets and packed our valuables away in the jeeps we came in. I kept my iPhone with me in a plastic, waterproof case, but I didn’t want to risk something happening to my DSLR.

The canoes were inflatable and since our group had an odd number, I got to ride in a double canoe with our guide (I was slightly terrified to start with, so I did not want to be in a canoe all by myself!). This was great until he decided to stop and take a bathroom break along the river bank while the rest of the group continued ahead, leaving us far behind and needing to paddle like crazy to catch up! And while the river was mostly calm, we hit what felt like enormous rapids to me (they were probably small rapids to anyone else) and I freaked out, screaming with terror as I was convinced the canoe was going to capsize every time we went over a wave. My guide, however, found this hilarious and just laughed the entire time. After a couple hours on the river, we stopped for a delicious barbecue lunch before driving back through Zambezi National Park to the hotel.

After the canoe trip, I barely had time to shower and warm up before it was time to head out for a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. I splurged on the 25-minute ride and it was well worth it, flying not just over the falls, but also over the national park, which allowed us to spot dozens of animals from up above! And even on a cloudy day, flying over the Falls was spectacular.

I returned to Ilala Lodge around 5 p.m. and decided to finally venture out on foot to see the town, which took about 15 minutes! On my second lap around, I spotted a barber shop that had a sign for pedicures. In desperate need of some new polish on my toes, I popped my head in to see if they had anyone free to give me a pedicure. Ten minutes later, a twenty-something girl appeared with a bucket of water for me to soak my feet in as she gathered a variety of pedicure tools and a few polish colors for me to choose from. As she did my pedicure, I listened in on the surrounding “barber shop talk,” which included a heated argument about rules and timekeeping in English Premier League football!

I wrapped up my time in Victoria Falls the next morning by finally visiting the Falls themselves. I went around 6:30 a.m., shortly after what would have been the sunrise if it hadn’t, once again, been completely cloudy. I spent about an hour walking along the main path and stopping at several viewpoints for pictures and some video. Because it was late April and the Falls were incredibly full, I wore a poncho and only brought my iPhone, again protected by a waterproof case, prepared to get soaked (I didn’t).

By mid-morning, I was back at Ilala Lodge, packing my bags and getting ready for my ride to Kasane, across the border in Botswana, where I would continue my trip with a few days in the famous Okavango Delta. While my time in Victoria Falls was rushed, I feel like it was the perfect amount of time with the perfect number of activities. There wasn’t anything I really wanted to do there that I didn’t have time to do. The only thing I would’ve changed was the weather!

The thought of blogging again has crept into my mind now and then over the past couple years. I have visited places or experienced things and thought to myself that I wanted to share more than just my photos on Instagram or Facebook. I continue to get messages from readers with questions about my past travels and every now and then I still hear from other travelers who were inspired to travel by my blog – like this fun Twitter exchange last summer:

Speaking of writing a book, I am hard at work on a book about my career break travels – at least as hard at work as I can be while holding down a full-time job anyway. But the more I have focused on that, the more I have realized I really miss writing. Thus, another reason to pick up blogging again.

Of course, when I mentioned on Facebook that I might start blogging again, while I was met with a lot of encouragement, I was also immediately given advice about how to monetize my blog this time around. Sigh. Blogging has never been about money for me. While I tinkered with affiliate links and ads and took a handful of discounted or complimentary tickets or hotel stays in the past, I never got into blogging for the money. And I have no desire (or need) to do so now. This is purely for personal enjoyment and fulfillment, with the hope that the stories and photos I share can inspire, encourage or otherwise entertain at least someone out there who doesn’t share my last name.

So what’s coming up?

It’s funny, I wrote in my “goodbye” post that my lust for travel was waning and I had nowhere I was dying to go. I can’t even believe I ever typed those words, although looking back at what was going on in my life then, I sort of get where I was coming from. Nonetheless, since I wrote that post, I have been to Russia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia, Thailand, Myanmar, Kenya and Jordan. I can’t promise that I’ll go back and write about all those places, but I did keep journals for some of the trips and I had experiences in those countries I would like to share – like my first ever safari, visiting the genocide museum in Rwanda, running a marathon in Kenya and exploring Petra in Jordan.

I also have some great trips coming up this year, starting with a week-long trip to Uganda in March with my friend Ali of  Travel Made Simple. Then, in June I will visit Mozambique (which will be country #60 for me!) and then South Africa again, where I will run the Big Five Marathon. In the fall, I plan to head to South America (either Chile or Colombia) to check off that continent on my “run a marathon on every continent” bucket list and then, over Thanksgiving, I will take my mom to Tanzania for her first ever safari experience.

My guiding principle through this return to blogging will be to simply follow my gut and desire to write. If something happens, either in travel or in life, and I want to share, I will. But I won’t force myself to come up with content just to fill space and I won’t decide on whether to do something based on whether it would make a good story for the blog.

