Seven months, seven countries and a business of ferrets

Notes from a delightfully chaotic year of crisscrossing the Atlantic

Providence, Rhode Island. Home-home. Photo by Mohammed Shonar on Unsplash

Hello from the ‘next nightlife capital of the United States,’ also known as Providence, Rhode Island.

I know, I don’t believe it, either. But this claim is coming from Afar and Travel & Leisure readers have just declared that we have the country’s best airport—which I have been saying for years—so it must be real.

This is my third time back in Rhode Island in less than a year. After a lifetime of trying to escape the claustrophobic boundaries of the smallest state in the union, my pursuit of hopes and dreams has led me so far away from home that I’ve rounded the Earth, landing right back where I started.

Turning my life into a cliché this way has been wildly amusing to friends who have offered years of counsel on the same-old, same-old boy problems and existential indecisiveness about where I should design my sense of home. To make it even more textbook, I am now dating someone who, like my first-ever boyfriend, knows me from our high school debate team. As if the circle could possibly get any fuller, these guys are also both named Matt.

But that’s another newsletter.

For now, I’m writing with some postcards from a year of epic chaos, spanning two oceans, four continents, seven countries, one masters degree, and an insane, debaucherous assignment to embed myself in a group of over 400 single skiers, for the benefit of anthropology and science.

It's been an exhilarating year so far. In the last seven months, I’ve ridden camels in Morocco with my most adventurous aunt, hung out with puffins in the Shetland Islands, cried during a spontaneous TV interview in northeast Japan, written a children’s book for my friends’ new baby, traveled six hours round-trip across England just to go to a coffee shop named after Rhode Island, and published what might be the weirdest thing anyone has ever allowed me to put on the internet.

TL;DR: It’s been a lot of fun.

Here’s a little bit of what I’ve been up to.

January

This is how I presented myself for the Gondola of Love: begoggled, behelmeted, and believing I looked extremely hot. My mother is still laughing about the comeuppance that ensued, as told in Day 4 of my ski trip diary. “It’s so good,” she says. “That’s the best part.” Love you, too, Mom <3

I went on a singles trip to Val Thorens, France, the après capital of the Alps. My story for Outside about this “Love Island on skis” adventure went ever so slightly viral and Longreads gave it the audience award for the week. “You will enjoy bouncing along with her in this exuberant essay that superficially looks at dating culture but, really, is all about the après,” editor Carolyn Wells wrote. I was ecstatic when a friend sent me a link to this review, and when my editor noticed that it was recommended by Pocket, too (RIP). Britany Robinson interviewed me about how I wrote the piece for her newsletter, Wild Writing, and it was so fun to be on the other side of an interview for a change.

February

After the ski trip, I returned to London for the anxiety-inducing process of applying for a UK visa now that I’m done with grad school. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned here that I spent the last two years working on an MFA in creative nonfiction at City, University of London…? It was a lot. And I loved it so much. I walked across the stage at the iconic Barbican Centre just days after the ski trip and graduated “with distinction,” the highest academic honor you can get in a British masters program.

Anyway, I stayed put in London for the entire month of February while I waited for my visa application to go through.

The London Night Cafe, where the tea is free and the cookies are unlimited. The sign says, “Introvert Beads: Wearing these means ‘please leave me be.’”

While I was home, I did all the sorts of things I always imagine my London life should look like: I went for a swim with a friend at the iconic and unheated Parliament Hill Lido on a gray Saturday morning, and the water was so cold it burned. I thought my skin was on fire when I launched myself out of the pool after about 27 seconds. However: Worth it. We spent the rest of the morning regaining the feeling in our toes at a pub rumored to be one of Andrew Garfield’s favorite haunts. We gossiped about boys until we were satisfied no one famous would show up.

I made a point to seek out places that were new to me and discovered the London Night Cafe, an ultra-late-night, alcohol-free hangout spot that is now one of my favorite places in the entire world. At Make Town, a fabulous textile craft studio, I went weaving with my friend Eve (which is so very fun to say).

I spent a lot of time in my house, watching foxes from my bedroom window whilst drinking so many cups of tea that the damage rivaled the Boston Tea Party. Every Friday night, my neighbor and I made dinner and watched “Severance” together, and it felt so good to anchor my weeks this way. It was the first time in recent memory that I’ve slept in the same bed for an entire calendar month, and it was refreshing. Alas, I did not get all that much sleep because I spent a lot of time calling Rumford, R.I. after Eastern Time business hours… but we’ll save that big-city-journalist-returns-to-small-town-and-falls-for-someone-from-high-school Hallmark romcom for another time.

I also got to be on BBC Radio! “You & Yours” had me on live to talk about mystery trips, where you don’t know where you’re going till after you buy the trip, and sometimes not even until you get to the airport. I wrote about a bargain-basement trip like this after buying a £99 Wowcher deal (like Groupon, but British) which ultimately ended up costing way more than £99, in part due to an astronomical revenge fee / ransom charge from Ryanair, which was not cool.

