#Travel

Treachery and Beauty: Life Lessons from Hiking in Pennsylvania

Lizzie Hessek

Oct 27, 2017
6 min

Treachery and Beauty: Life Lessons from Hiking in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania rocks. It rocks in the figurative sense of being super great, and it rocks in the sense that there are literal stones, boulders, and glacial erratics strewn about the landscape as if a giant rock-eating dragon flew over the state chewing with its mouth open. The rocky reality of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania has inspired hikers to dub the section “the Hardest Part of the Trail,” “Rocksylvania,” “Where Boots Go to Die,” and “Where I Had My Psychological Br

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Islands you Didn't Know Existed: Atlantic Edition

Lizzie Hessek

May 19, 2017
6 min

Islands you Didn't Know Existed: Atlantic Edition

In theory, I hate the beach. I don't like getting dirty from the sand. I don't like salt water. I don't like getting sunburns, and for some reason I am utterly incapable of leaving a beach day without burn blisters all over my body. I don't like lying around all day (unless I'm in my bed cuddling, naturally), and I don't like being in a bathing suit. Bathing suits = the worst. Frankly, the ocean scares me. The immensity and the power of the thing. I saw a girl drown in the oc

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Lizzie Hessek

Apr 6, 2017
4 min

A Very Parisian Sunday Treasure Hunt

This is the sixth Queer Martha treasure hunt that takes you to some of the most Parisian parts of Paris hidden in plain sight. Check out the Romantic Treasure Hunt, the Trip Through Time Hunt, and the Highlight Hunt, and the Death and Destruction Hunt, and the Multicultural Hunt, too. The hunts all begin in the Luxembourg Gardens and take about 4 hours each, though you are encouraged to stop to eat and drink throughout the trip. The treasure hunts don't actually lead you to a

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Lizzie Hessek

Nov 23, 2016
3 min

A Multicultural Parisian Treasure Hunt

This is the fifth Queer Martha treasure hunt that takes you to some of the least French parts of Paris. Check out the Romantic Treasure Hunt, the Trip Through Time Hunt, and the Highlight Hunt, and the Death and Destruction Hunt, too. The hunts take about 4 hours each, though you are encouraged to stop to eat and drink throughout the trip. The treasure hunts don't actually lead you to a final pile of booty - the treasure is getting through the course and living to tell the ta

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How to Throw a Killer International Family Reunion

Lizzie Hessek

Aug 16, 2016
7 min

How to Throw a Killer International Family Reunion

My father's mother has always been something of a legend in my life. She died when I was about two years old, and I have no memory of her. What I do know about her is that my grandfather used to take over the shuffleboard table at the bar so that she could dance on top of it. I know that she once held my grandfather by his ankles out of a second story window after he came home drunk and wouldn't bring him back in until he promised never to come home drunk again. She had eight

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Lizzie Hessek

Aug 15, 2016
3 min

You are Now Leaving the 21st Century

Hello friends! I hope you are keeping cool in the godforsaken heatwave of sadness and suffering! I wrote last week about my cousin Adrienne's spectacular aquarium wedding that I encourage you to replicate. The wedding was in North Carolina, so Rachel and I turned it into a tiny road trip. We left Philly on Saturday morning before the wedding, we drove 8 hours straight and pulled into the aquarium parking lot looking fresh to death in our rumpled car clothes. While "immediate

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Lizzie Hessek

Aug 12, 2016
5 min

A Tale of Two Pubs

My favorite thing about Dublin was the pub culture. Every night, Rachel and I would push open a pair of heavy wooden doors, grab a stool at the bar, and sip a couple of pints late into the night. The scene was so low-key. It made sense to me that "pub" is short for "public house." It felt like everyone's living room. People came to the pub and did their own thing - jamming with friends on fiddles, watching the Euro Cup on TV, talking with the bartender on duty. The pub is s

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Lizzie Hessek

Aug 3, 2016
3 min

Weddings are Hotter under the Water

One of the greatest things about weddings is that they force you to travel to places you might not have traveled to otherwise, right? Wedding adventures have taken me to Lynchburg, Virginia, to Portland, Maine, and to Leonard Lake in California's Mendocino County. I made my poor family and friends travel to Paris for my wedding. I wasn't expecting many people to RSVP "yes" to our invitation, but a whole bunch of people ended up making the trip with us, and they all said, "Thi

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Lizzie Hessek

Jul 30, 2016
3 min

Summertime

Well, HELLO Queer Martha! It's been a while. Sorry about that. I am not a "summer person." I do not like the beach. I do not like being hot. At the same time, I do not like air conditioning. I do not like mosquitoes. I do not like the pressure that I feel to "have a great summer" when all I want to do is curl up and die in a puddle of my own sweat. Also, can I bring up the cruel irony that summer is the season of bare legs - dictated by fashion as well as the ever-looming spe

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Lizzie Hessek

Jun 21, 2016
3 min

Mind the Nettles and the Brambles

We're back from Ireland! What an amazing journey it was. If you ever get the chance to hangout with 90 of your 10th cousins for a weekend, I highly recommend it. The family reunion featured a harp ensemble, Irish step dancers, a trip to the ancestral estate, and a gala dinner on the Kinsale harbor. It was magical. The photo above was taken in the graveyard surrounding the Church of Ireland in Nohoval where they hosted a special "welcome home!" service for our family. Everywhe

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The Parisian Death and Destruction Treasure Hunt

Lizzie Hessek

May 23, 2016
4 min

The Parisian Death and Destruction Treasure Hunt

This is the fourth Queer Martha treasure hunt that takes you to some of the hidden gems of Paris. Check out the Highlights Hunt here, the Romantic Hunt here, and the Trip Through Time Hunt here. The hunts take about 4 hours each, though you are encouraged to stop to eat and drink throughout the trip. The treasure hunts don't actually lead you to a final pile of booty - the treasure is getting through the course and living to tell the tale. Paris is not all light and romance.

