Europe, general, Portland, Thailand, USA

Gluten-Free Globetrotter: 2013 in Photos

This year was an amazing year for travel. I pushed myself way out of my comfort zone and went to Asia for the first time. I was busy flying back and forth across the country to Portland for work. I took my mom on a fabulous trip to Wales and Scotland. I also took likes of NorthEast road trips in between. I think this is my best year of Gluten-Free Globetrotting to date!

48,234 miles flown
6 countries visited (minus 2 if you don’t count airports, ha!) 
8 states visited (although maybe more, I lost count)
2500+ photos taken

I feel so proud of my travel accomplishments this year and cannot wait to start planning my 2014 travels. I already have seven trips to Portland on the calendar and my sister just moved to Wisconsin so I will definitely be adding a new state to my travelogue in 2014.

I am a bit behind in some of my posts so I will share my 2013 Gluten-Free Globetrotter travels with some of my favorite pictures. 

general

Celebrate Female Travel on International Women’s Day

Today is International Women’s Day, a day to inspire women and to celebrate female achievements across the globe. In honor of International Women’s Day I thought I would celebrate the new “We Go Solo” initiative that is sweeping the Twitter world and blogosphere.

“We Go Solo” is an viral online campaign to encourage women to not be afraid to travel on their own throughout the world. After a woman from Staten Island, New York was murdered in Turkey last month, there was a strong backlash against solo female travelers. Many people felt that women shouldn’t travel alone and there were some horrible online commenters that said we were better suited to stay at home. This did not sit well with hundreds of avid female travelers from across the globe, including myself.

Mariellen, founder of the blog Breathe Dream Go, was one of the first adopters (if not founder) of the #WeGoSolo hashtag on Twitter. Female travelers and bloggers quickly adopted this new trend and spoke up in support of female solo travel. I loved watching these three simple words bring amazing and admirable female travelers to the forefront of social media. I was inspired, added tons of new blogs to my RSS feed, and started following new females on Twitter and Facebook. If I am not reading gluten-free blogs, I am reading travel blogs. Hundreds of them… literally!

I am not only a Gluten-Free Globetrotter, but I am an avid SOLO female traveler. I am about to embark on my 9th solo trip, setting foot in Asia for the first time and going totally alone. I am excited, nervous, happy, scared, and so many other emotions but never for a minute did the sad death of a female traveler deter me from planning and booking my trip to Thailand. I am savvy both at home and abroad and feel that my street smarts have helped me many times along the way. I am proud of my solo travels and encourage anyone and everyone to travel, the sole purpose of this blog.

Today, in honor of International Women’s Day, I encourage you to explore #WeGoSolo on Twitter and read some inspiring stories of female travel from across the globe. To get you started, check out these female travelers who are also gluten-free!

Jodi from Legal Nomads

Lauren from Lauren Schaad

Mariellen from Breathe Dream Go

Laura from Gluten Free Traveller

Adina from Gluten-Free Travellete

Gluten Free Mrs. D

And a special mention to Evelyn of Journeywoman for posting about International Women’s Day and bringing this to my attention! Check out her beautiful photo post about women from around the world.