March

Still on my streak of staying put, I took a four-day intensive improv class. It was so much more fun than I could have hoped, and far less terrifying than expected. I would not say that I am “good,” but by all accounts, I am at least not a terribly, horrible, no-good, very bad improvisor. I laughed so much and became an improvangelist. Do it, seriously! It’s so useful for getting better at thinking on your feet in all situations life throws at you, and it is also just constant hilarity. I’ve now taken several classes and workshops at the Free Association and I can highly recommend it. One of my classmates flew from Florida to take the class and try out London life for a week, and honestly I can’t think of a better way to immerse yourself in a new city as a solo traveler.

Almost immediately upon receiving the good news that my visa application was approved (hooray!), I celebrated by… leaving the country I had just paid thousands of pounds for residency to return to the one that is forced to let me stay for free as long as I like. I went to Las Vegas to speak on a panel at the Travel Goods Association trade show and narrowly escaped death by motorized suitcase (I failed go-kart racing as a child; shockingly, ridable suitcases are no easier to maneuver). I so enjoyed being a speaker, and I hope to find other opportunities like this in the future. My inbox is open!

Back in my childhood home, I played Ticket to Ride with my parents, went bowling with the whole family, and took a pilgrimage to downtown Providence for my Semi-Annual Awestruck Appreciation of the Superman Building, which defines the city’s skyline. It’s the tallest building in the state and it is still empty more than a decade after its last tenant, Bank of America, made like a check and bounced. I will not rest until someone restores its art deco glory and finds a better use for it than its current occupation as a pigeon motel.

And then also… other stuff. (I will be played by Emma Stone in the Hollywood adaptation of this romcom.)

I do not recommend riding a suitcase in a skirt.

April

Chaos! I flew to DC for a meet-the-family trip and had a gorgeous day of catching up with college friends and their adorable babies. I took a train to New York and saw more friends before dying of sticker shock upon my first purchase of a chai latte. I flew to Colorado for a press trip to Denver, where I got to stay at the brand-new and very cool Populus Hotel downtown. I saw many dear friends and met one perfect newborn for whom I get to be Auntie Kassie.

I was assigned to write a book for the baby, which of course would be ‘so easy’ for me, a writer who has written zero books and even zeroer children’s stories. In response to this behemoth task, I wrote Lily and the Business of Ferrets, a short story about a treehouse-dwelling little girl with a concerning lack of parental supervision. On a quest to find The Forest’s Next Top Snack Shop, Lily gets all the animals to make business proposals for snack startups.

I won’t ruin the ending for you, but critics rave that Lily and the Business of Ferrets is “hilarious,” “amazing,” “unhinged,” and “not a children’s book.” So, despite my belief that it’s wise to warn children about the dangers of capitalistic greed as early as possible, I wrote a spinoff called Lily Alice and the Best Snuggle of All, in which Lily meets a menagerie of animals and learns that a family of ferrets is called a “business.”

I did not make that up.

A sneak peek at a book I wrote with far more love than experience. The gorgeous illustrations are by Buenos Aires designer Belén Salov.

Critics praise this version of the book as “adorable.” I hired an illustrator and have just sent it off to Pint Size Productions to print it as a board book. I can’t wait to hold it in my hands. I’ve never specifically aspired to be a children’s book author, but I enjoyed this so much more than I expected.

While I was in Colorado, a piece I wrote about a previous relationship was published in an anthology of work from my MFA program. It’s called “An Indictment of Equipment Abuse and Emotional Distress in the First Degree,” and it’s an excerpt from the creative nonfiction book I started writing in the program, Breakup Archaeology. It’s about damage inflicted upon some of my camping gear (including the beloved title piece from “A Review of My Ex-Boyfriend’s Titanium Pot”) by someone I dated briefly, though not briefly enough. I heard from two literary agents the day the university distributed the anthology. It feels like I’m on the verge of something, and it’s so, so exciting.

I flew back to London at the end of April justttt in time for JRNY magazine’s tenth issue celebration party. I arrived jet lagged and bleary-eyed after an inadvisable post-flight nap, so I was completely dumbfounded to receive an award at the event. My feature about taking a folding kayak on the ferry from Dover to Calais, France, was named the best piece the magazine has published about Europe thus far. It’s such an honor, and so gratifying to know that people have been enjoying my odd obsession of finding the strangest ways to get from point A to B.

May

At least three people told me that camel riding is painful and overrated, so I was quite pleasantly surprised that our camp among the dunes of the Sahara was the highlight of our trip.

I didn’t intend to travel all that much this year outside of the UK. It’s a gorgeous country, and there is so much more of it that I want to see. Also, the amount of money I have spent on rights to live in this country is not small! But my travel schedule never stays simple for very long. I got a series of couldn’t-refuse invitations; a litany of hell-yeses amid an inbox full of mostly could-dos. So, I spent my birthday in Morocco on a Wilderness Travel trip called “Camels to Casbahs.” In an extremely fortuitous twist thanks to a last-second guest cancellation, I was able to bring along my Aunt Mary, who is a huge part of the reason I turned out to be so adventurous. She is full of stories about trekking in Nepal and showing up in Australia with no plans and staying with whoever she happened to meet along the way.

