Letters Home - From the United States to Canada, Norway, Iceland, Scotland and England

Emma and I set out in early June 2025 to travel a bit before starting university in Iceland. I started sending home news of our whereabouts and adventures to family and friends and it was not long before it became a sort of newsletter that was sent to the group, versus sending out 40+ regular emails. Keeping a connection to home became so important to us, hearing what our loved ones were up to kept us feeling close to them. Over time the email became a sort of travel guide, as University did not work out and we just kept travelling indefinitely. By the time we return home, we will have visited five different countries, struggled with visa and immigration, discovered the joy of housesitting as an alternative to paying for lodging, spent unbelievable amounts of quality time together in close quarters and experienced joy and frustrations both. As a writer, I see how my missives to those back home became better and more cohesive over time, as I learned that folks really liked to follow the links to certain experiences and places, that they enjoyed our misadventures with other people’s pets, the struggles of travelling with way too much luggage and tales of both good and bad food along the way. Perhaps one of the most important things we have done is make new friends along the way and are so grateful to the kindness with which they have accepted us into their lives. With the encouragement of our readers, we have decided to share these here and we hope you enjoy them, too!

Editorial Notes

* Some of the links may come through in a foreign language! Many businesses do not offer an English version of their site.

*Some names and identifying details of people/pets/homes have been changed to protect their privacy.

*This version of the letters have been edited for clarity from the original version.