Travel – life after five

charleston

April 11, 2021April 11, 2021Allie Zerby

This post may feel random since I haven’t left the tri-state area in ten months, but I’ve been dreaming about the places that I will travel to once the COVID-19 pandemic is fully behind us, and at the top of my dream list is Charleston, South Carolina. Part of me feels silly for saying that since right before the pandemic began I’d traveled there twice within a 12-month period, but there is something about Charleston (maybe it’s the coastal beauty and Antebellum history, or traditional Southern charm and some seriously superb food and shopping) that swept me off my feet from the moment I arrived there and has me daydreaming about it often while I’m away. Since I’m waiting to travel until I receive both doses of my vaccine (which is now just a few weeks away!), I’m going to write about my trips down to the Holy City in the meantime.

south dakota: black hills & badlands

December 15, 2019December 15, 2019Allie Zerby

Before heading on this trip, I knew little about South Dakota. I knew I wanted to visit it as part of my goal of seeing all 50 states, but I essentially considered South Dakota a flyover state, so I wasn’t in a huge rush to get there. The only spot I figured I would visit during a trip to South Dakota was Mount Rushmore. When my dad suggested this trip, we did some research and learned that the state offers so much more. This trip was one that validated my goal of seeing all 50 states. We went to see Mount Rushmore, but what we discovered is how beautiful everything else in South Dakota is.

travel goal: visit all fifty states

April 11, 2019December 8, 2019Allie Zerby

There’s no doubt in my mind that my American passport is powerful, and I should use it to go see the rest of the world, but I also feel that there is a lot of power in getting to explore your own country. For me, it has never been enough to just visit America’s world famous locations. Sure, New York City is phenomenal (I live here for a reason!) and Seattle remains high on my to-do list.

But what about those other places in between? What about the mountains of Montana, the swamps of south Florida, and the shoreline of Oregon? What about the smaller states—Vermont, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire—up in the Northeast? What about the larger ones—Nevada, Wyoming, and New Mexico—west of the Mississippi? I want to see all of these places, which is why I’ve decided to make it a goal of mine to visit all 50 states during my lifetime.

food in tuscany

April 9, 2017September 30, 2017Allie Zerby

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The richness of Italian cuisine lies in its diversity. Italy is a small country (less than half the size of Texas) but it has twenty distinct regions that each have their own cooking styles and customs.

While studying abroad in Florence, I fell in love with Tuscan cuisine. The flavors of Tuscany are strong and straightforward and are based on peasant traditions. The meals were created to be simple and inexpensive. Today it remains largely the same- but by choice instead of necessity.

Eating is one of the greatest joys of traveling in Italy so if you plan on visiting Tuscany soon, check out my recommendations for traditional foods to try during your visit!

eating guide to the upper east side

March 26, 2017March 26, 2017Allie Zerby

The restaurants here in New York serve some of the best food in the world. With the vast number of restaurants I knew that I could not do the City’s food scene justice in one blog post so for this entry I am going to focus exclusively on those in my neighborhood, the Upper East Side. This is by no means an exhaustive list but these are the spots that Gregg and I find ourselves going back to again and again because the food is so incredibly good. So, here is my quintessential dining guide, but I’d love to hear about your Upper East Side favorites in the comments to discover a few new ones, so share away!