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Japan in Two Weeks: a Queer Martha Itinerary

Lizzie Hessek

May 3, 2016
4 min

Japan in Two Weeks: a Queer Martha Itinerary

It's a grey, rainy night in Philadelphia. A perfect evening to definitely not get out of bed. I am under covers with Rachel sleeping on my left and Riley the cat sleeping on my right. One of them is snoring. The other wakes up periodically and licks my face. I'll let you decide which one is which. We did get up long enough to cook up some soup for dinner. Oh, yes, we are still pretending that we are in Japan. You guys, Japan was seriously a magical land of spotless public res

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Lizzie Hessek

Apr 27, 2016
6 min

Queer Casablanca

One Monday night in late March, Rachel and I were stumbling through the streets of Shinjuku-2-chome looking for a warm place to rest our feet. We enjoyed warm, spring weather earlier in the day, but the air in Tokyo was steadily getting colder as dusk got darker. I shivered in my trench coat. As a side note, pretty much every Japanese lady wears a beige trench coat more or less identical to mine. Rachel lost me quite a few times in crowds because she couldn't pick me out from

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How to Beat Jet Lag to the Punch (and Other Tips for Coming Home from Vacation)

Lizzie Hessek

Apr 11, 2016
5 min

How to Beat Jet Lag to the Punch (and Other Tips for Coming Home from Vacation)

Rachel and I arrived home from Japan Thursday night, and I am excited to share our adventures with you. It was a perfect trip, and Japan is a perfect place. We both were talking about ways to move to Japan before the trip was even over. While it is pretty normal for me to start making plans to move to the places I visit, it is really a testament to how great a place is if Rachel starts doing the same thing. She is drawn much less to hyperbole than I am. You can trust her judg

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Lizzie Hessek

Mar 31, 2016
1 min

Greetings from Japan

We've been in Japan for a week now, and we have already decided that we want to move here. We just really want to live in a society that appreciates cats as much as we do. But really, we have been so impressed by pretty much everything here. I mean - look at these goddamn cherry blossoms. They are a beautiful reminder that life is fleeting. What you can't see is that inches away from these delicate little pink puffs is thousands of people getting wasted together (in business

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The Ultimate List of Things to Do the Day Before You Leave for Vacation

Lizzie Hessek

Mar 24, 2016
3 min

The Ultimate List of Things to Do the Day Before You Leave for Vacation

So, you have been planning a big vacation for several months, have you? You got your passport updated, you dropped your cat off at your parents' house, and you sent your good trench coat to the dry cleaners so that you don't look schlubby. You are aware that you are representing America during a turbulent election year. You do not want to look schlubby. You're pretty ready to go, but there are always those day-before-you-leave jitters. How can you be sure you aren't forgettin

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Magical Milford: a Queer Martha Mini-Guide to the Poconos

Lizzie Hessek

Mar 16, 2016
5 min

Magical Milford: a Queer Martha Mini-Guide to the Poconos

My mother always said, "Everything changes once you hit the Poconos." She was talking about weather patterns, and I suppose there are actual scientific reasons that make the weather change when you hit the Poconos, but there is also something magical about these mountains. You should go check it out. My dear friend Veronica got Rachel and me a weekend getaway in a cabin in the Poconos as a wedding gift. It's hard to choose a time to head to Poconos. Between the canoeing and h

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Alligators are Amazing: A mini-guide to Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida

Lizzie Hessek

Mar 9, 2016
4 min

Alligators are Amazing: A mini-guide to Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida

Did you know that Jacksonville is the largest city in the contingent United States by land mass? I know - that's crazy! Did you know that St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States? You probably did, I feel like that is not a secret. Let me share with you a bunch of other tidbits that you should know about Jacksonville and St. Augustine, Florida. I had the random pleasure to visit these North Florida gems when my mother told my grandmother she would take her on vac

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Lizzie Hessek

Feb 16, 2016
2 min

The Remains of the Old Paris

He will be remembered as an urbanist historian, a genuine romanticist, a lover of Paris, a Balzac of the camera, from whose work we can weave a large tapestry of French civilization. — Berenice Abbott Have you ever heard of the prolific photographer Eugène Atget? It would makes sense that you have not - he wasn't particularly well known in his own time, either. Despite his relative obscurity, he is considered by some to be a founding father of modern photography. Atget was a

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Down Alleys and Up Stairs of Philadelphia

Lizzie Hessek

Jan 20, 2016
10 min

Down Alleys and Up Stairs of Philadelphia

Let me start by saying this: Philadelphia is a magical city. When John Adams came to Philadelphia from Boston back in the fall of 1774, he wrote to his wife Abigail that, "the Regularity and Elegance of this City are very striking. It is situated upon a Neck of Land, about two Miles wide between the River Delaware and the River Schuilkill. The Streets are all exactly straight and parrallell to the River. Front Street is near the River, then 2 street, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8

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