A little bit about me.
Hi friends, my name is Brenna. I want to start a travel blog mainly so I can keep a log for my friends, my family, and myself from my mostly-Euro travels.
My weird obsession with Europe came when I was little and had a computer game of Madeline in Switzerland. I never went to Europe as a kid so I thought it was this magical, mystical land. When I went to college, I knew I’d study abroad in Europe, it wasn’t even a question in my mind. I ended up choosing Prague and I loved every second of it.
When I graduated college, I ended up getting a job at Uber in Miami, where I really wanted to move away from. Uber had a program where you could move abroad for 3 months and work in another office, which I was anxiously awaiting to join. I ended up getting an assignment in Amsterdam September 2018 and I couldn’t have been more excited. I loved it so much I stayed for two and a half years. Throughout this time, I really found a home in Europe and a strong community in Amsterdam, along with getting the incredible opportunity to travel around the continent.
After the 2.5 years in Amsterdam, I wanted a change, but didn’t feel ready to leave Europe yet. I ended up moving to London for a job at the start of 2021, when I thought the pandemic restrictions were easing up, and boy was I wrong. I stayed in London for 9 months, which ended up being a bit rough trying to build a community in a foreign country during a pandemic.
In December 2021, I moved to NYC after over 3 years in Europe. I now live in the West Village, back amongst all of my college and work friends (and most of my Amsterdam friends too!). I miss Europe all the time, but I make sure to make regular trips back at least a few times per year. A piece of me will always be in Amsterdam.
My Travel Style.
This has drastically changed over the years. I’ll walk you through a bit of my journey below, but in general, I love to see cool shit, but take it easy. I like a balanced trip of relaxing and exploring. I avoid touristy traps, but still hunt for the best views. My biggest passion when traveling is exploring the food scene. I also love to hike, surf, or pretty much any active outdoor activity. I also love relaxing on beaches with a good book and a spritz, so I’ll try to include a little of everything. I love seeing historical sights and mindlessly walking around cities. I will admit, I’m not the biggest museum fan, so you won’t find a lot of that here.
Study Abroad Traveling
This traveling time in my life was very interesting looking back. I looked at travel so differently and it showed in the way I planned trips. I wanted to see as many places as possible over all my weekends, cramming in every activity and tourist trap that I could with my college kid budget from my job at the school gym. I promise the only recs in this blog that are coming from my study abroad days are the ones from Prague since I lived there for 6 months.
And no, I don’t think I’m from Europe because I studied abroad there 🙂.
Amsterdam & London Post Grad Travel
This time was core Euro travels. My travel style definitely evolved over this time with age. When I moved to Amsterdam, I was 23 and full of energy (read: hangovers didn’t take me out for days). We were fully in office, so trips were weekend sprints filled with large-group exploring, eating yummy foods, and partying hard for 2 days before returning back to the office Monday morning. I was experiencing the big cities mostly.
I was lucky enough to meet a friend group that loved traveling as much as I do and wanted to travel in the same way at the time. It was an absolute blast and I had some of the best times of my life. It was hedonism at it’s finest.
When covid hit, we were blessed with the best Amsterdam weather and the opportunity to really live in the city, without leaving constantly to travel. Once summer hit, EU travel opened up for residents, but no one else, so we got to experience normally very crowded, expensive places for a fraction of the cost and near empty cities. It was an experience I’ll never take for granted. This was the time period when I started enjoying traveling a bit slower. The partying urge started to go down and my desire to really get to know a place started to rise.
Traveling Today
As time goes on, I look for slower, longer vacations with less moving around. I like to feel like I’ve really experienced a place I’ve been to, and have a mix of adventure, exploration, and relaxation. I think it’s just the nature of getting older. I’ve redone a lot of the places I’ve rushed through (or partied through) to get the real experience.
I can’t resist a summer without going to Europe at least twice, usually one for a vacation and one to visit old friends in Amsterdam or London.
My next travel goal is to make it to Asia, but I haven’t been able to plan a trip yet.
The Logo.
I was originally going to just pull some random design from Canva to stick at the top of the blog, but instead, I used my 7-day free trial of Adobe Illustrator to manually trace my tattoo into a design (which took much longer than it should have).
I knew I wanted a tattoo to represent my time in Europe and I wanted it to be pretty and feminine. I originally wanted a bike to represent Amsterdam, but I didn’t like how manly every design looked on me. I already had another tattoo with flowers, so another floral design fit in nicely.
I ended up with an appointment at Bang Bang in NYC and a loose idea of what I wanted. I told her I wanted something fine line with the silhouette of a woman looking over her shoulder and a few flowers incorporated to represent my favorite places.
🌷Tulips for the Netherlands, of course
🫒 An olive branch for Greece
💜 Lavender for France, Croatia, and Portugal
🍋 A lemon branch for Italy
I’ve cut out some elements of my tattoo since it looked a bit busy for a logo, but I kept the core, the Amsterdam piece at the front of the silhouette’s mind.
