All posts tagged: wanderlust

Postcards from the Edge: London Edition

Postcards from the Edge

Published by Khadijat Oseni

I long for summer days and playing through the rain. Days that make you feel despite the weather, absolutely nothing has to change. With these days I gaze through the corners of memories well spent, right there over on that park bench. When the times of my life were so vividly engaged as though the life in my palms were meant to create. Gone are the days that fall by the sidelines but by and by are built with the dreams of my unflinching eyes… x KO    Queen Mary’s Gardens//Regent’s Park, London, U.K.   Instagram | Twitter    

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Alyse Liebovich

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“In 2009 I was offered an irresistible opportunity to spend a month in Tanzania photographing the grassroots beginnings of what has now evolved into Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Clinic/WAVE, an organization aiming to build a floating hospital ship to provide ongoing medical services for the people living in the four countries that border the lake: Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, and Zambia. I had done a decent amount of traveling both in the U.S. and abroad, but I knew when I boarded the frighteningly small plane to transport us from Dar es Salaam to the remote lakeside sustainable organic farm we called home, I was about to embark on a whole new adventure. During that month, I celebrated World Malaria Day in Korongwe, participated in a mosquito net delivery via boat to several villages, spontaneously boarded the famous Liemba in the middle of the night, and fulfilled a lifelong dream of going on safari in Katavi National Park, where I got choked up when I first spotted giraffes in the wild amidst the …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Thom Estifanos

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I first fell in love with skateboarding as a young kid. Me and my brother started to skate around our neighborhood in Skövde, Sweden. Skateboarding became a big part of my everyday life. My friends and I started a skate crew and all the days we spent together were amazing. Skateboarding gives you the opportunity to be creative on so many different levels… I got involved with Ethiopia Skate by chance. As many things in life happen at random, the more you travel, the more people you meet. I have always loved that about traveling around the world. Getting to know new places. I originally traveled to Ethiopia to work as a photojournalist interning at an English newspaper. On one of my first days in Addis, after doing a story on the National Museum, I saw one of the skate kids with a board and asked if I could try it. He ended up giving me the number to Sean. Sean Stromsoe (from LA) founded Ethiopia Skate with Abenezer Temesgen, who lives in Germany but is originally …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Rose Chang

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“August 2008 — One of my best friends from childhood was getting married in Maui. I think this was the last trip I took where digital cameras were the norm, so all of my pictures and videos are burned on a CD (haha! tell that phrase to a 20 year old!!) somewhere. I’ve never been a huge picture taker anyways. I’ve always thought that what doesn’t stick in my memory just doesn’t deserve to be remembered. I challenge this theory more and more as I age, and it’s a discussion for another time. For now, I’ll describe the moments during this trip in which my memory dwells, and from which sensibilities linger.  So back to Maui, August 2008… Three girlfriends and I planned to attend the wedding together and spend some extra time traveling afterwards. The first few days we went fancy tourist: Gunning down beach side highways in a fire-red mustang convertible. A table setting with six different glasses at The Ritz for a bachelorette dinner party. The wedding was picturesque–on the beach at the …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Sita Chay

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“Silk Road was such a metaphysical term until I traveled through Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. It sounded far and magical, hard to grasp. Where people from Asia and Europe traveled and exchanged their cultures, I witnessed genuine interaction and creation of their encounters many, many centuries before me. As a western instrumentalist, little did I know the violin and Asian cellos like the Erhu and Haegeum, had the same ancestor until I saw another violinist playing the instrument between legs like a cello. Among many familiar sounding yet exotic instruments, the most memorable was a Mongolian cello called Morin Khuur. It had a magical balance between the folk-like sounds that we hear in Asian cellos and the sensitivity we recognize in the violin or viola. A horse head scroll was attached to its trapezoid box…a captivating, odd beauty which fit perfectly with one of my favorite legends it’s inspired: After a mother camel gave birth to her newborn, she was stressed and exhausted. She rejected the newborn and refused to feed the calf. To restore the harmony between …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ David L. Merin