I hope to have my “first” post up again shortly…stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

I think the title of this post says it all: this is the end of the road for me as a travel blogger. Blogging is no  longer serving me, growing me or making me happy.

Anyone who has been following me for the last year shouldn’t be surprised by this decision. I wrote back in March about having a never ending case of writer’s block and that I wouldn’t write again until I really felt like it. I did manage to get a couple blog posts up about my experience running the Great Wall Marathon and volunteering with pandas in China, but other than those, I have spent the last few months with a constant, nagging feeling of “I should really write a blog post.”

I have made lists of blog post ideas to write. I even start drafting them in my head while I’m out walking around or going for a run. I was going to write about how I did on my 14 Things Before 40 List. I was going to write about things I learned in my thirties as I get ready to turn 40. I even have one more post about China sitting half-written that I just can’t get around to finishing. But I just can’t put pen to paper (or, in this case, fingers to keyboard). For a while, I thought it was just that I was so busy traveling for work after I got back from China. But now that I have spent the last three weeks in D.C. with pretty much nothing else to do and still haven’t been able to bring myself to write, I know it’s time to call it quits.

When I first started this blog, I couldn’t stop working on it. I spent hours figuring out what plug-ins to add and what fonts to use and how to size my photos and, of course, writing – hours and hours of writing. I absolutely loved it.

And now, I just don’t. Writing a blog post or editing photos are items on my to-do list that I have no desire to check off.

On top of my massive writer’s block, my lust for travel is waning. Yes, I leave on Thursday for Russia and the Kamchatka Peninsula (ticking off a huge bucket list item), but after that, I have nothing else planned beyond several work trips around the U.S. It’s been a long time since I haven’t had a major trip to look forward to and I am okay with that. There is nowhere I am dying to go next and I really want to spend more time getting to know D.C. and being around enough to build relationships here. My priorities have shifted and while travel is still important, it is no longer at the top of the list.

So all of this brings me to the end of this blog.

I have pre-paid for another year of hosting and my domain name, so it will be up for at least that long for anyone who wants to peruse the archives.

When I get back from Russia the first week of September, I will turn off comments for the whole site, but please feel free to continue to email me with travel-related questions and I will respond as quickly as I can. At that time, I will also end my FeedBlitz subscription so the RSS feed will go away for anyone who has subscribed that way.

I will continue to be active on social media, so I hope you’ll follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and/or Snapchat (@katieaune on all platforms).

Whether you’ve been following for one year or five years, thank you sooooo much for your friendship and support – your comments and emails have meant so much and have made this whole journey incredibly worthwhile. Thank you!!

p.s. Although my desire to write has waned, I would still love to find opportunities (i.e., conferences, etc.) to speak to people about travel, so if anyone has any leads or ideas, please let me know!

When I started planning my recent trip to China, I knew I wanted to visit Chengdu to see China’s famous giant pandas. Most tourists go to the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Base to catch a glimpse of this endangered animal, but the base doesn’t offer any opportunities to get up close and personal with the pandas. That was fine with me until I discovered there was another option: I could volunteer with pandas at the relatively new Dujiangyan Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP), also just outside of Chengdu near the city of Dujiangyan.

I learned about Dujiangyan on a tour company website – and the tour company wanted to charge me a whopping $600 to take me to the center and back. As I investigated more, I found several other companies offering this option, but all charging upwards of $400 for a solo traveler. If you’re like me, your reaction to that is “oh hell no!”

But the internet is vast and as I dug deeper, I found detailed information about how to volunteer with pandas at the center, how to get there and contact information for the center itself. I reached out and they responded quickly, informing me it was around $100 to volunteer for a day and sending me an application form and a medical form to be completed by my doctor. The medical form was a little intimidating as it asked for all sorts of information and test results that are not typically part of a routine physical in the United States (like an EKG and chest x-ray!). Luckily, my contact at the center said I could skip those.

I arrived in Chengdu the afternoon before I was scheduled to volunteer. The desk person at my hotel in the center of the city told me to take a bus from the Cha Dian Zi bus station to Dujiangyan, where I could either catch a taxi or take bus 23 to the panda center. I was told buses left every 15 minutes beginning at 6:30 a.m., but it turned out the buses didn’t start leaving until 7:00 and the bus I got on didn’t leave until about 7:15.

I arrived in Dujiangyan an hour later and caught bus 23 from out in front of the bus station. It was a local bus so it stopped often, which meant it took about 45 minutes to get to the panda center! Also, the center is not a normal stop on the route, so I had the name of the center written in Chinese for me to show the bus driver so he could tell me where to get off. While I was supposed to be there by 8:45, I didn’t arrive until just after 9:00.

