AK Monthly Recap: March 2024

This was the biggest travel month I’ve had since we got back from our honeymoon! Shoulder season is always the best season for exploring and research, and March was the perfect time for a trip back to Italy.

Let’s take a look at March 2024!

Destinations Visited

• Prague, Křivoklát, and Beroun, Czech Republic
• Berlin, Germany
• Pisa, Florence, Siena, San Gimignano, Rome, and Tivoli, Italy

New Free Italy Guide

This month I released a brand new ebook: 23 Offbeat Places to Visit in Italy. One of my passions is helping travelers get off the beaten path in Italy, and discover lots of towns that don’t have the crazy crowds of Florence or Venice or Positano.

This book has mini-guides to 23 offbeat destinations in 17 regions of Italy, as well as information on traveling Italy and some of my favorite travel tips. And I love the “Go here, not there” section. You THINK you want the Amalfi Coast, but you ACTUALLY want Tropea!

You can sign up for it here, and it’s free! I hope it inspires you to travel more deeply in Italy!

Highlights

An awesome, super-fun return to Florence and Rome. I planned five days in Florence and six days in Rome to do a ton of research and photography so I can grow my Italy content in two of the most popular Italian destinations.

First off — it was March and both cities were SWAMPED with tourist crowds. There’s almost no off-season in Florence and Rome anymore, and you should know that before you book your trip!

Aside from that, it felt so good to do a long, in-depth, solo stay in Florence for the first time since my semester abroad, 20 years ago. I’ve been back to Florence a few times over the last two decades, but this was the first time I felt like I had the time and space to really see what Florence means to me now.

And I did EVERYTHING (except the Pitti Palace and the Galileo Museum). I climbed all the towers, visited tons of museums, and did a nice day trip to Siena and San Gimignano with Walks, which was comped.

Siena is somewhere I’ve visited before, but I’ve never been inside the church — but I went this time and I was BLOWN AWAY. A maximalist masterpiece filled with so much decor and color and art, it’s now one of my favorite churches in Italy (though I still love Parma’s cathedral). Make sure you get the cathedral ticket that lets you climb the museum’s tower, too.

San Gimignano was a new spot for me, and it’s a really pretty little Tuscan town — though it looks like it exists entirely for tourism. I didn’t see a single business catering to locals. Climbing the main tower was worth it, too.

Next up was Rome, and Charlie met me there for his birthday after a few days. One of the big highlights was the Galleria Borghese, which I’ve wanted to visit for decades. Seeing Bernini’s sculptures in real life for the first time was SO moving.

The biggest highlight of all was Walks’s Key Master’s Tour of the Vatican Museums, opening the museums for the day at 6:00 AM. This was also comped (through Charlie, not me), and it’s an EXPENSIVE tour, but holy shit — getting to be alone in the Vatican Museums with your tour group and guide? Watching the lights turn on for the day? Getting a chance to open each door?! Getting quiet time in the Sistine Chapel???

This is one of the best things I have EVER done in Italy, and I will remember it forever. It is one the most once-in-a-lifetime activities I have ever done while traveling. I asked our guide if Charlie could open the door to the Sistine Chapel, as it was his birthday, and he loved getting to do that.

Beyond that, we enjoyed lots more spots in Rome and did a visit to Villa d’Este in Tivoli.

Good times at ITB in Berlin. ITB is the world’s largest travel show, and I actually haven’t been there since 2013, despite living only 4.5 hours away by train. I went to a few networking events, got to see tons of my friends, and the Berlin weather was INCREDIBLE — bright blue skies every day! That never happens in March!

Even so, I’m pretty sure that I won’t be returning to ITB next year. Not quite enough value to justify the trip, even if it’s so close by.

Visiting one of the best Easter markets in the Czech Republic. Did you know that there are Easter markets in the Czech Republic, too? And they take place in the same spots where Christmas markets take place, including on Old Town Square in Prague.

Charlie and I visited Křivoklát Castle in the tiny town of Křivoklát, 90 minutes from Prague. It was such a fun market, with lots of food, musical performances, and all kinds of springy things for sale, including beautifully painted eggs.