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“Five years old I sat on a plane wondering aloud “Mom… can we still talk to each other in English when we get there?” The true honesty of a boy torn between a Filipino father and a New Yorker mother, born in Hawaii and now in transit to Nepal, a country unmatched in its ethnic diversity. My childhood was truly fit for a movie… In the many years to follow, my mother would try to comfort my confusion by giving me an identity. “You’re a Third Culture Kid,” she would say, dismissing my doubts, but I couldn’t understand what it meant. I was one of a large number of TCKs growing up overseas who didn’t identify with any one culture. Unable to relate to the country they once called home, TCKs are forced to adapt and survive an international adolescence separating them further from both their family and nationality. Though each of us has an original story, we all share a common experience, which we live every day. As for my friends and I, we …

How To Have #Jetsetterproblems

Published by Khadijat Oseni

I often get asked the question, “How do you get to travel so much?” It’s inevitable but also one I have a hard time responding to. Why? Because I’ve made a conscious decision to see the world and committed to going. I do not come from a place of privilege where I hit a magic button and, “Voila!” I’m transported into the sky…a misperception many assume based on my experiences. I’m a middle class girl from Brooklyn who had a dream early on in life to see the world and wanted to make this dream a reality. I took this fiery passion and found ways to manifest this dream through various mediums. One way was working hard in school and getting a scholarship that would place me at a university (NYU – Go Violets!) that supported experiential learning and global exchange via study abroad options. Another way was making sure that I remained open to connecting with people from all different walks of life. In maintaining these relationships and being open, I have had the …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Kaori Anne Jolliffe

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“I did a trip around Andalusia with my boyfriend at the beginning of this year. I have so many amazing memories from taking a nap on the beach in Málaga when we first arrived, to cracking up and crying from laughter at the blue pedestrian crossing signs because they looked like the Beyoncé “Single Ladies” dance, to biking around the Albaicín in Granada. On my to-do list for Andalusia was, of course, Gibraltar. It was so bizarre to see a little bubble of British culture so far away from the UK. After arriving, we decided to climb all the way up the Rock of Gibraltar to avoid the hefty taxi fee. One beer later at the pub by Michael’s Cave, we climbed up to the battery, which was being renovated. There was a ladder up the huge cannon so we snuck up there and shared the most delicious donut ever in the British enclave with Spain behind us whilst staring out at North Africa…I’ve never felt so small!” – Kaori Anne Jolliffe // @kaoriannej   069/100 of …

Confessions of a Jetsetter w/ Sophie Sarkar

Published by Confessions of a Jetsetter

“As a mixed-race American with international roots, my travels have often been about reconnecting with my heritage and exploring my intertwined cultural identities. Traveling to India, and especially Kolkata, has helped me understand so many things about my relationships, quirks, anxieties, styles, and propensities. It has also been the source of inspiration for most of my creative projects… In India, my senses are overwhelmed by highly saturated colors, smells, and sounds. When I stay at my family’s house in northern Kolkata, I wake up every morning to the sounds of water being pumped up to the roof of the house; birds cawing salutations to one another; unidentifiable bells; street vendors selling sugar cane juice, sweets, and plastic buckets; Bengali bickering; various conch shells calling the Gods into the houses; my aunties gossiping with each other through the windows; the extremely loud and incredibly close neighbors; the donkey-like screech of rickshaw horns; the barking of territorial street dogs; and the call of the garbage man going around on his bike-pulled carriage screaming, in a somewhat melodic …

24 Hours: Luxembourg City

Published by Khadijat Oseni

“Where are you headed next?” “Luxembourg!” “Oh cool…silly question, where is that again? Switzerland?” “No, but close, there’s a “Little Switzerland” in Luxembourg!” “Wait, I thought Luxembourg was a capital city in another country?” “Yeah, Luxembourg City IS the capital of Luxembourg!” “Oh jeez, get out of here before you drive me nuts!” “Haha, love ya!” Typical conversations that surrounded my recent trip to Luxembourg always seemed to either begin and end in a cloud of confusion as to where Luxembourg is, or garner disbelief as to how I spent an entire weekend there without electing to hop over to popular neighboring cities like Brussels, Paris and Cologne. However, during my summer in London, I decided to zip over and find out what the local sensibility of this city full of drifters is, with 60% of its population being expats and having 170,000 people commute back and forth each day. Outside of having well-paid jobs particularly in the EU and financial sectors, what is the draw to life in Luxembourg City? Upon arrival, I quickly …