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Jordan is a flashpacking, road-trip enthusiast with a voracious desire for the less-traveled route. For her off-the-beaten-path excursions, she's visited over fifty countries and all fifty states, and she's constantly on the search for excellent local libations.
Visit her blog Global Debauchery for unusual itineraries, and follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
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SUBSCRIBEI think it’s fair to say I started traveling earlier than most people. I’m a dual citizen and took my first flight from the UK to the USA when I was two months old.
I grew up a military brat and a Third Culture Kid. And, since I spent most of my formative years shipping back and forth between the US and different countries in Europe every couple of years, I guess the habit just stuck as an adult. Traveling feels like home!
I follow a lot of travel sites and am a huge fan of the barrage of annual travel lists every New Year. I’m drawn to up-and-coming destinations, so I keep an eye out and try to get there before everyone else. It just feels more authentic when it’s less discovered.
I also sometimes just see a photo and say to myself… “I’m going there.” Literally.
How I pack is totally dependent on where I’m headed. I pack very light in a pack for most destinations, but I’ll bring a roller bag for the periodic all-inclusive beach resort. For road trips these days, I recommend what I’ve dubbed a “Covid Kit.” It should include extra masks, gloves (for gas pumps and whatnot), hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, and feminine wipes (since a lot of public restrooms have closed down).
Because I seek out off-the-beaten-path destinations and sights, I usually end up planning everything myself, step by step. And I don’t mind it one bit. I have all my favorite booking sites and I cash in all my rewards.
I’ve yet to find a travel planning
app that I like all that much, so I just outline a Google Doc with my itinerary
and file all my confirmations there. Then I make it available for viewing
offline on my phone, too.
I always make friends on the road! Usually just from grabbing drinks somewhere and striking up a conversation.
I’m also part of an amazing international women’s travel community, Wanderful. They offer to host and touring and a massive network of awesome women all around the world!
And I have a few favorite memories. I’ve met people in one country and visited them later in another country on more than one occasion.
As an adult, I started primarily traveling in Europe because, having spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years there, it was second nature to me. Eventually, I started branching out more to South America, Asia, and Oceania, but that was a little later.
I think my favorite European countries to date are Portugal, Slovenia, Romania, and Lithuania. Memorable experiences include drinks at Buza Bar over sunset in Dubrovnik, exploring downtown Sarajevo, and eating pasteis de nata in Lisbon, and Belgian frites anywhere in Belgium.
Oh, gosh, where to begin? I follow a number of websites for travel inspiration, like Afar, Atlas Obscura, Travel & Leisure, Matador Network, Lonely Planet, and a bunch of fellow bloggers, too, of course. I love DK Eyewitness Guides for a printed destination reference. For planning, I use Scott’s Cheap Flights, TravelZoo, Gate 1, Hotels.com, Viator, Hopper, and Rome2Rio.
My blog literally started as a daily journal that I was posting on Facebook whenever I was traveling. And I was always sharing travel deals, hacks, fun articles from other places, so I thought why not make it a blog and share my own information?
I like to design, I like photography, I like writing, just seemed like a fun idea at the time.
I want my readers to learn about new and different experiences in well-traveled places. And I want my readers to be able to find the fun and all the personality in a random small town in “flyover country.” Sure, everyone should see the Eiffel Tower or the Coliseum, but there’s so much more to Paris and Rome and, well, everywhere else, too. If you want information on where to find a Seine river cruise in Paris, my blog probably isn’t for you. But, if you want to know where to find the hidden and abandoned railway tracks below Paris, I’ve got you covered!
My road trips are typically one full week with two weekends attached to either side. That, or something like a 4-day weekend getaway to another state or city. The determining factor has always been working. And, now that I no longer work a standard, full-time office job, the determining factor is usually my husband’s work!
I personally like to Flashpack - where you backpack or road trip and stay at a hotel every evening. And I road trip in some fairly faraway places, so I sometimes fly to a certain city before I start my trip.
That being said, I prepare just by packing as I would for any other trip, and making sure I’ve got a rental car secured and hotels booked on my chosen route. My road trip style is definitely not the cheapest style and I don’t always go to cheap destinations either, but there are so many ways to make road-tripping affordable.
People can be caught off-guard by rental car costs in some areas or at some times of the year in the United States.
My car rental out of Omaha, Nebraska, for example, was more expensive than most rentals I’ve done and we were only returning it to Fargo, North Dakota.
In the Northeast US, people always forget about the tolls and underestimate how much they’ll cost altogether.
In Europe, people are caught off-guard by petrol prices. For all these types of things, though, you can go cheaper - drive your own car (don’t rent), stay at campgrounds or hostels, take the side roads instead of the highways!
I’m a huge fan of the Pacific Northwest US. And the Blue Ridge Parkway is always a pretty drive.
Our New Zealand road trip was spectacular, as well as our Iceland road trip. One drive I have not done yet that I really, really want to do is Big Sur and the Coastal Highway on the US west coast!
I think the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced on the road was the weather. And not so much just having to pull over, find a place to hole up for the night, and hunker down, but actively being in really bad weather conditions with no pull-off area or town in sight.
I was once on a trip in the northeast where the entire highway closed down in the middle of a massive blizzard. There was next to no visibility and cars and entire semi-trucks were sliding off the roads left and right.
Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about sudden bad weather, but just be certain to take it as slow as you feel comfortable going until you can find a place to safely get off the road.
Well, I definitely wish I knew a pandemic was coming that would lock the world down for a year and a half (and counting)! As much as I love to travel and was seemingly always on the road before the pandemic, Covid definitely reminds me not to take it for granted.
Travel is an absolute privilege. And all those places you’ve wanted to go and never did? Go there!
Travel just constantly reminds me how beautiful and diverse the world and all its humans are. I’m such a small part of it. I’ve been to places I thought would be scary that were so incredibly welcoming and surprising. I’ve been to places I thought would be boring that knocked my socks off. There’s something good to be found in every place, and in every person. And it’s up to you to seek it out.
Depending on where you road-trip, you should be very cognizant of your gas gage. And always have a lot of water in the car with you. If you’re out in Alaska or Montana or the southwest deserts, it can get very remote. Unexpectedly so. Just make sure you’re planning ahead on gas and water as a simple safety measure.
My big advice for first-time road-trippers is to give yourself some extra time to explore (don’t make your road-trip all driving) and to ditch the highway every so often. Seriously. You’ll see nothing but highway if you don’t. You won’t see the weird things and meet the fun people and eat the food you’ve never tried before.
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