Traveller of the Month: Melanie from Postcards & Places

Welcome back to Traveller of the Month! Each month I’m featuring a fellow world traveller and travel blogger to share their best tips, tricks and stories with you. I’m so excited to be featuring fellow Vancouverite, Melanie, on the blog today. I found myself nodding along to a lot of her travel philosophies and being inspired by her travel stories, which I’m sure you will too. From driving across Canada to studying abroad in Ghana, teaching English in South Korea and taking a sabbatical in France, you won’t want to miss this!

Without further ado, meet September’s Traveller of the Month: Melanie from Postcards & Places!

And if you missed last month’s TotM, you can meet Meredith here!

Introduce yourself! What’s your travel story?

As a kid, I travelled around North America frequently with my family. We often camped and drove across the continent from Ontario to British Columbia to visit my grandparents. I loved being on the road every day and seeing new places every summer. Thanks to these trips, I’ve been to all Canadian provinces and most US states.

When I graduated high school, I went on my first trip abroad. It was a quick trip (10 days) to Europe (England, France, and Italy) with some classmates and teachers, and I had a great time. It was similar to my cross-continent family trips where we were on the road every day seeing new places and people.

I studied Geography in university, and that solidified and supported my love of travel. I was lucky to have the opportunity to study abroad in Ghana for a year, which, thanks to my naïveté, gave me my first experience with culture shock. But that challenging and amazing year helped me grow as a person and a traveller.

I spent two years teaching English in Seoul, South Korea after university, and I recently took a sabbatical year in France. Now I’m based in Vancouver and continuing to explore Canada and other places around the world when I can.

My style of travel has changed over time. I’m more aware of climate change and the negative consequences of the travel industry, so now I’m interested in slow travel and regenerative tourism.

When did you start your travel blog and what sort of stories do you share there?

I started my travel blog when I lived in South Korea to communicate with my friends and family back home so the stories were more like diary entries. I’ve kept it since then and continue to write about other travels, and, while the stories are still personal, they’re less about me and more about the places.

The main themes of Postcards & Places are based on my interests: exploring urban areas; learning about cultures through art, books, and film; and spending time outdoors.

What do you do when you’re not travelling or writing about travel?

I’m a teacher, mostly Social Studies for middle school and high school. Or, for fun, I’m often reading a book or watching a movie. I also like to use my travels as inspiration for creative projects, like painting.

If you had to sum up your travel ethos in one phrase, what would it be?

“Travel is engagement.” By this, I mean: Travel is about engaging fully in the place, using all your senses to take in as much “local” as possible (food, music, customs, etc.) and spending money locally.

As a travel blogger, what do you want to inspire other travellers to do?

More than anything, I want my writing to give readers the curiosity to explore other ways of living, the confidence to travel independently, and the freedom to make mistakes while doing so. I find that searching out the “best” (sights, food, etc.) adds unnecessary stress—it’s an impossible task!

“Travel, to me, is not about seeing the ‘best’ places or having everything go smoothly. Instead, it’s about being an imperfect person seeking out experiences in imperfect places.”

What is still on your travel bucket list? What have you recently checked off?

They may be controversial, but I am Team Bucket List. I keep mine—I call it a Travel To-Do List—on my blog and update it regularly. Recently I checked off “see the world from a hot air balloon” in the Loire Valley, France. Among other things, I’m still hoping to “sleep in a haunted house” (if anyone knows where to find one, let me know!) and “show up at the airport and take the next flight out.”

Fill in the blank: Travelling has made me…

Travelling has made me feel confused, tired, and frustrated much of the time—and also has turned me into the most capable, fun, and confident version of myself.

How do you cope with bad days on the road or travel burnout?

I have discovered over the years that I feel a lot better when I slow my pace down—I can’t (and don’t want to) pick up and get on the road every day like I did when I was younger. My bad days are usually related to trying to do too much or being on the move too often, so I like to give myself a “day off” every week or so to do nothing new and not feel guilty about it.

Which celebrity would you want to travel with and where would you go?

While there are certainly a lot of people who would be fun to travel with, I would of course choose Leonardo DiCaprio. I think we could do a lot of interesting work together on sustainability and climate change in different places around the world, like Greenland and Antarctica. And I think it would be fun to go to the Cannes Film Festival as his date.

What is your process for writing a blog post?

I write mostly in my apartment, bouncing back and forth between my kitchen table and my sofa. (My writing desk is largely ignored.) I keep a running list of post ideas on my iPhone’s Reminders app, which somehow has consistently around 200 ideas, no matter how many I complete.

For research, I often take notes in my notebooks or on my Notes app. I generally have one journal per trip, and then I also have general notebooks for research. I take notes when I watch movies, take courses, and do research online. My Notes app is used for those in-between travel times, like when I’m on the bus to a Vancouver Canucks hockey game and something comes to mind.

Each post varies, but I usually start with my travel journals. From there, I think about what I want to say about the trip or the place. What was the highlight? What was the theme? What did I learn? Some posts are very much based on my experiences and supported by some research, while others are more tangential and based heavily on research.

If you could go on a worldwide trip, visiting just one city on each continent, which cities would you pick and why?

In North America, I would choose New York City, a city I love and have visited many times. I feel energized in NYC and love exploring there. I would go see some Broadway shows, walk the High Line and the bridges, take the subway to all the boroughs, and eat so much good food.

I would like to visit Buenos Aires in Argentina in South America. I haven’t been there and don’t know much about what to do in the city, but I’ve heard good things and think it would be interesting.

There’s a lot of cities I’d like to visit in Africa, but I think I’d like to revisit Cairo. I lost my camera in the airport on the way home from my trip to Egypt and I’d love to go back and retake photos! But Addis Ababa, Cape Town, and Marrakech are also high on my to-visit list.

In Europe, I would like to visit Copenhagen, Denmark. I haven’t seen much of Scandinavia and would like to explore it more. Also, Copenhagen is often described as a “green” and “sustainable” city, and I would like to evaluate it myself.

For Oceania, I would choose to revisit Queenstown, New Zealand/Aotearoa. Not only is it beautiful, surrounded by mountains and water (kind of like Vancouver), but it’s also known for adventure sports. A fun city!

In Asia, I would like to visit Ulaanbaatar and elsewhere in Mongolia. For a long time, I had the Trans-Siberian Railway on my bucket list and would have included a train connection to Ulaanbaatar—a few years ago, I even got around to the planning stage for this trip. However, it didn’t work out and that adventure is looking less likely (as my interest in visiting Russia decreases), so now I’m just dreaming of visiting Mongolia: exploring the capital, riding horses, and learning more about this unique place and culture.

What is your favourite travel-related movie, TV show, book or podcast?

I love The Amazing Race! For a long time I wanted to be a contestant on it (and I even auditioned once with my sister), but I don’t think I’d do well with the cameras or the criticism from viewers.

Lastly, where can we find you online?

@postcardsplaces for social media: Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and (infrequently) TikTok
@postcardsplaces for tracking books and movies on Storygraph and Letterboxd
https://www.postcardsandplaces.com 

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Thank you for joining my Traveller of the Month series, Melanie, and sharing so many awesome travel stories and philosophies! Head on over to Melanie’s blog to learn about her urban adventures, cultural experiences, slow travel and more – plus, stay tuned for October’s Traveller of the Month!