How I Packed for Two Weeks in Eastern Europe in a Carry-On

June 6, 2016 by Kristin Winet 2 Comments

This post is inspired by a lively discussion I had on Facebook the other day after telling my friends that I’d challenged myself to pack for a two-week Eastern European Viking river cruise in nothing but my 19-inch Delsey Chatelet carry-on. In the spirit of sharing, here’s exactly how I did it.

In other words, here’s how to cram 52 items into a carry-on that’s about the size of my cat (photo evidence below).

The Items

To begin with, I needed to actually think through my itinerary, something I rarely do when I travel (I know, I know…). My usual process is to dump a bunch of clothes I like wearing into a suitcase and then sit on the poor overstuffed thing to try and zip it up. Anyone who knows me personally knows this to be true.

So for this trip, I looked at the average weather in each country I’d be visiting – Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary – and then thought about what I’d actually be doing there. Temps would be ranging from a chilly 55 to a balmy 89. Because I was traveling with Viking, I knew I’d be doing a lot of walking on the city tours, so I knew I’d need some city-appropriate clothes with sleeves (for cathedrals, synagogues, and the like). I’d also signed up for a couple of excursions to the Croatian and Bulgarian countrysides, too, so I knew I’d need some comfortable, warm-weather clothes with good hiking shoes. From past experience, I also knew I wouldn’t need a lot of formal clothes or high heels, as the dress code tends to be incredibly informal on river cruises.

I perused my closet and decided on a color scheme: monochromatic with a splash of pink. Why pink? Who knows…I pulled out a pink top with polka dots and thought it’d be cute for a city walk, so I decided to base things around that.

Then, the hard part: anything that didn’t match this color scheme didn’t make the cut. Here’s everything, laid out, so you can see exactly how everything fit together. As you can see, I could pair any shirt with any pair of pants and any pair of shoes. Four splashes of pink helped to “lighten up” the greys, blacks, and blues.

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This was my master list:

2 jackets – one jean and one faux leather
2 pairs of pants – blue jeans & light khakis
1 pair of yoga pants
2 pairs of shorts – blue jeans & khakis
3 dresses – one cocktail dress, one sundress, one t-shirt dress
2 cotton cardigans – black & blue
1 sweatshirt
1 sweater
1 long-sleeved shirt
6 short-sleeved shirts
2 spaghetti-strap undershirts
1 silk bathrobe
1 infinity scarf
1 romper
1 bathing suit
4 pairs of shoes – ballet flats, nice sandals, hiking sandals, flat tennis shoes
13 pairs of underwear
5 pairs of socks
3 bras – 2 regular, one sports

And here’s how I got it all into a 19-inch carry-on.

The Process

The first thing I did was use a small packing cube (thanks to my friend Molly who let me borrow one of hers!) to roll up all my t-shirts:

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Then, I folded my shorts in half and put them on top of the t-shirts:

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The next step was to start putting items into my actual suitcase. I folded my dresses in half and laid them in the bottom of the flat side of the suitcase and put the packing cube on top. Then, I filled the rest of the space up with black ballet flats and the two undershirts:

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Then, I moved over to the other side. Because there’s a locking mechanism and two poles running down the length of the suitcase, this side is a little trickier. I started by rolling up my pants and cardigans and lined the sides with those. In the middle, I folded my sweaters. On the outer edges, I rolled up the romper and the bathrobe. Once everything was in, I peppered the socks around the edges wherever there was room.

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Then, I folded up the jean jacket and laid it flat on top of everything. All the underwear, bras, and bathing suit went into the zipper pouch on the other side. I left out the other jacket, the scarf, the yoga pants, a black t-shirt, and the tennis shoes–I wore all of this stuff on the plane.

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The last step was to toss in my hairbrush, makeup bag, and toiletry kit. I knew from sailing with Viking before that I wouldn’t need a hair dryer (thank goodness, as I have no idea how I would have fit that in here), so I found it pretty easy to cram all the bathroom stuff in there.

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Then, all I had to do was zip it up.

Voila!

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The End Result?

Overall?

AMAZING. I NEVER, EVER thought that 1) I could be so discerning and well-planned with my packing, or 2) that I could pack that much stuff into one tiny suitcase. I used almost everything–the romper never made it out, sadly–and I was really happy that I’d brought two jackets and a couple different kinds of tops. Because Viking is a really casual cruise, I knew I wouldn’t need a lot of fancy clothes, so I really cut back on the “nice stuff” this time around. As I suspected, I only needed one nice cocktail dress for my aloha dinner with Ryan in Budapest.

