HI, tired of travel blogs that all sound the same?
Grab a beer my friend, because you’re in the right place.
If it’s your first time here, this page will (hopefully) send you in the right direction.
In short: Happy to Wander is a blog all about beautiful, offbeat adventures in Europe and beyond. My goal is to inspire you with photography and stories, prepare you with practical guides and (duh) entertain you with embarrassing tales of an awkward girl waddling across the globe.
You can read my latest posts here, or keep scrolling to get a digest of my best content (and a brief history of how I got to where I am today).
Happy to Wander: The Highlight Reel
As most youths do, I returned from my first backpacking trip in Europe feeling like a special little snowflake. The cure for this grossly inflated self-worth? A special little snowflake blog. Naturally.
I started my first site (under a different name) in late 2014. I wrote infrequently, but it was nice to have a shameless soapbox for my crazy thoughts. Not much came of this first site… The highlight was when I meticulously crafted a backpack out of snacks – a post which went viral and was picked up by big names like Buzzfeed and Epicurious. After this short-lived bout of Internet fame, I faded meekly (back again) into obscurity.
Then *dun dun* came the summer internship that changed my life. On a whim, I decided to apply for a job I never thought I’d get – a 3 month gig working for Europe’s largest river cruise company – acting as a photographer, blogger and videographer all in one. Against all odds, I got the job (read about the process here), and spent my summer criss crossing 13 countries across Europe and Southeast Asia. That was the first time I realized you could get paid while travelling the world… and I guess you could say, a monster was born.
This post recaps my first month on the job, and you can click here for a full summary.
After that internship ended, I returned home for two weeks (to eat sushi mostly) and then promptly packed up again to move abroad to Munich, where I would spend one semester getting my learn on as an exchange student. The only thing I learned was how much beer I could hold in my little body. 5L in a day, if you’re curious.
During this time was when I went a little nuts and discovered how easy it was to travel around Europe. For the price of a lunch back home, I could hop on a bus and be in Italy. For less than the price of a 5 min bus ride in Vancouver, I could get to the other side of Germany. My mind was blown, and I threw myself into travelling like crazy. After rebranding as Happy to Wander, I danced off to weekend trips, and, cliché of clichés, met a wonderful guy worth staying for. My 6 months living in Europe became a year – a year crammed with adventures.
Here were some of my favourites:
A spontaneous girls’ getaway to Morocco
Visiting Rome for the 2nd time + falling in love with the offseason
Embarking on a romantic getaway to Verona for Valentine’s Day… by accident
Backpacking Northern Europe, including stops in Helsinki, Stockholm, Bergen and Copenhagen
Driving across Iceland in a camper van.
These were my favourite sights.Road tripping to Liechtenstein, one of the world’s smallest countries and Lucerne, one of the most beautiful cities in Switzerland
Falling madly in love with Barcelona
My first ‘press trip’, being invited to sail from Dubrovnik to Split with MedSailors
Discovering the countless amazing things to do in Munich (here’s 99 of my favourites)
Forced to go home to Vancouver for my last semester, I threw myself into this blog while indulging in small adventures whenever I could. I managed to visit Los Angeles and Victoria while finishing school, and launched my favourite series I’ve written to date – Blogtoberfest, AKA the No BS Guide to Travel Blogging. This marked a turning point in my blogging career. I realized: not only did I want to share my travels, I also wanted to share the process of growing a blog too (without the usual fluff and BS). You can read my best Blogging posts here.
I finished school in December 2016 and dove head first into the ballin’, financially stable lifestyle of a full time blogger, which consists largely of existential crises by day and eating jars of Nutella by night. To date, my parents still have no idea what I do.
And so, the more I travelled, the more I realized how much I love discovering offbeat places. That’s why in the summer of 2017, Happy to Wander developed a new focus: a spotlight on offbeat and underrated destinations in Europe and around the world.
With this blog, I want to show you amazing places that you’ve never heard of, or thought of visiting. Here are some of my favourite posts with a more ‘off-the-beaten path’ focus:
Bucket list destinations in France (besides Paris)
The most beautiful places in England (besides London)
Zagreb: Why Croatia’s Cool Kid is the Optimal City Break
Inside the Secret World of Hidden Bucharest: Beautiful Must-Sees
I also want to help you travel smarter and better for less.
Here are my favourite travel resources for cheap flights, accommodations, gear and more
Saving up for a trip? Here’s 99 ways to save money for travel
And here are 4 genius ways to instantly save on travel bookings
Last but not least, I don’t believe in taking myself too seriously. That’s why I openly write about my silliest travel moments. Here are some my favourites:
When I accidentally went on an ‘alternative pub crawl’ in Berlin
That time I fell asleep during a road trip and ended up 100km off course
The day I wore a banana suit in Munich to celebrate Fasching
