Nice to meet you! I’m Melissa Kruse.
Ever since I can remember, I have been a wanderer. I wandered through my earlier years primarily via books, sat in the back seat of my parents’ SUV as we took road trips through America. I was transported into other worlds, real and fantasy. I never could get enough of them.
My relentless curiosity to see the world took me to New York from the suburbs of Chicago and then to 35 countries and counting. I’ve lived in India, Italy, various parts of the US and I am always planning for what next. Currently, I’m living in Portugal for a few months.
My love for wandering and organization led me to this blog. Friends and family would jokingly make fun of my detailed spreadsheet itineraries for trips, but I’d always get asked to share my spreadsheets.
My obsessive itinerary creation was also a way to help me get excited in anticipation for my upcoming travel. I have made extensive schedules for trips I have never even taken, from a 28 day multi-country South America itinerary to a two week trip up the Croatian coast.
I’ve worked across multiple food startups as a marketing professional. However, I often found myself dreaming of of my next trip. Just planning a trip was like a mini-vacation for my mind.
Like most of us, I was obsessed with seeing as much as I could in a new city. What if this is my only time in this city? After all, the world is wide and I have a long list of places I want to explore.
However, I’ve slowed down and I’m now much more ‘go with the flow’ when I travel. While there are benefits to all styles of travel, I started to find the strict schedules to be restricting and I wanted more freedom to discover things as I went. I still like to research places before I go, but it is no longer so that I see everything possible in the allotted time frame my trip allows. Now it is so I can understand more about the people and places I’m going to see so I can gain some insights, learn something new, and view something from another perspective.
Most recently, I spent most of 2022 and 2023 living in Mumbai and traveling around India with my partner, Anmol, who is from northeast India, a region of spectacular natural beauty, geopolitics and cultural diversity. He lived in India most of his life (so I had a great guide) before living in Ireland, Singapore and the US. We met at a wedding in India on my first trip to the country in 2017. Many of the recommendations on this blog come from my time spent there and our expeditions together in India and around the world.
In an effort to share just a bit of what I learned while traveling and help guide other people when planning trips, I created this blog. Travel has brought me a deeper understanding of the world and most importantly, the people in it. I hope this blog can inspire others to see new places and learn new ways to think about the world.
My journey as a wanderer and having realized we all wander differently, enabled me to create magical, highly customized itineraries, no matter the kind of traveler you are. If you’d like to utilize my travel planning services, start here.
All photography on this site is taken by either myself or my partner (both in life and travels), Anmol (@oldermonk). You can view more of his photography at anmoldiddan.picfair.com. All images are subject to copyright.
Where I’ve traveled to:
So far I’ve traveled to 35+ countries around the world and 33 US states. I’ve lived on 3 continents in the international cities of New York City, Rome, and Mumbai.
Asia
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Singapore
Sri Lanka
Taiwan
Thailand
United Arab Emirates
Europe
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Croatia
England
France
Germany
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Ireland
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
Slovenia
Slovakia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
North America
Aruba
Bonaire
Canada
Guatemala
Mexico
Panama
South America
Colombia