Was it a perfect list?

Not completely. I would do a couple of things differently next time. For one thing, I’d bring an extra pair of jeans, as it was cooler than I thought it would be and ended up wearing those jeans probably eight or nine out of twelve days. I’d also bring more underwear, just so I’d have a few extra pairs, and would probably leave the bathrobe at home (I only wore it a couple of times on lazy mornings in our cabin). Also, I’d probably take out one cardigan and add in two more t-shirts to give a little more variety to what I wore on top. Things were feeling a little repetitive by day ten….

Anyway, thanks to Delsey, I think it’s safe to say I’ve changed the way I pack forever. No more cramming a million clothes that I think I *might* need into a giant suitcase that will almost always weigh more than 50 pounds, leaving me tossing out items at the last minute at the airport. Those days are SO over. From now on, it’s lightweight traveling for me!

(Here’s me at the Hilton Budapest, wearing the same outfit I flew over in!)

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Also, as a side note, I think two little furry guys in my life were pretty happy to see me get home yesterday. This is Giuseppe and Luigi 😀

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Do you have any packing tips that have worked for you? I’d love to hear them!!

Yours in travel,

Kristin

Why I’m Spending Two Weeks in Eastern Europe

May 23, 2016 by Kristin Winet 4 Comments

Try it: Tell the next five people you meet that you’re going to be spending two weeks in Eastern Europe this summer and see what they say.

You’ll probably hear that Budapest is supposed to be nice. Or that coastal Croatia is just as beautiful as its other Mediterranean neighborhoods and still super cheap. You’ll probably hear some jokes about goulash.

Yeah…that’s exactly why I’m going to Eastern Europe.

Last year, I whetted my appetite for the post-Soviet world, spending two wonderful weeks exploring Russia with my mom and getting to know a part of the world that, for a long time, had been completely shrouded in mystery to me. It was exhilarating. During those two weeks, my mom and I discovered how onion domes are made, how devoted to the arts and literature Russians really are, and how complicated the everyday lives are for people who live, day in and day out, under Vladimir Putin’s rule. We saw the commingling of Communist-era blocs—homes still owned and lived in by the families who were given free housing back in the 70s—and we saw the intense contrast between that world and the elaborate palaces, cathedrals, and summer homes of the Romanovs. We visited the island of Kizhi and witnessed a cathedral that was built in the 1700s completely out of interlocking wood pieces –no nails or glue of any kind. We sat outside at midnight under the large, low sun and imagined what it must be like to try and sleep during Russia’s white nights if you don’t have pitch-black curtains. We took a little boat down the canals of St. Petersburg, and we wandered the cosmopolitan streets of Moscow.

More than anything else, our trip broke, reinforced, and fractured every stereotype I had about Russia (except the whole “polar bears on the streets of Moscow” thing …sadly it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny). Just like the United States, Russians, too, find themselves in a globally powerful country that politically doesn’t always jive with their interests, and most of them want to be heard, understood, and respected.

I’ve been thinking about it all year. With every article I wrote about my trip, I realized that I wanted to know more—I wanted to learn more about what life was (and is) like in the countries and societies that were also affected by Russia and by Communist rule. I wanted to meet more people, hear their stories, and better understand a part of history that is still so elusive to me.

Basically, I wanted to see more of Eastern Europe.

And what better way than to sail with Viking again? One of the best parts about taking trips with Viking is that you really can cover a good bit of ground—and you’re surrounded by experts who live and work in the countries you’re visiting. After Russia, I felt like I had such a deeper and more profound understanding of the culture there because I could ask questions and talk to our tour guides about their own experiences. Plus, they held a few “round-table” sessions where we could come and ask questions about education, housing, politics, and anything else that was on our minds. People did come, and they asked hard questions. The tour guides were ready for all of them and answered each query honestly and openly.

