It started with a glass of wine in the lounge.

Why this exists

The lounge was in an airport, and the wine was doing what lounge wine does, which is make the next trip look like an excellent idea. I cannot sit through a layover without researching the next trip, and usually the one after that, while the current one is still in progress.

I also like keeping track of where I have been. In some ways this is a travel blog, and what I did not want was the part where a travel blog needs feeding, where you find yourself booking a trip every weekend to keep the thing current. I wanted a space that belongs to the people using it: somewhere to log a trip and share it the way you would on a social platform, without the politics and the negativity that come attached to most of them. So I built that, and then I left the door open.

I swear by the Mark Twain line about travel:

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts."Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad, 1869

He wrote that more than 150 years ago and it has not needed an update.

Who is writing this

I'm from Portland, Oregon, and I have lived abroad since 2018, in Brazil, Vietnam and Denmark, with Copenhagen as home now. I also kind of lived in Dubai, where I got "stuck" for more than two and a half months on my way from Denmark to Vietnam, which remains the longest layover I have on record. I speak English, Danish and Portuguese. My country count is on my traveler profile.

I have run a marathon on every continent with my husband, Jay, including Antarctica, which covid cancelled on us for years before the penguins finally let us in, and one inside our Copenhagen apartment during lockdown, an activity I recommend to nobody. I have walked to Everest Base Camp with ten strangers, danced through four Carnavals in Brazil, and driven an electric car from Copenhagen to Kosovo and back, despite being a person who cannot be trusted to charge her own phone.

I sometimes check a bag. Most expats do, because there is always something you can only get in the other country. But somewhere along the way I found that owning fewer things left more room and more budget for going places (my husband may disagree with the accounting).

When I am not here, I run The Brand Collective.

The one in charge

Magnus Waffles is about three years old and has opinions. Often confused with a polar bear, seal, or teddy bear. 100% Samoyed.

His country count is on his Paw Passport. His contributions have included a full perimeter check of a shed in Saxony, the discovery of a baguette in Sofia, and a visit to a dog bakery in Budapest that he considers the cultural high point of Europe. When we camp, he sleeps on top of me like an Arctic weighted blanket.

He is also the reason the Paw Passport exists. If your travel companion has paws, feathers or scales, they get a page of their own and a country count to go with it.

How the stories work

The rules are short. Every story happened, and it happened to the person whose name is on it. We get the facts right first and are funny second, because the joke is only earned by being right. We laugh at ourselves, at our own decisions and at the occasional inanimate object that had it coming, and never at a place or the people who live there.

Hosted or gifted travel is labeled at the top of the story, where you will see it.

What you can do here

• Read. True stories from named travelers about specific places, free and with no paywall.
• Map. Tick off every country you have been to and watch your map fill in.
• Share. Send a story or your photos. A person reads every submission within 48 hours, edits lightly, and your byline stays yours.
• Bring the dog. Or the cat, the ferret, or one extremely well-traveled parrot.

Under-slept, over-stamped,
Nancy and Magnus