There's No Place Like Oz

There’s No Place Like: Three Bags Full

This is the second post in the new “No Place Like” series in which I highlight places that have blessed me a feeling of “home”. As I write, I’m sitting in a beach cottage at North Carolina’s Outer Banks (OBX), waiting for coffee to finish brewing and the griddle to be free so I can [...]

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A Year in Australia: By the Numbers

I quit my job as a career counselor for uni students at 30 to move to Australia for 12 months for a once in a lifetime opportunity. Following six months of travel + six months of living in Sydney, I realized there are MANY numbers that add up to one great year. Ways I made [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: Western Australia

In 2006, my youngest sister and I popped into the pizza shop beside our hostel in Sydney to get a quick take away dinner. A friendly 20-something heard our American accents and quickly struck up a typical traveler’s conversation with us. “What, you’re only here for three weeks?! Man, you gotta make it to WA [...]

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Quick Guide: How to Survive the Nullarbor

There were a lot of things I’d read about before my arrival in Australia, but the Nullarbor Plain was not one of them. Even after living in the country for eight months, no one had ever breathed a word of the nearly treeless landscape to me. Then, just a week before Adam and I planned [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: SA beaches & towns

Sometimes when you travel, you enjoy the journey so much that you take in every moment, focusing completely on the present. As beautiful as the scenery is, you compose and commit the snapshots to memory instead of using a camera. While you normally scribble keywords and phrases to jog your mind about what you experienced [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: South Australia

After visiting Tasmania and Victoria on the Oz Roadtrip, Adam, Nicole, and I continued west to South Australia. I had already fallen in love with SA’s Adelaide and Coober Pedy ten months prior, so I couldn’t wait to see what else South Australia had to offer. As it turns out, I loved South Australia so [...]

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Australia Roadtrip: Victoria

Three months ago, Adam, Nicole, and I set off on a 2-month road trip around the southern coast of Australia. Until now, I’ve only been able to share about the 2-week trip to Tasmania and the trials and tribulations of living out of a van for two months. Now, I’m ready to pick up where [...]

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Heather the studio audience member

In the last year, quite a few interesting opportunities have come my way, and I’ve been able to try many new things. I’ve appeared on TV; modeled; belted out show tunes, pop, and R&B at karaoke; and experienced SCUBA diving for the first time. With my love of food and knack for appearing on Australian [...]

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The one without food photos

Australia is approximately the size of the continental United States. Surprised? Take a look at a globe or map — it’s true! Despite their similarity in size, the two could not be more different when it comes to the number of states in each. Not including territories outside of the mainland, Australia has six states [...]

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Heather the Whizbanger

In the last seven weeks, I’ve traveled 13,000 kilometers around Australia. Somewhere around the 9,000 km mark, I learned that I am a whizbanger. At a national park in Western Australia, a park volunteer made a mad dash toward our van as soon as we arrived at the overnight camping area she looks after. “Where’s [...]

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