Plus, Viking’s philosophy is centered around three different kinds of immersion experiences:

Culture & leisure (such as attending Swan Lake at the Hermitage Theatre in St. Petersburg)
Work & everyday life (such as attending a cooking class or visiting the home of someone who lives in the community)
Access to points of cultural or historical interest (such as a privately-curated tour of the Peterof Palace)

I looked through the itineraries online and quickly decided on the one that would be most beneficial to me:

Passage to Eastern Europe

The 11-day cruise covers 5 countries, including Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, and Hungary. It offers a number of offshore excursions, too, that sound like they would really give me a diversity of perspectives on life in both the city and countryside. I signed up right away.

Then, I went to the store, bought a card, scribbled a note to my husband about how much I wanted to celebrate the beginning of our new chapter together (more on our spectacularly crappy professional year later), and I invited him to join me. He opened the card and looked at me in the way he always looks at me when I’ve concocted up a new way for us to travel together. He could see that my eyes were sparkling in a mix of anticipation and excitement.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

So here we are. We leave tomorrow morning for our long voyage to Hungary. Once we’re there, we’ll spend a few days at the Radisson Blu Hotel Bucharest (sounds swanky…I hope they have those fluffy terrycloth bathrobes and slippers!), and then we’ll hit the Danube for our cruise.

In case you’re considering a trip to Eastern Europe, here’s the scoop on where we’ll be headed and what my plans are while I’m there. Keep in mind that I’ve crammed in a couple of side trips/journo stuff for my own writing (you wouldn’t necessarily be interviewing a Magyar horseman, investigating the history of paprika as a colonial food, or visiting Memento Park to see gigantic Soviet-Era statues….well, you might be, in which case, let me know!).

Here’s the lowdown on where we’re headed.

ROMANIA (Days 1-2)

The first leg of our journey will be two days in Bucharest, Romania’s cultural capital. From what I can tell, Bucharest seems to be relatively underrated as a tourist destination, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In our first two days, we’re going to check out the French-style boulevards, public gardens (I have heard marvelous things about the Bucharest Botanical Gardens), and visit a few of the city’s palaces. We’ll be spending an afternoon in the historic Lipscani district, which, from what I can tell, is a European beauty—full of cobblestone streets, boutique inns, art galleries, and shops and restaurants.

We’ll also be checking out a few of Bucharest’s tourist “hot spots:” the monastery where Prince Vlad is rumored to have been buried, and the Palace of the Parliament, which is said to contain over 3,000 rooms. Now that’s a house.

BULGARIA (Day 3-4)

Our first stop will be the town of Russe, Bulgaria, otherwise known as Eastern Europe’s “Little Vienna” for its historically critical port, mash-up of neo-baroque, neo-rococo, and Renaissance architecture, and its relaxed, European waterfront lifestyle.

We’ve signed up for a day trip to Veliko Tarnovo and Arbanasi, two medieval towns renowned for their handicrafts and local artist colonies. We’ll have coffee at a rooftop café in Veliko Tarnovo, overlooking the Old Town, explore Samovodska Charshia (one of the art districts) and visit castle ruins. Then, we’ll head to Arbanasi, where we’ll have lunch and meet with a merchant who makes products out of the essence of roses.

I’m not sure we’ll have time for the Russe City Walking Tour, but if we do, it will take us to the old city center and to a couple of museums, including the Museum of History (which houses over 140,000 artifacts—I can’t to dig into the archives on some of these objects!) and the Ethnographic Museum, which houses objects and artifacts related to people’s everyday lives in historical Bulgaria.

The next day, we’re planning on heading to the Belogradchik Rocks, a trip which will no doubt inspire the archaelogist inside me. The Rocks are not only a geological wonder, the result of millennia of erosion, freezing, and weathering, but they are also home to the Ottoman-built Belogradchik Fortress—a maze of rooms built into the cliffs.

IRON GATE (Day 5)

Today, I think we’re just sailing through the Iron Gate, an area renowned as one of Europe’s most stunning natural gorges. We’ll see the Carpathian Mountains on one side and the Balkan Mountains on the other.

SERBIA (Day 6)

Today will be devoted to exploring Belgrade, described by Lonely Planet as “outspoken, adventurous, proud, and audacious” (sounds a lot like the kind of person I’d want to hang out with) with a “gritty exuberance” (where do they find these adjectives?!). We’re planning on taking a city tour and then hopefully catching at least a happy hour. I mean, if we’re going to be in one of the world’s hottest places for nightlife, we have to at least have a Serbian cocktail, right?

