Lindsay Rogers

1 month ago | insidehook.com | Lindsay Rogers

And is that the experience you're really looking for? “Live like a local.” That’s the message that travel publications and influencers have parroted for years now, a simple piece of advice that can supposedly transform your travels. Help you have a more authentic experience. Except is that really what travelers want?

1 month ago | insidehook.com | Lindsay Rogers

1 month ago | insidehook.com | Lindsay Rogers

How the f*ck are people able to afford travel? Assuming I’m not overcome by any wild impulses before end of day, I will have spent somewhere in the vicinity of $58 by the time I get home from work tonight. That covers my commute, a cup of coffee, a dog walk and lunch from one of the fast-casual spots near my office. Forget any unanticipated expenses or extracurriculars, that’s just what one day in-office generally costs me.

1 month ago | insidehook.com | Lindsay Rogers

I was standing outside of Golubac Fortress in Serbia, which sits directly on the Danube River and just a stone’s throw from the modern-day border with Romania, a country I have yet to visit. “We should walk over, just to say that we did it,” I joked, craning to get a better look. “It wouldn’t count,” someone in my group, a known country counter, quickly countered. That would require, at minimum, an overnight and at least one meal, they added, and we didn’t have time for that. I agreed.

2 months ago | insidehook.com | Lindsay Rogers

I can’t remember the last time I was at an airport and wasn’t forced to consider the possibility that maybe I am the crazy one. When waiting to board, for example, the gate agent comes over the loudspeaker to kindly ask everyone who isn’t in boarding group one or two to stay seated, which invariably always seems to signal to the overwhelming number of passengers in groups 3-6 that they should make their way to the front of line posthaste.