What I should have done instead was take the train from Chengdu to the Qingcheng Mountain Station or take the bus all the way to QingCheng. Bus 23 also runs from QingCheng to the panda center, but it is only about 10-15 minutes away instead of 45! Alternatively, I could’ve still taken the bus to Dujiangyan, but caught a taxi instead, which would have been more direct. Note that if you do the train, book your train in both directions at least a day in advance as they do sell out!

Either way, transport both ways cost no more than about $15, so I was saving a huge amount over booking the whole thing with a tour company!

Once I arrived, an English-speaking guide named Elsa met me and ushered me back to an office where a French couple was getting checked in to volunteer as well. I paid the fee in cash, picked up a long-sleeve, bright green volunteer shirt and slipped a volunteer lanyard around my neck. We were able to keep our cameras and phones with us and, in addition to the pictures I took  with my phone, Elsa would often grab my camera to take pictures of me in action.

I started in the enclosure for Tai Shan, a giant panda who coincidentally was born in 2005 at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. – just a 10-minute walk from my home! Elsa introduced me to Tai Shan’s keeper, who spoke just a few words of English. My first task was to help her clean Tai Shan’s indoor and outdoor enclosures, starting with sweeping up panda poo outside.

I immediately regretted not putting my hair into a ponytail as the wind blew it every which way (but mostly in my face) as I tried to shovel large chunks of yellow-colored panda poo into a metal dustpan. I also realized I had an audience as a group of Chinese tourists gathered near a wall overlooking the enclosure, their eyes fixed on my every move. Luckily, there wasn’t a whole lot of panda poo to be cleaned up outside, so I soon moved inside. After scooping up all the poo in there, I sprayed down the pen and scrubbed the walls clean before moving on to a second enclosure.

After cleaning came a break during which Elsa led me and the French couple around the park to look at both giant pandas and red pandas. Then I got to spend a whole 30 seconds getting my picture taken with a baby panda. I paid extra for this and it wasn’t cheap – and if I had known for sure what was to come next, I may not have bothered, but I considered it a donation to a good cause so it didn’t bother me too much (and it was still less than the $600 I would have paid to go through a tour company, where most of my money would not have gone to the panda center at all!).

Next up was the highlight of the day for me – feeding the pandas!!

I got to feed both Tai Shan and another panda, Yuan Yuan. The keeper showed me how the pandas were trained to put an arm through the cage door and grab onto a shelf sticking out from the door to signal that they were ready to eat. Once each did that, I would give them a bit of “panda cake” – a homemade concoction of soy, vegetables and a few other ingredients, all designed to provide the pandas with more nutrients than their typical diet of bamboo offers. Needless to say, this was SO COOL. (side note: check out the size of the claws in the pictures below!)

And I got to do it again in the afternoon!

The rest of the volunteer experience consisted of eating lunch in the staff cafeteria, breaking up bamboo and carrying it into the panda enclosures, watching a documentary about efforts to train pandas for release into the wild (which was produced by National Geographic so I had already seen it when it screened at work!), making panda cakes ourselves in the “panda kitchen” and spending another hour wandering around the center watching the pandas.

We lucked out because pandas typically don’t care for the afternoon heat and get quite lazy, often retreating to their indoor spaces to get out of the sun. But it clouded over and cooled off by about 3:00 p.m., just as we finished up everything else, so there were quite a few pandas out and about when we did our last lap around the center.

All in all, the opportunity to volunteer with pandas was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that was well worth it! I occasionally felt like we were causing more work for the keepers than really helping, but I thought the whole experience was well-designed to give volunteers a taste of what is required to care for the pandas. And after being so close to them, I can’t imagine anyone leaving and not caring more about protecting these adorable animals. Not to mention, the fees benefit panda research and conservation, so it seems to be a win-win overall.

I kicked off my recent trip to China with two days in Hong Kong, but I have to admit, I wasn’t particularly excited about the stop. I pictured Hong Kong being nothing more than a crowded city full of skyscrapers with little of cultural interest to me. Indeed, many of the recommendations I got from fellow travelers focused on the foodie scene and nightlife, neither of which really matter to me when I’m traveling.

I am happy to admit that I was wrong. When I left Hong Kong after just 48 hours, I was wishing I had more time. So how did I spend the two days I did have?

I was up early on my first day due to jet lag, so I made the most of it. After a workout in the hotel fitness center and an early breakfast, I took advantage of the hotel shuttle to Hong Kong Central Station, where I took the superefficient, super clean MTR (Mass Transit Railway) to Tung Chung, a town on Lantau Island (the same island as the airport). My target was the Big Buddha and the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car, which takes riders on an amazingly scenic 25-minute ride from Tung Chung to the Po Lin Monastery at the base of the Big Buddha. Unfortunately, I have to take others’ word for it because the cable car happened to be closed for maintenance the two days I was in Hong Kong!