CROATIA (Day 7)

Now, it’s really too bad that I can’t skip away for a day or two and head to the Mediterranean coast of Croatia, but I’m actually kind of excited about where we are going: Osijek. I don’t know exactly what this excursion will entail, but we’re planning on visiting a family and then walking along the promenade on the Drava River. I’m imagining a relatively relaxing day in this small Croatian village—which is perfectly fine with me.

HUNGARY (Days 8-11)

To be honest, Hungary is one of those countries I’ve wanted to visit since I was a little girl, and I don’t know exactly why. Maybe because I always laughed about the name—how could a country share a name with my language’s word for wanting to eat?!—but also because I’ve always heard such magnificent things about Budapest, the country’s capital. Our journey will end here, in Hungary, a place I am so excited to meet.

We’ll begin our three days in Kalocsa, a place I’ve learned is not only where the majority of the world’s paprika is harvested, but also where the Hungarian Puszta, a community devoted to preserving a non-motorized world and who get around on horseback, live, work, and play. I’m hoping to interview one of the horsemen before or after their show (which is rumored to be both acrobatic, artful, and death-defying) but I’m not sure we’ll be able to communicate with each other. I’ll have my Google Translate app with me, but it’s not always so easy to do an interview when you’re both typing into a smartphone what you’d really like to say. But we’ll see—I really want to learn more about their attitudes against motorized transport and modernity.

Our last two days will be in the lovely city of Budapest. We’ll hop on a city tour one day and head to a Roman thermal bath, but the rest of our time in Hungary will be spent running around trying to fit in all the places I’m writing about. Though I don’t know exactly how I’ll get there yet, I’m planning on finding Memento Park, where, according to their delightful website, the “ghosts of Communist Dictatorship” live. The park is basically an open-air museum where, after the fall of Communism, people dumped a whole bunch of gigantic Communist statues. I can’t wait to see this place.

I’m also interested in visiting the Central Hall Market, which I’ve heard from some other travel writing friends is a photographer’s dream. Because of my nerdy interest in public spaces and rhetoric in the world, I’m also trying to fit in a trip to the For Sale Pub, a bar that encourages drinkers to leave their words on the walls, floors, chairs, and ceilings. They can leave their “personal advertisements” anywhere they like. It sounds magical, and weird, and the perfect place for me.

With that, then, I’m going to start packing. Typing these words has started making my heart flutter just a little bit faster…oh, travel, how you ignite my soul, time and time again.

If you’ve been to Eastern Europe and have any tips for me, please leave a note for me here or get in touch with me on social media! I can’t wait to share this journey.

Yours in travel,

Kristin

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All photographs from Flickr’s Creative Commons. I thank them for their generosity and I hope my photos turn out just as beautifully!

I’m excited to be traveling to Eastern Europe with Viking River Cruises on their 2016 Passage to Eastern Europe cruise from Bucharest to Budapest.

Delsey Chatelet, I’m Still Your Suitcase Girl

May 21, 2016 by Kristin Winet 2 Comments

Update: I just took my 19-inch Delsey Chatelet suitcase for a test run on a recent weekend trip from Los Angeles to Tucson. Because it was a quick trip, I decided to fly instead of drive, and guess what: not only did my friend Alison swoon over it as soon as she saw me, IT EVEN FIT UNDER THE SEAT in front of me on the flight! And, I didn’t overpack like I usually do–I stuck to the space I had, and instead of making a gigantic mess all over the guest room, I had everything rolled, packed, and stored in exactly the right place. And I used everything I brought except for one pair of pants and two shirts. It was glorious. Also, Delsey is offering free shipping on all orders right now, too 🙂

*****

I’m in love with a new suitcase. If you know me, this won’t surprise you, as I’ve been carrying around one suitcase or another for the past ten years, but the story of how I became a suitcase girl is a little more interesting (more on that in a second).

But first, what do I love about my 19-inch champagne-colored Delsey Chatelet suitcase, this new little love of mine?

For one thing, the size: it’s the international carry-on size (which means, to my delight, that it will fit in the overhead compartment (and under the seat) of almost all international airlines). Also, like all of Delsey’s Chatelet collection, it features a TSA-friendly combination lock (which means that airport authorities can still open and rummage through your bag with a special key if needed but that a normal person can’t open your suitcase). And, it has these nifty spinner wheels you can lock so your suitcase won’t roll away from you if you’re standing on an incline. Yes, this has actually happened to me before (thanks, San Francisco).