Challenges

Illness hitting hard. I got sick in February and it lasted into March. By the time I got to Berlin, I felt totally better, though I masked at my networking event to be on the safer side. Then it hit AGAIN after coming home, a mix of tummy stuff and cold stuff and it even turned into bronchitis for the first time in my life. Glad THAT’S over.

Getting rejected for my license. After passing my driver’s test way back in November, I had to wait a few months for my residency to process (there were problems that I won’t go into here, but it was mainly a paperwork issue). Paperwork settled and residency card in hand, I went to the office to get my license, loaded with every piece of paperwork I could think of to prove I live here.

And…rejected! They wanted yet another specific form from the Ministry of the Interior. So back I went to pick it up, and went back to the license office, and this time it worked!! I can pick up my real license on April 17.

A bit of a disaster in Florence. I had just enough time to photograph the view from the Boboli Gardens and Bardini Gardens, then come back to the Palazzo Vecchio for my appointment to climb the Arnolfo Tower (as you can tell, I was photographing all the views).

Italy is disorganized and often a bit misogynistic, and this story is a perfect example of that: I saw a sign saying the bottom exit of the Bardini Gardens (closer to the Palazzo Vecchio) was closed until March 15. Perfect, I thought — it was March 19.

Then I got to the exit and nobody was there. There WERE a few people on a patio (technically outside the garden) uphill from the exit, and when I asked them if there was an exit, the man insisted that a person was there. I kept saying no, there wasn’t, and he walked with me to the exit and was shocked that nobody was there. Dude, I wasn’t lying.

I begged them to let me exit through their patio. I was going to be late for my tower climb and I would have to climb all the way uphill through the garden to get to the other, further-away exit. They refused. “I’m literally here,” I told them. “Just let me walk through your door!” They wouldn’t.

Fine. I climbed all the way uphill and drenched in sweat, I went out the main entrance (after quickly ranting “Oggi è diciannove marzo! Il segno, è chiuso al quindici marzo! Perché? Perché il segno oggi???” to the bemused front desk people) and ran the whole way downhill and across the Ponte Vecchio to the Palazzo Vecchio.

I made it there with ONE MINUTE TO SPARE. And…turns out I had booked the wrong ticket. I booked the museum, not the Arnolfo Tower. AHHHHHHHHHH. I booked a ticket for the following morning (I guess I’d be climbing two towers in a row!) and drowned my sorrows in a gelato.

And…there was almost an incident on the way back from Berlin. Back in 2010 when I was planning for my first trip to Southeast Asia, I visited a travel doctor to get vaccines and talk about meds to bring. She recommended Imodium, but told me that it’s healthier to let diarrhea happen, and only take it if I had to get on a long bus ride.

Well…I got hit with major gastrointestinal distress on my final day in Berlin, the run-into-a-random-restaurant-and-find-the-toilet kind of distress. I was supposed to come back by train, but there was a train strike, so I had no choice but to take a 4.5-hour bus ride.

It took nearly 14 years for that doctor’s advice to come into play — but I ended up at a pharmacy asking for Imodium, and adding, “It’s because I have a long bus ride.” (And it worked. Phew.)

Blog Posts of the Month

32+ Fun Things to Do in Buenos Aires, Argentina — Buenos Aires is HUUUUUGE and demands several days of your time to see it properly. This is how you should spend your time.

15 Best Day Trips from Prague (according to a local!) — My picks for the best ways to spend a day out and about from Prague. Everything from cool cities to spa towns to hiking destinations!

Book Club This Month

Our next book club will take place on Sunday, May 19, 2024 at 1:00 PM Eastern Time. Note that this is NOT Mother’s Day; that’s the week before. We will be reading the novel Family Lore by Dominican American author Elizabeth Acevedo.

“Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake—a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led—her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.

But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own.

Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces—one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.”

You can sign up here. It’s free and open to all (though I’m now maxed out at 25 participants because I don’t want to pay for Eventbrite — we never have that many, though). Hope to see you there!

Most Popular Reel on Instagram

After some time off, I have dived back into being much more active on Instagram. I made a reel from Florence that did particularly well — all about Michelangelo’s best and laughably worst sculptures!

