Our favorite picture from August.
Day trip to Capri. Positano, Italy

We can’t believe it’s September already… last month really flew by! In August, we found ourselves on three continents in the span of two weeks, had the chance to spend time with family and friends back in Chicago and Italy, and went on safari in South Africa!

September is going to be another busy and exciting month, culminating with the marathon in Berlin and a celebratory stein (or three) at Oktoberfest in Munich!

We’ve got a lot of planning to do in September to map out our route for the last quarter of the year. Right now, all we have booked is a flight from Amman, Jordan to Buenos Aires, Argentina in October. Loosely, we’re planning to visit both Argentinian and Chilean Patagonia, Rio de Janeiro, and Machu Picchu, but we’re also open to any suggestions and / or company! Come join us!

🧳 TRAVEL TIP 

Primary vs. Secondary Airports — When booking flights, always make sure to take a look at whether you’re flying into a city’s primary or secondary airport. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to purchase the cheaper flight, but that $50 you save on airfare will quickly be spent on the cost of commuting from the secondary airport to the city center, in addition to lost time. For example, when we recently visited Brussels, we flew into Charleroi Airport, which is an hour outside of the city and not directly connected via public transportation. It took us two buses and a train to get to our hotel. If we had paid the extra $50 per ticket, we would have flown into Brussels Airport and taken a direct train to get into the city center in 15 minutes.

WHAT WE’RE LISTENING TO, WATCHING & READING

BRITT
📚 Happy Place - Emily Henry — One of Britt’s personal goals is to read more, and as much as we love audiobooks, Britt wanted to explore if reading a physical book would serve a different purpose. Needless to say, this was a major success. Britt read the book in three days and already purchased another. Now the question is… what is the best way to ditch the book once we’ve read it? Leave it in a hotel… human bird feeder… drop it at a bookstore? We need to figure it out ASAP because we don’t have room in our packs for books!

JUSTIN
🎙️ Way too many Fantasy Football podcasts and YouTube videos. Football is back!

BOTH
📚 Yellowface - R.F. Kuang — We just picked this one up and are excited to start reading it for our One & Done Book Club, which is a small but mighty group that includes our pals Jillian and Francesca. If anyone is still interested in joining us, let us know!

📺 Beef — Starring Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, this show was an emotional rollercoaster right from the beginning. There were so many twists and turns! Overall, this was a great tragicomedy / dramedy if you’re looking for quick single season show!

📺 Is it cake? Seasons 1 & 2 — Yes, this is exactly what it sounds like… and we couldn’t believe we watched two entire seasons. We’ll guiltily admit that it kept us highly entertained.

📺 Untold: Johnny Football — Ever wonder what happened to Johnny Manziel? Welp, now we know.

🎤 Comedy Update — After exploring today’s landscape of comedians (at least those curated on our Netflix feed), we’ve landed on observational comedy and surreal humor as our favorite genres, with John Mulaney and Ali Wong as two of our favorites. Some comedians are still a bit harsh and rely heavily on insult comedy, which we don’t love. Open to other suggestions if you have them!

SEPTEMBER GOALS

⛵️ Learn to sail — This is a bit of a freebie we’re giving ourselves because we have a sailing trip coming up in Greece. We’re hoping to actively participate in the sailing process with the skipper! Thankfully, we each have a little experience (VERY little) having helped our friends George and Katie sail their beautiful Wanda!

📝 Start networking & update resume — This is purely a JC goal. 🤣 As we enter the final quarter of our trip, the time has come for Justin to start thinking about what the heck he is going to do next. This month’s goal is to dust off the resume.

WHERE WE’RE HEADED IN SEPTEMBER
Feel free to send any tips, recommendations, or thoughts our way!

🇿🇦 South Africa — We’ll be wrapping up our time in South Africa in the seaside town of Hermanus where we are hoping to see whales!

🇬🇷 Greece — Time to sail! We’ll be heading to Greece for a weeklong sailing trip around the Cyclades. We’re also hoping to meet up with our friend Katie and Britt’s friend (and boss) Linda who we happen to be overlapping with for one night in Paros and Athens, respectively. 

🇷🇴 Romania — Another country we had not initially planned to visit, but recently added to our itinerary! We were looking for a place to spend five nights in between Greece and Germany, and Bucharest intrigued us. We found a nice hotel on points, and we plan to lay low and recharge for a few days! 

🇩🇪 Germany — Marathon month is upon us. We’ll be heading to Berlin for Justin to run the marathon and then celebrating with a visit to Oktoberfest in Munich! 

🇹🇷 Turkey — We’ll round out the month in Turkey, where we’re planning to visit both Kas and Cappadoccia and meeting up with our friends Megan and Kevin! 

AUGUST RECAP — PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES

Gjirokastër 🚗 Berat 🚗 Perast 🚌 Dubrovnik (DBV) ✈️ Dublin (DUB) ✈️ Chicago (ORD) ✈️ Rome (FCO) 🚗 Positano 🚗 Sorrento 🚂 Naples (NAP) ✈️ Malta (MLA) ✈️ Johannesburg (JNB) ✈️ Hoedspruit (HDS) ✈️ Cape Town (CPT)

That’s it for this month! Don’t hesitate to reach out if anything we shared resonated with you, if you have tips on places we should visit, questions about what we’re up to, or if you just want to say hello. We’d love to hear from you! 

P.S. Thank you to everyone who has supported my fundraising efforts for the Berlin Marathon this Fall! If you’re interested in learning more about my run, check out my fundraising page.

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