Happy Halloween!
Hello Wonderful Reader,
As the Prince Edward Island post series is drawing to a close (the final post will be out next week!) and the Chincoteague Pony Penning 2016 series is about to start, with a few odds and ends in between, I thought it a good time to catch up with you! Lately I’ve been devouring books, scrambling to get these posts out each week, and started up some online courses through Travel Blog Success. So with any luck, I’ll learn how to make my posts so exciting that you’ll be sharing them with your friends left and right…if you’re not already, which you totally should! I read some great books during October and added several to the to-be-read pile as well. If you’re looking for your next book to read, let me give you some book suggestions & travel tips as well!
Most Popular Post of the Month
Good Eats: Prince Edward Island
Post I Wish Got More Love
Experience Anne’s Avonlea at Orwell Corner Historic Village, PEI
My Favorite Reads This Month
Storybook Travels: From Eloise’s New York to Harry Potter’s London, Visits to 30 of the Best-Loved Landmarks in Children’s Literature by Colleen Dunn Bates
(Buy on Amazon)
This is a great book for parents who read to their children as well as parents looking for tips on traveling with children. The book is a collaboration between two women who traveled separately with their own and their friends’ children to 30 literary destinations. They recorded the children’s reactions as well as those of visiting school groups that happened to also visit the designated destination. Each of the 30 chapters is broken into three parts: the book summary, their experience, and a suggested itinerary relating to each book with contact information for places recommended. The experience sections are heartwarming and entertaining because of the reactions of the children to various parts of the trips. The women also provide suggestions for what to do when the children get bored, how to turn boring parts of the trips into games, and how to spark meaningful discussions about what they’ve read together. While this blog covers a few of the destinations written about in the book, I certainly learned I’ve got quite a few more places to add to my bucket-list. And perhaps someday I’ll travel with children.
Library of Souls by Ransom Riggs
(Buy on Amazon)
While you should probably start with #1, Mrs. Perigrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, I think #3 was my favorite. I read straight through the series because I couldn’t put them down, but Library of Souls stood out to me because (and I hope I’m not giving too much away) the children traveled through different time periods of London. There was the dirt road, foggy, murky world of the Sherlock Holmes time period, and then there was the WWII time period with children crowding train stations to be shipped off to the country as in the Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, and then of course the present day. This got me thinking about how one might visit London today and never fully comprehend how different London was at different times. I think I’ll write a post about how to tour London and mentally travel through time.
Image From This Month
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Looking Forward
The next series of posts will relate to Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry & Pony Penning Week 2016!
In July I attended the 2016 Chincoteague Pony Penning week for the first time! This event was made famous by Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. You won’t want to miss the photos of ponies that are coming with these posts!
I’m going on a surprise trip to Holland!
Each time I travel I learn what works and doesn’t work so that next time I might pack better or replace items with something else. I also look for new iPhone apps that might make the trip more fun/easier. Let me share with you my preparations for the next trip.
Newest Iphone App Downloaded
Vermeer Route
This promises to be a walking tour of Delft, Holland relating to the life of the painter Vermeer.
Travel Tips!
Mistakes Made…
Roller ball pens leak in pressurized plane cabins and are never the same again. After a little research, I learned that roller ball pens have water based ink and gel pens have oil based ink. Apparently the oil based ink shouldn’t leak. I settled on a pack of Pilot G-2 07 pens for my next trip. I’ll report back.
Tips to Test
Found at Hey Nadine travel vlog Packing Hacks:
Nadine suggests using a hard suitcase because they’re waterproof and your internal suitcase items may suffer less damage from airlines. I went ahead and found a nice suitcase at The Container Store.
Also, packing cubes . Why has nobody ever told me about these before?!? These keep your clothes organized instead of in one giant mass in the suitcase. They allow you to separate clean and dirty clothes. or just organize your clothes in general! After acquiring some Packing Cubes from REI, for the trip home from Chincoteague, I can tell you these make SO much difference!
Finally, a Laundry bag without holes so you won’t be smelling your laundry!. I ALWAYS for get to grab a plastic bag to stuff my laundry in! Now I have a dedicated Laundry Bag (also from The Container Store) and it can be washed!
Read along with me!
As this next trip came as a complete surprise, rather than being based around a pre-chosen book, I thought I’d share with you the 3 books I chose for this trip.
Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong, Pictures by Maurice Sendak
(Buy on Amazon)
This is where my only information about Holland comes from. There are dikes, wooden shoes, and sometimes storks. That’s about all I remember of this book, besides the fact that I remember liking it a great deal. Time for a re-read.
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
(Buy on Amazon)
The Anne Frank house & museum is located in Amsterdam. This is not a location I ever thought I’d visit, but if I happen to be there, I couldn’t not go in. Not only is her history my own family’s history, but her mother’s family has the same last name and is from the same town as a branch of my own family. So perhaps there’s a slight chance that somewhere down the line, we might have been related?
Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
(Buy on Amazon)
Johannes Vermeer is my favorite painter. The way he uses light in his paintings to make everyday tasks appear like a frozen intimate moment intrigues me. This read is mostly an excuse to visit Delft.
That about sums up October.
Let’s Talk!
Have you read any of these books already? What did you think? Have you found that certain items work better for travel than others? And what did you like best about October? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
*Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links, meaning if you buy something after clicking, I will earn a small commission (at no extra cost to you, of course!). And as always, all opinions are my own!
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