You can follow me on Instagram at @adventurouskate. I’d love for you to follow me — I’m trying to do more cool stuff in that space!

What I Watched This Month

In March, I mainly caught up on the final season of The Crown. And honestly, I’ve really enjoyed The Crown, especially the episodes that teach me about times in British history I knew nothing about (like the landslide at Aberfan, and the time when the fog overwhelmed London), but I think they lost the plot in the final season.

The Crown has always had quite a bit of fiction thrown into it, but the final season went off the rails with these wild fantasy sequences. And it was way, way too sympathetic to Charles. It feels like this series ended with a specific agenda. Anyone agree?

Beyond that — I finished watching all the Oscar movies. What a great year for films.

What I Read This Month

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski (2019) — Why do women experience burnout differently to men? That’s what this book answers. It’s an in-depth look at how stress manifests in women, and what we need to do to truly recover.

There are so many medical studies that have never been applied to women. The reason? Menstrual cycles could have an impact on the results. How ridiculous is this?! We’re half the population!! That’s why I always love diving in to research on women specifically, and how things differ for us medically.

I highly recommend this book for all women. Too much good information in it.

Two O’Clock on a Tuesday at the Trevi Fountain by Helene Sula (2024) — In this memoir, Helene was living a typical 9-5 life in Texas with her husband and dogs, but dreaming of traveling the world. But would there be a way for them all to move to Europe, keep the comfortable parts of their lifestyle, and turn it into a big travel adventure? There would be, and this is the story.

Helene is a friend of mine, and I’m so happy for her success! If you’re looking for a how-to-move-abroad guide, you won’t find it here — but the book is more of a reminder of WHY we travel. It’s covered with experiences of her life in Heidelberg, Germany, as well as all over Europe, and the moments that show us there is more out there than what the typical American lifestyle has to offer.

And if you’re looking for travel inspiration but you have a spouse or pets — this shows that you don’t have to go it alone, like most memoirs, but that you can bring your partner and fur babies with you.

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (2018) — Nicole Chung was placed for adoption as a baby by her Korean parents living in Seattle. She was adopted by white parents and raised in a small town in Oregon, where she never felt like she fit in. This book is about how she began the search for her birth parents as her first child was about to be born.

I’ve come across Nicole on Twitter a lot, and she’s become a major voice for transracial adoptees. This book delves into the thousands of emotions that come out of adoption, and finding your birth family as an adult. It’s not a clear-cut story of happiness; it’s complicated and layered and I’m sure it will evolve but remain complicated for her forever. This is a great book to read to understand life after adoption a bit more.

And I gave up on a book that I really wanted to read — Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. I started it as an audiobook but found it really difficult to follow, so I started the actual book…and while it was easier to follow, I just couldn’t get into it.

Coming Up in April 2024

Spring is my absolute favorite time of year in Prague — especially April and May. I love the weather, the flowers, and the wonderful feeling of being able to spend time outside after spending so much time away.

So these last few years, I’ve tried to minimize my travels outside Prague during this season. Minimize, by my standards, anyway, that is.

I have two super-quick international excursions: first, I’ll be traveling to Berlin to see author Elizabeth Gilbert speak (and I booked a VIP meet-and-greet with her, too!). I don’t want to stay overnight, so I’m taking the bus in and out (and getting back to Prague at 4 AM or so…)

For the second, I’ve been nominated for Blogger of the Year at the TravMedia Awards in London. I’ll be doing a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it trip where I’ll be flying in, attending the awards, staying over, and flying back.

Toward the end of the month, Charlie and I are going to France for five days! Our friends bought a house in the French countryside, and we’ll be visiting them. Because they’re in a fairly remote area, we decided to add on a few days in the Loire Valley beforehand, and we will be staying in the town of Amboise.

Charlie and I have both wanted to explore France in more depth lately (you guys know how I always, always seem to end up in Paris), so we’re excited to visit these new areas.

And another big thing: Charlie and I will celebrate our one-year anniversary on April 28, and on that date, I will become eligible for permanent residency in the Czech Republic. Next big project!

Any plans for April? Share away!