It’s rounded shape is also adorable.

Over the years, a lot of my friends and fellow travelers have looked at me with skepticism when I’ve arrived, suitcase in tow, instead of toting around a large backpack on my shoulders.

What they don’t understand is that I’ve always been a suitcase kind of girl.

And here’s why.

When I was twenty-two years old, my parents did what most supportive, loving parents do when their child graduates college: they bought me a graduation present. But it wasn’t a briefcase, a suit, a plaque, or a new laptop computer, the kinds of sensible gifts my friends and colleagues at school were getting. It wasn’t jewelry, a commemorate necklace, a class ring, or a fancy diploma frame.

My parents knew me well: they bought me three pieces of blue luggage.

The afternoon of my graduation, my dad rolled the big one out into our family’s living room and presented it to me with gusto. He called it “big blue,” the same name bequeathed to my roommate Mary’s eponymous couch that followed us through four apartments. The day before, we’d given the couch—along with a bunch of other stuff I didn’t know what to do with—to the pizza delivery guy who, delivery box in his hands, saw us moving out and confessed he’d just moved to town and didn’t yet have any furniture.

Dad had even tied a big red bow to the top of it, where my hand would, for so many years, press down and lift up on the retractable handle. Inside, he’d piled in the smaller pieces like Russian matroyshka dolls, all zipped up into each other. I gasped in joy and pulled each one out, lovingly, running my fingers along the strong navy blue cloth and imagining the world at my twenty-two year old feet, the world that had become increasingly larger during my college years after I discovered what happened when a single girl goes out into the world. (In case you’re wondering, magical things happen).

Later that evening, once the flurry of the celebrations had given way to contemplation, I sat in my room, opened my mom’s card to me, looked at the three blue suitcases, all lined up like my little army in my childhood bedroom, and let my eyes well up with tears. In her elegant, curly handwriting, my mom had written a line from a hymn she’d repeated to me many times since I’d left home to pursue a college life four years ago: roots hold me close….wings set me free. Though I’d suspected it before, I knew it, in that moment, to be true: my life was never going to be the same.

That fall, this Southern girl from Georgia took a leap of faith and moved with all of my new luggage to Cartagena, Colombia to teach English. When I got there, wide-eyed and surprised that I’d actually done it, I opened each one to find letters and cards from my family nestled inside the t-shirts, pant legs, and tucked into the insides of my shoes, telling me how excited they were for my new adventure.

A few years—and a lot of travels—passed. In the meantime, I returned home to the U.S., moved to Tucson, Arizona, met my husband-t0-be, and stayed there eight years. I left home with nothing but those three blue suitcases, all of which I hauled on the plane with me and my dad.

I went to graduate school for creative writing, I started teaching, I decided to keep on going until I reached the furthest point I could really go in my academic life—to get that elusive Ph.D. after my name—and I traveled a lot as a solo female traveler. I took my blue suitcases everywhere, even after they started looking heavier and clunkier than the newer, sleeker models with their rolling wheels and lightweight aluminum bodies, even after the TSA changed the weight limit to 50 pounds and rendered the giant one effectively useless. They tread over continents, rolled over cobblestones, highways, and side streets, and sat in many a cargo pit. The dark cloth, thick zippers, and leather flaps over the corners stayed intact and never weathered.

I know the stereotype: the girl who totes around a suitcase leaves for her travels burdened. She isn’t really devoted to the cause. She’s a tourist, not a traveler. She packs too much (which, ok, yes, is true in my case). It’s the backpacker who deserves our respect: she’s the one who doesn’t care if her toenails are painted, if she remembered to pack her favorite perfume, if her shoes would look right with the pants she packed. She sports sandals with straps, leaves the makeup at home, and can wear and re-wear the same outfit twenty-five times if she needs to. I tried taking a backpack with me once, borrowing my friend Leen’s on a trip from Ghent to Amsterdam to visit friends, but I simply couldn’t convert—all my clothes got crammed into weird places in the pack and everything came out wrinkled and flat. Together, we took trains all over Europe; we stayed in hostels, on floors, and in hotels; we hopped around unencumbered.

And at the end of it all, I was still in love with my three blue suitcases.