Morocco has been on my list for years, and Wilderness Travel really knew how to do this in style. It was a completely new experience for me: I’ve been on guided trips before, but never as the only journalist. Usually, when I travel for work, I’m with a group of writers and a media wrangler or two, or else I’m on my own. This was the first time I got to experience what it’s like to take a guided luxury trip as a customer, and wow was it a treat. Our guide, Mohamed, was the most capable, engaging, and entertaining guide we could have possibly asked for.

There were three birthdays in our group, including mine, and he found unique ways to celebrate each of us. Mine was the first night of our trip, and I didn’t want anyone to know because I didn’t want to distract from everyone else’s long-awaited vacations. But of course, WT knew my birthday from my pre-trip paperwork, so Mohamed arranged for the restaurant to sing Happy Birthday and make a cake. I was briefly embarrassed, but then I was so appreciative of the gesture and the effort. It broke the ice a little bit, and conversing with others in our small group felt infinitely easier afterwards. Something flipped and it was like we were no longer strangers traveling independently together, but now a cohesive group traveling like a family.

WT had impeccable taste in hotels, and Aunt Mary and I were awestruck every time we checked in somewhere new. The highlight was a secluded desert camp among the dunes in the Sahara, where we rode camels and met a nomad family who migrate between the desert and the mountains each year, and who seemed to love their way of life.

We visited Casablanca, Fes, Marrakech, riads, desert oases, and more, so our two weeks on the road felt like an absolute whirlwind. By the end of it, I felt like I’d gotten a crash course in Moroccan history, cuisine, and culture. It’s not cheap (thirty-somethings are not their biggest demographic), but if you’re on the hunt for a culture-focused adventure and up for a splurge on the trip of a lifetime, I highly recommend it.

Upon returning from Morocco, I went back to exploring my backyard. I took a day trip to northwest England to visit a cafe called Rhode Island Coffee, which brought me so much joy. My story about this adventure for Rhode Island Monthly is on newsstands this month. Which, honestly, is a dream.

“Haven’t you written for the New York Times?” my boyfriend asked me, when I told his family that this byline is the most exciting one I’ve ever had.

“Yes,” I said, “but my parents didn’t get phone calls about that one when their sisters and cousins stumbled upon it at hair salons!”

It’s impressive to write for a household name, but there’s something incredibly special about writing for a magazine that everyone in your hometown actually reads that closely.

June

In early June, I set off for Japan to hike part of the 1,000-km Michinoku Coastal Trail with my dear friend Amelia Arvesen, who’s also a journalist. We went to cover a brand-new guided hiking trip by Oku Japan, a Kyoto-based tour operator that worked with communities hit hardest by the 2011 tsunami to help them recover through tourism. Amelia’s beautiful newsletter with postcards from our trip was sent mid-trek from the tatami mat floor of one of our ryokans (her efficiency and discipline astound me).

Postcards from Japan, Part 1

I visited Japan twice in 2019 and was astonished by the commitment to detail and unwavering hospitality. What we found in these small towns and cities in the northeast who have suffered so much, however, was entirely next-level. We saw such pride, such dedication to caring for one’s neighbors, and such hope. We were welcomed warmly, and people were so surprised and pleased to see us—obvious foreigners—that strangers often went out of their way to say hello and ask what we were doing there.

We bumped into the mayor of one city when he happened to spot us hiking, and he stopped us to ask if he could take a picture of us crossing a busy road. He wanted to use it as evidence to support his pursuit of public approval for new street-crossing safety infrastructure. Later, we visited a cafe run by a strawberry farm nearby. The owner noticed after we left that one of the women in our group had gotten a sour strawberry in the box she purchased, so she came to our hotel the next morning to drop off a full container to make up for the crime of imperfection. We talked about this for days.

After I left Japan, I spent just three days at home in London before I left again for my next adventure. I took the Caledonian Sleeper train to Aberdeen, Scotland, where I boarded a small ship operated by Adventure Canada for my first-ever expedition at sea. There’s a lot to say about that experience, too, but for now I’ll leave you with a tease: on our last night aboard the ship, as we sailed for Reykjavík, Iceland, from the volcanic Westman Islands, the Atlantic treated me to the orca sighting of a lifetime.

Wherever you are in the world, whoever you’re with, even if it’s just your own thoughts, I hope you’re having a lovely summer. I’m sending all my best wishes for sun when you want it and rain where it’s needed, and wind to power the turbines.

Talk soon!

Kassondra

P.S. I have more stories on the way about crying into the Wind Phone in front of a Japanese news crew, life aboard a North Atlantic expedition ship, sailing to some of the most remote communities in the world, and how I build the ideas for my weirdest stories. If you enjoy these updates and want to see more of me in your inbox, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work.