Text & photos © Catherine Nichols Never before had I been so stressed on a trip. There we were, stranded in Vancouver in a nightmare Airbnb situation with four kids. Count ’em: four. It was the one time we had decided that two of our daughters could bring two of their friends along on what...

Text & photos © Estrella Azul For this year, my plan is to go on as many road trips as possible. The first one this spring was to visit a few dripstone caves around Șuncuiuș village, about an hour’s drive from my city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. My boyfriend and I had never been to the Șuncuiuș...

Text & photos © Catherine Nichols With leaf earrings dangling from my ears, I got in my car and drove three miles to one of the best kept secrets of San Diego. Even though I live so close to San Diego Botanic Garden in Encinitas, California, I rarely visit. I decided to go this year because we’ve...

Text & photos © Estrella Azul DURING SUMMER VACATION my boyfriend and I stayed in Budapest, Hungary, for a week. While looking for cities to visit nearby we realized Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, was only a two-hour drive away. We took the M1 motorway early in the morning and, without any...

Text & photos © Catherine Nichols There’s no better time than now to start fleshing out your summer plans. Sure, it may be the middle of winter and you may be freezing in your parka and mittens, but there are benefits to planning early. If you make your reservations now, you’ll likely find numerous...

Text & photos © Estrella Azul AS SOON AS I SAW this sign at Euphoria Biergarten, a lovely restaurant in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, I knew I had to take a picture of it (see feature photo, right). Knight on watch It is a quirky place overall, with sort of a medieval vibe to it, and I am positive that...

Text & photos © Estrella Azul AS MENTIONED in my previous travel article about the European city of Miskolc (Visiting Miskolc, Hungary during the winter holidays), I first visited the Castle of Diósgyőr in 2005, and it so happened that I revisited it every five years after that. Not much visible...