But then, in 2013, someone took a very large knife and hacked open our outdoor storage shed. He stole all of my luggage, inside of which were all my summer clothes, and dumped the clothes onto the street before running away with all three bags. For a while after that, I was too scared to buy any nice luggage, so I bought a $19 carry-on from the clearance rack at Wal-Mart. A few months later, after it fell apart, I asked for a new suitcase for Christmas—and my parents came through again with a gorgeous, lightweight 26-inch baby blue number, one that, even though it has a bent zipper and a tear in the front, I still carry with me today.

In March of this year, exactly ten years after I took that first trip to Colombia, I taught a writing workshop at the Women in Travel Summit in Irvine, California and found myself swapping suitcase tales and packing tips with a new friend of mine as we walked through the conference tables. By the end of the conference and after walking by the Delsey Luggage table about 600 times, I decided to celebrate the fact that ten years later, I was still taking off, flying solo–while balancing a husband and an academic job–and relishing in my bag of belongings chasing behind me instead of piled up on my back.

After all, I’m still that girl.

I took one home, convinced it would completely change the way I packed. I was smitten with the sleekness, the sophistication of the lines, the ease with which the suitcases rolled around the floor, the locking mechanisms, the lined compartments inside.

I was even smitten with the idea of a sophisticated piece of luggage, something that would announce my presence before I even came running down the terminal. Something that would dance to the tune of those of us who, despite our wanderlust and freedom-seeking ways, love the feel of a handle in our hands and not a strap around our waists. Something that acknowledged my twenties and said a proper hello to my thirties. Plus, at $230, it’s not exactly a suitcase I would have planned on purchasing for my past self anyway–like a sturdy purse or a well-made pair of pants, this is a true travel investment.

“What do you think?” I asked my husband Ryan, spinning it around on its delicate heels and whirling it in his direction.

“It’s stunning,” he said, and paused to smile. “But how in the world are you going to pack the way you pack in a suitcase that small?”

Of course, Ryan is right—I honestly have no idea how I’m going to pare things down into a 19-inch carry-on for trips longer than a few days. But, I leave for two weeks in Eastern Europe with Viking River Cruises next week, and you know what? This girl is going to do it. I’ve got a wedding to attend in Tucson, Arizona next week, so I’ll do a quick test run and let you know how things go. In the meantime, if you’re interested, they’ve got a 50% off sitewide sale at the moment and are offering free shipping–lots of cute bags and suitcases to choose from!).

Stay tuned (and please send me packing tips!) 🙂

Yours in travel,

Kristin

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A special thanks to Delsey Luggage for providing me with a 19-inch Chatelet carry-on for purposes of writing this story. Right now, you can purchase one on sale for $230 using the links above!

About Me

Who is Kristin?

I am an award-winning writer, photographer, and teacher. I am also a traveler, by either heart or experience (sometimes I’m not sure which!) and I abide by a globally-minded feminist ethos in everything I do: by living carefully, living mindfully, and living compassionately. I write to inspire, to have fun, to catch interesting details and share them, to notice beautiful people, places, and experiences, to find beauty in the world where I can, and to teach other travelers to respect the places they tread and to think critically about the privilege of a traveling life.

This is why I started Bon Touriste– to inspire and be inspired, to find beauty in our complex world, and to never give up the childlike wonder of traveling.

What’s My Story?

Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, the furthest I traveled was to California (once, I think, for my aunt and uncle’s wedding) and to New York to visit my grandma. My penchant for travel arrived, quite unexpectedly, during my college years at the University of Georgia: after a summer-abroad program that took me to the shores of lovely Valencia, Spain, I decided to pack up and move to the very small, intensely gorgeous Mediterranean island of Malta to work at an international English school, where I fell madly in love with Mediterranean pizza, the Maltese language, and my international cohort of teachers (many of whom I still travel with today!).

After graduating from college, I accepted a position as a visiting English instructor at a university in the lovely and haunting Cartagena, Colombia. There, I learned to love empanadas, García Marquéz, dancing (though I’ve still got two left feet), a whole lot of Spanish, and, quite unexpectedly, teaching.

I completed my MFA in creative nonfiction (with an emphasis in travel writing) from the University of Arizona in 2009 while teaching writing courses to undergraduates and working as the nonfiction editor for Sonora Review, a national literary magazine. My creative work—which is a book-length memoir told in vignettes—examines the idea of memory through objects as I revisit the first three countries I ever traveled to for an extended period of time in my early 20s: Spain, Malta, and Colombia. I am currently revising my book and hope to see it find a home somewhere by the end of this year 🙂

In addition to keeping up with my website, I edit a weekly interview segment with travel industry professionals, go on a number of international voyages and local trips each year, work with various media campaigns–both at home and abroad–and review hotels and creative or unusual accommodation options around the world. I love thinking about my responsibility as a traveler and my capabilities (as well as limitations) that come with this privileged and amazing work. I hope that comes through in my writing.

