Summer by the Seaside: A Day Trip to Hanko and Ekenäs in Finland
Sometimes when we travel it’s easy to stick to the capital, but then we end up missing out on gems that are so close…
I’ve spent the better part of two decades chasing flights, trains, and the occasional questionable bus across most of the world, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that “destination” is a pretty small word for what these places actually hold. Here’s everything I’ve covered region by region — the cities that surprised me, the landscapes that left me speechless, and the small, unglamorous details that actually matter when you’re the one standing there with a backpack and a half-charged phone. Some regions I know deeply after years of return trips. Others I’ve only just started to explore — and I’ll say so.
This is the region I know best, and it keeps pulling me back. Canada is home — I’ve done multiple trips through Nova Scotia, and more road trips than I can count winding through British Columbia and Alberta, where Sam and I actually live now. Further south, Argentina and Patagonia have my whole heart these days; we’re building a life around documenting that part of the world properly, in both English and Spanish. Peru gave me one of my favourite hikes ever on the way up to Machu Picchu, and I’ve spent plenty of time wandering through Quebec City, the Florida Keys, and Key West too. There’s an enormous amount of ground here, and I’ve genuinely covered a lot of it.
Europe is where I really learned how to travel, and it’s the region I’ve explored most widely outside of the Americas. Barcelona, Berlin, Edinburgh, Rovinj in Croatia, Zagreb, Warsaw — plus stops in Poland, Germany, Scotland, Slovakia, and Finland along the way. The continent does the famous things well, but the real charm for me has always been in the smaller stops: a quiet square in a town nobody’s heard of, a regional dish you can’t get anywhere else. I’ve worked through a lot of this continent slowly, country by country, and I’m not done yet.
I’ll be honest — South Africa is the only country I’ve made it to on this continent so far, but it left a real impression. A week in Stellenbosch’s wine country, riding segways through vineyards, taking a sidecar tour through the Cape winelands — it was unlike any other wine region I’d visited, and it made me want to come back and see far more of the continent than I have. Africa is enormous and I’ve barely scratched the surface, but that one trip is enough to know there’s a lot more here worth exploring.
I lived in Asia for years before I ever called myself a “travel blogger,” and it shaped me more than any other region. Teaching in South Korea, living in Thailand, trekking through Sapa in Vietnam, exploring Japan from Nikko to Hakodate, wandering temples in Cambodia — this is the part of the world that taught me to slow down and actually look around. Further west, I’ve also spent time in Turkey, Jordan, and Israel, which opened up a completely different side of Asia for me — different history, different rhythm, equally unforgettable. I don’t think I’ll ever finish exploring this region.
Oceania is the region I’ve barely touched — just one trip to Australia so far — but it was enough to understand why people fall in love with it. The scale of the landscape alone makes most other places feel small by comparison. I’d love to get back, see more of the country properly, and finally make it to New Zealand and the Pacific islands I haven’t had the chance to visit yet. This one’s firmly on the list for the years ahead.
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