Tag: Sabbatical
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Barrel camping for the complete beginner
Barrel camping is a new-ish but growing (based on our research for this trip) trend in camping accommodations. It’s basically exactly as it sounds: You sleep in a giant wooden barrel. It’s probably three meters wide and I’d guess 12 long. There’s a door, a few windows, electricity, and a heater for cold nights. It’s…
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Paris
We just wrapped up about a week in Paris. Danielle has a friend who is also a writer she met at last year’s Bread Loaf conference. She was generous enough to provide us with free accommodation in her parent’s apartment in the 20th Arrondissement for the week. We were in a part of Paris home…
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The Flysch
Our last few nights in Spain were spent in a camper cabin in the Basque Coast Geopark, a region spanning the coast between the cities of Mutriku and Zumaia that features unique geology. There are 94 such parks Europe (inclusive of Turkey and Russia) and it’s another locally-administered, independently managed, UNESCO joints like the Urdaibai…
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The case against travel
Agnes Callard’s weekend essay in the New Yorker “The Case Against Travel” was certainly an interesting perspective to read while we’re on the road. I’ve been interested in the distinctions between tourists, travelers, expats, and immigrants since we lived abroad in our younger and apparently more deluded years. I even wrote a grounded theory paper…
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Birds and Bilbao: Basque Country
Yesterday, we left Urdaibai Bird Center extremely glad we prioritized this stop. The Urdaibai Biosphere Preserve’s status reminds me a bit of the Adirondacks Park in New York. It’s not a national park, neither is it entirely or even mostly government-owned land. Still, it’s a specific region packed full of recreational opportunity and science and…