When I’m not traveling and writing, I’m working on my graduate degree in Rhetoric & Composition and writing my dissertation on contemporary tourism and digital media practices. If you’re into such scholarly things, I invite you to read more about my dissertation project on my Dissertation page!

Where Am I Now?

I lived in the lush and beautiful Sonoran Desert in Tucson, Arizona for eight years with my incredible husband Ryan, who is an artist, a graphic novelist, and a poet (check out his co-run literary journal of experimental poetry, The Offending Adam). When we weren’t working, we’d take a quick jaunt down to Mexico for the weekend with our best friends for fresh mangoes, sandy beaches, and lots of Spanish. I, of course, did most of the talking (and I love it).

After dating for six years, Ryan and I finally got hitched in a little garden ceremony in the summer of 2013 at The Thursday Club–a women’s philanthropy club–near the Sunset Cliffs in San Diego.

We even designed our wedding invitations ourselves! (And of course I picked a travel theme). Here’s a peek:

We now live in a cute little townhouse in sleepy Winter Park, Florida (it’s near Orlando) with our two adorable cats, an orange tabby named Giuseppe and a grey pixiebob named Luigi. We have no idea what the future holds for us, but with me as the spontaneous extravert and him as the more stay-at-home bookworm, I’m sure we’ll land in exactly the right place 🙂

Where Have I Been?

Since I studied abroad in Spain during college ten years ago, I have made enough money scrimping by and taking part-time and freelance jobs to travel to over 35 different countries. That number still amazes me. As someone who is not independently wealthy or getting someone else to foot the bill for me, I am humbled and honored to do this work I do–and I hope it carries me through for the rest of my life.

KristinPhoto2 — Hanging out with sea animals in Xiao Liuqiu, Taiwan on my first press trip in 2012

I’ve spent time living and teaching in both Europe and South America, and I’ve traveled throughout North America, the Caribbean, and Asia. There’s still so, so much more to see.

What Do I Believe About Travel?

I am, first and foremost, an independent traveler (although I do participate in FAM trips–that’s industry lingo for press trip–a few times a year). I believe in traveling slowly, in savoring moments, in trying new languages, in getting lost for no particular reason, in visiting those little-known places, in leaving positive impressions, in finding laughter in unexpected encounters. I believe in participation, in immersion, in confusion, in giving up what we can to gain the beauty of new experience, and in looking forward to those unexpected meaningful, memorable moments that happen when we simply let go and live. I believe in learning about local foods, working sustainability to leave small footprints, and connecting with local communities.

And I am committed to helping other curious people believe that they, too, can make their dreams come true.

And I can’t wait to meet you and hear about your journey, too! Email me at kristin [at] kristinwinet [dot] com if you’d like to chat, get some advice on traveling, or just share tips, books, or awesome resources. I’d love to hear from you!

How I Packed for Two Weeks in Eastern Europe in a Carry-On

The Items

The Process

The End Result?

Why I’m Spending Two Weeks in Eastern Europe

Passage to Eastern Europe

ROMANIA (Days 1-2)

BULGARIA (Day 3-4)

IRON GATE (Day 5)

SERBIA (Day 6)

CROATIA (Day 7)

HUNGARY (Days 8-11)

Delsey Chatelet, I’m Still Your Suitcase Girl

What they don’t understand is that I’ve always been a suitcase kind of girl.

After all, I’m still that girl.

About Me

Welcome to bon touriste

Inquiries

As Seen In…

In Partnership With…

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The Items

The Process

The End Result?

Passage to Eastern Europe

ROMANIA (Days 1-2)

BULGARIA (Day 3-4)

IRON GATE (Day 5)

SERBIA (Day 6)

CROATIA (Day 7)

HUNGARY (Days 8-11)

What they don’t understand is that I’ve always been a suitcase kind of girl.

After all, I’m still that girl.

Welcome to bon touriste

Inquiries

As Seen In…

In Partnership With…

Connect With Me

Get New Post Updates!