Tuscany has always conjured up romantic images of golden-hued landscapes, with its rolling hills and cypress-lined roads. I had a mind to just jump in a car and drive--see what we stumbled across. As a result, I put much less planning into this portion of our Italian adventure than the Dolomites, taking a more on-the-fly sort of approach.

Our final stop in Italy was the famed Cinque Terre ("Five Lands"), part of the Cinque Terre National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), along the northwest coast of Italy. These clusters of brightly-coloured villages, seemingly tumbling down the hillside into the Ligurian Sea, have so captured the imagination of travellers around the world that it should have been no surprise to find these destinations to be extremely busy.

There has always been a kind of magic to Venice, this floating city on the Adriatic Sea, built on over 100 little islands. Its unique appeal, perhaps unsurprisingly, has led to a real overtourism problem–over 20 million people visit every year (half of which are day trippers from cruise ships and the like), and indeed multiple friends warned me off Venice to avoid the throngs of tourists.

Three seems to be a magic number. Three Musketeers. Three Stooges. Three Men and a Baby. So perhaps it is no surprise that this trio of mountain peaks, Tre Cime di Lavaredo, is such a popular spot in the Dolomites. In fact, I seem to have a penchant for triple mountain towers, as hiking to see the Torres del Paine for sunrise was the impetus for my trip to Chile.

One of my bucket list items while in the Dolomites was to hike the Gran Cir Via Ferrata at Passo Gardena. Via ferrata literally translates in Italian as “iron path”, which are protected climbing routes found in the Alps involving steel cables, rungs, or ladders secured to the rock face, to which climbers would typically affix harnesses.

It was only a short drive from the Alpe di Siusi to what would be our base for 3 days, Ortisei, the main village of the Val Gardena. Fun fact for the linguists: the majority language in the area is actually Ladin, a Romance language which is now the officially recognized language in South Tyrol. This charming town of just under 5000 people had everything we needed and was centrally-located, serving as a good jumping-off point for the region.

Alpe di Siusi (or Seiser Alm, as it’s called in German) is a Dolomite plateau, considered the largest high-altitude Alpine meadow in Europe. As part of the Dolomites, it’s been classified as an UNESCO World Heritage site. It was to be our first stop in our tour of the Italian Dolomites. This epic mountain range, which was the impetus for my originally-planned trip to Italy in 2020 (which went awry due to world events), is located in South Tyrol, the northernmost province in Italy.

After my 2-day sojourn on the eastern coast of Newfoundland, I flew to Gander and rented a car to make the 3.5-hour drive west. I spent one night in Corner Brook, but for the majority of my time, I was based in the small town of Rocky Harbour. In addition to my big hiking day at Western Brook Pond, I was eager to explore the other trails and sights that Gros Morne National Park and the surrounding area had to offer.

The entire impetus for my trip to Newfoundland started with Western Brook Pond in Gros Morne National Park, and ultimately that insane view looking down into the gorge. I knew I wanted to experience that for myself and set about finding out how to make that happen. It turns out that the only way to get there is to book a guided hike, which will run you about $300 CAD. This includes the boat ride across the “pond” and taking you up the backcountry trail to the ridge overlooking the gorge.

As someone who craves travel, with all its trip planning and adventures in discovering new places, being grounded for the last 18 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been difficult, to say the least. With all the uncertainty surrounding the new variants and rising case counts, I had pretty much written off any chance of a real vacation in 2021. But it’s been a long year, personally and professionally, and I was in need of a break to just get away and decompress.

One of the highlights of my adventures in Patagonia was an ever-so-brief jaunt to Argentina. While the majority of my time in South America was spent in Chile, I couldn’t help but take a bit of a detour into Argentina, inspired by photos of epic, jagged peaks and turquoise lakes. Now I could have hopped a bus from Puerto Natales, Chile, to take me across the border, which certainly would’ve been logistically simpler, not to mention monetarily preferable, but I’m a sucker for a good road trip.

I certainly lucked out on the weather on this hike, as I awoke bright and early the next day to clear, blue skies. I fueled up with a hot breakfast (eggs, bacon, muffins, the works) and packed a ham and cheese sandwich, Rice Krispies square, and a juice box in an adorable brown paper bag. My legs were feeling the wear from the previous day’s exertions, but I determinedly strapped on my pack, armed myself with poles, and set off on the remaining 25 km of the Skyline Trail.