Luckily, you can get up to the Big Buddha by bus instead. After a bit of poking around in the wrong bus terminal, I finally spotted signs for the right one and got the last seat on bus #23 that was about to leave. An hour later, I was climbing the 260+ steps up to the Big Buddha, which is one of the largest seated Buddha images in the world.

After climbing down from the Buddha, I spent a half hour exploring the Po Lin Monastery.  It was nearly empty and quite peaceful – and gave me the opportunity to take one of my favorite pictures of the entire trip: a Chinese man using a powerful zoom lens to take a picture of the Hall of Ten Thousand Buddhas, right in front of a sign that says “no photos.”

When I was ready to leave, I decided to take a four-mile footpath back down to Tung Chung, which was recommended by my guidebook. It was easy to find the start of the path and the first hour of the walk was quite nice and relatively well-marked. On two occasions I hit forks in the path with no signage and had to backtrack slightly, but otherwise it was easy to follow.

That is, until I found myself on an open road with no signs in sight. I had passed a fork about 10 minutes earlier, but it was quite uphill and I really didn’t want to backtrack to see if I had taken a wrong turn. I lucked out when I turned and saw five women in running gear heading my way. I asked the first one if I was heading in the right direction and she confirmed I was. We ended up chatting and before long, I was joining the group of American, Canadian and Australian expats for Indian food! And as it turned out, two of them would be running the half marathon in connection with the Great Wall Marathon the next weekend – nice coincidence!

On the other hand, I definitely would not have found my way back to Tung Chung easily on my own, so I would not recommend taking the footpath down from Po Lin and the Big Buddha. Take the bus or cable car instead.

Back in central Hong Kong, I decided to take advantage of the fact that it was a sunny, clear afternoon and head up to Victoria Peak. I took the tram up, which had some long lines (that I think I could’ve avoided by just paying with my Octopus Card, but instead I got sucked into purchasing a whole tram and viewing platform package thing). I have to admit that, while the view from the viewing platform at the top of the peak was impressive, everything else was a bit of a letdown. It was just so commercialized! There was even a Bubba Gump Shrimp Company! Granted, my jet lag was also really starting to bring me down at that point, so that probably affected my impression as well. While I had planned to take a walk around the peak, I was pretty tired and hungry at this point so instead got some ridiculously expensive ice cream and then took the tram back down.

On my way back to my hotel (which was located a bit out of the way in an up and coming area called Kennedy Town), I stopped at a small Vietnamese restaurant called Noodle Mi. Several other gluten free travelers recommended it as a great gluten free option and it didn’t disappoint. I got lemongrass chicken with rice vermicelli and definitely left satisfied!

My second day in Hong Kong a completely different experience. I opted for a lazier day (i.e., less walking) and got tickets for the Big Bus hop-on hop-off tour – and hoped the rain would stay away as it was completely overcast. I did two tour routes: first to Stanley and Aberdeen on the south side of Hong Kong Island and second through Kowloon. The tours were definitely a great way to learn more about the history of Hong Kong and the different islands and neighborhoods within the islands.

I hopped off in Stanley to visit the market that I had heard so much about and was sorely disappointed. Seriously, I kept walking around wondering where the rest of it was, it felt so small. That said, it was nice to get away from the craziness of central Hong Kong for a bit and I think the area would have been nice to explore at a leisurely pace for half a day.

At the stop in Aberdeen, we had a chance to ride in a boat called a sampan to get a closer look at the dozens of wooden fishing boats that populate the harbor.

Back in central Hong Kong, I took the famous Star Ferry across the harbor to catch the tour around Kowloon. Because it was so dreary, the ferry ride was anticlimactic as the views were all gray and cloudy. I really should have done the ferry ride on my first night in Hong Kong, but I was just too tired.

I skipped out of the Kowloon tour a few stops early so I could catch the ferry back to central and check out of my hotel to go to the airport. Just as I did when I arrived, I took the Airport Express train back to the airport, with the added bonus that I was able to check in for my flight – and check my suitcase – at the Airport Express station in central before taking the train. So I was all set when I got to the airport 25 minutes later and didn’t have to drag my suitcase with me! Talk about efficient!

As I mentioned above, my time in Hong Kong exceeded my expectations. I loved how easy it was to get around and how clean and efficient the MTR was. I loved the energy of the area around my hotel, which was filled with small shops and restaurants and apartment buildings, as opposed to the skyscrapers in the business district and the neon signs, department stores and familiar chains in Kowloon.

But more than anything, I eyed the miles and miles of woodland all around Hong Kong with longing, wishing I had time to explore it all. I know, most people don’t think of Hong Kong as a place to connect with nature, but if I ever return to Hong Kong, that is exactly what I’d like to do.

Have you been to Hong Kong? What did you like the most?