What is Crete food? What is traditional Cretan cuisine? Which dishes should you seek out and what sort of dishes and flavors might you find when you visit this Greek island? This Crete Food Culinary Travel Guide provides answers with an overview of Cretan cuisine, including its famous olive oil, and our favorite mezze, traditional Cretan dishes, desserts and drinks from our travels across the island.
Audrey Scott
Istanbul Without the Carpet: A Tale of Two Visits
This is a story about two different visits to Istanbul, the utter pointlessness of posing as a Canadian when you're American, and the secret to experiencing Istanbul without being offered a carpet.
Bangladesh Travel: A Beginner’s Guide
Let’s face it. Reliable independent travel information about Bangladesh doesn’t flow quite as freely as it does for some other nearby countries in south Asia.
And even when you get in country, information can be hard to come by: ask five people a question and you're likely to get ten answers.
But persevere and show your curiosity and you’ll find that Bangladesh actually offers more diversity in sights and experiences that you might first expect, from UNESCO pre-Moghul mosques to cycling through tea estates to tracking tigers in mangrove forests. But perhaps more distinct are the human interactions that make visiting Bangladesh such a unique experience.
Great Meals and the Lessons They Taught Us
We can learn from our food.
Really.
As I assembled photos and descriptions for our recent travel round-up post, I kept getting distracted. Perhaps unsurprisingly for those who know me, food was the culprit. I was continually drawn back to memories of unforgettable meals from each country — memories not only of the taste, but to the time, the place, the people.
Keep Tickin’: Life Inspiration from Nonagenarians
Last weekend, I arrived in Asheville, North Carolina to visit family. And boy, was I tired.
The last two months have been chock full: traveling from Central Europe to Crete to Istanbul to Iran, back to Istanbul, Germany and finally to a series of family visits up and down the east coast of the United States.
But I’ve been feeling a little spent. It’s not only the movement, but also my head, to the brim with fresh experiences and quite frankly deprived of the time and space to properly process them all. Amidst the fatigue, I began to wonder if perhaps I had reached some limit in what I could do, what I could take on.
Traveling to Iran as Americans: All You Need to Know
Traveling to Iran as an American citizen may sound complicated and dangerous. It’s not. We’re here to dispel the myths and answer the questions piling up in our inbox about visas, safety, and other concerns based on our visit to Iran.
Our aim in the following Q&A is to answer actual reader queries and to help demystify the process of traveling to Iran, especially for Americans.
Iran: A Poem to the People
This is a story of a woman I met on a train in Iran and a letter she wrote to me — a letter I now read through tears.
My heart sank as I watched the news from Iran this morning, scenes of the British Embassy being charged by an angry mob in Tehran. It saddens me – angers me, really – that narrow groups like this who define the world’s perception of Iran and the Iranian people are in reality such a small percentage of the country's population.
My experience tells me they are the outliers, yet circumstances conspire to convince us on the outside to see them as the norm.
Persepolis: Ancient Persia, Modern Lessons
Although Persepolis is one of Iran’s top archeological and tourist sites, I was careful to keep my expectations in check before visiting. After all, what would remain of the 2,500 year-old capital of the Achaemenid Empire? Amidst crumbled columns, I found great detail that blew me away and a surprising connection to the present.
Exploring the Pink Mosque in Shiraz, Iran
There's nothing like early morning light falling through a stained-glass window…casting designs on a Persian carpet…amidst immaculately tiled pink columns.
This is the winter prayer hall inside the Pink Mosque in Shiraz, Iran.
A Flight to Tehran: The Full Story
What does it feel like to travel to Iran, to fly into the country for the first time? Here’s the story of our flight to Tehran including some things you might expect, and some others you might not.
Destination: TEHRAN. I ogle my boarding pass at the departure gate in Istanbul. We bought the tickets months before, all easy enough. So easy in fact that we wondered if the day of our flight would actually ever come; a rejected visa application snatching it all away in a breath.
But our Iranian visas were approved and there we were waiting to board a plane — our plane — to Tehran.