Travel
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Camino Day 1 – Porto to Vila Cha
7.5 hours walking time from Porto to Labruge, + 10 min cab ride to Vila Cha, because the albergue was full. 26.9 km walked(walking time includes stops for breakfast/lunch and rest breaks) Our first day on the Camino started early for us, but maybe not early for most pilgrims – we’re just not morning people. Waking up at about 7:40am in the Blue Socks Hostel in Porto was cosy and comfortable, and didn’t make you want to leave immediately. We’d pre-paid for the breakfast buffet, so took a quick trip down to the crypt and ate fresh croissants, fruit, cereal, and something coffee-adjacent. Stashing some apples and croissants for later,…
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Walking the Caminho Portugues
A year ago today, my sister Samantha and I landed in Portugal, ready to start our 12-day adventure walking the Caminho Portugues, the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago, and ancient pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. James. At the time, I updated fairly regularly on Instagram and Facebook, and meant to write about it when we got back, but I got swept up in this civic participation thing that I was doing last Summer and never got around to it. Now that we’re all unable to travel, I’ve been thinking a lot about the trip, and about the many photos and experiences I’ve never shared. So I’m going…
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Solo in Morocco
I spent a month Solo in Morocco in November, 2010, and prior to travelling, I did a fair amount of research on the country. So many people were so helpful in answering my questions; I owe a lot to the Thorn Tree Travel forum, my Rough Guide, and WikiTravel, as well as individual bloggers. Here I’ve brought together some of my experiences and observations, in the hope that they’ll be as helpful to other travellers. I wrote it right after I returned, to give back to the community on Thorntree that had been so helpful to me, but recently a lot of people have been talking to me about Morocco, so I thought…
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Lentils with Fennel and Sausage
My sister Cassie and I visited Paris last Spring, and by the time we’d gotten from Charles de Gaulle to our hotel in Montmartre and thrown our bags in our room, we were starving. We struck out looking for someplace that would satisfy both me and my vegetarian sister, and found this little corner restaurant with arborite tables and a friendly atmosphere and some vegetarian options on the menu. The waiters were super-nice (as was almost everyone in Paris), complimenting my pathetic attempts at speaking French, and my meal of lentils with fennel and sausage completely floored me. I love lentils in just about every way they can be served,…
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Canoe Journey Through Waterways and Lifeways
This article first appeared in the Winter 2012 edition of The Newcomer Bulletin. So much of the history of Canada is the history of the newcomer; because few written records exist of the Indigenous peoples in this country before the Europeans arrived, our impressions of our nation are almost always seen through the eyes of people experiencing each other’s culture for the first time.  No where is that more clear than at the Canadian Canoe Museum, which chronicles the individual struggles and  triumphs of people making their way through the land with little in common besides their mode of transport – the canoe. Â
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Je suis fou a Paris
Paris: a city that’s , surprisingly, pretty much as good as people say it is. My sister Cassie and I got a last-minute deal on air and hotel for seven days in Paris at the end of March, and we jumped on it. While we were there, the sun shone every day in a picture-perfect blue sky, the temperature stayed steadily around the 18C mark, the flowers were blooming and the grass was green. We walked or took the Metro everywhere, saw most of the things we wanted to see, and really packed our days full of some of the best things that the city has to offer visitors. I…
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My First Hammam
My trip through Morocco has been terrific so far, with many serendipitous encounters and lots (and lots, and lots) of interesting, friendly new people. Last night at my Fez guest house, Pension Dar Bou Inania, I met an American woman who’s also traveling solo. Melissa joined myself and some other Canucks for breakfast at Cafe Clock (my home-away-from-home in Fez), and asked me over pancakes and fresh-squeezed orange juice if I’d be interested in joining her at the Hammam this afternoon. I’d tried to get to a hammam with some other travel friends in Meknes, but had missed the appointment, so I was happy to find a companion for our first…
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Morocco Day 1 – Casablanca to Rabat
This is a draft – I’m working on getting more details and photos! (Sep 25, 2026) Check out the main page on Travelling Solo in Morocco for more advice and information. Flight in to Mohammed V International – waited in line at Customs for 1.5 hours, because we’d arrived just before the Libyan soccer team, who were playing in the semi-finals of (???) against Morocco, so the Customs agents slow-rolled them, which delayed us. When I finally got to the Customs Agent, I greeted him in Arabic and English, and he looked pleased/surprised and asked ‘Do you speak Arabic?!’ “Just three words!” I replied, and he laughed & stamped my…
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Backpacking in the Maghreb: going to Morocco!
In ten days, I’ll be travelling to Morocco via Air France. I’ve always wanted to travel, to be one of those people who somehow manages to pick up and leave, has the money and the leisure to go, doesn’t have a thousand pressing commitments back home keeping them tied down. I’m not one of those people, but I’ve managed to make a space for myself somehow anyway. I didn’t need to take any extraordinary measures; I just decided I was going, and everything worked out around it. For two years I’ve been idly watching Travelzoo for flights to Morocco, and finally in June, I saw a deal I couldn’t resist.…
