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Because I’ve been to San Francisco so many times, I’ve already seen most of the city’s main tourist attractions. We arrived at the San Francisco airport in mid-morning on a Saturday, did a little shopping and went to the Mission District to find some of the famous Mission burritos. Some people refer to Dolores Park as San Francisco’s answer for not really having a beach. We were able to see a number of people we have met in San Francisco before as well as make some new friends.

I hope this post, which shows ten highlights from my twenty-day trip through Vietnam, will inspire and encourage other travelers to visit Vietnam and experiment with solo, flexible travel. I visited the Tomb of Khai Dinh, built for an Emperor of Vietnam during the 1920s even though it appears much more ancient; the Tomb of Tu Duc, built in the 1860s; the expansive Citadel, which suffered extensive damage during the bloody battle that took place in Hue during the Vietnam War; and the seven-story Pagoda of the Celestial Lady The following day I took a motorbike tour of several Saigon temples: the Thien Hau Pagoda, the Phouc An Hoi Pagoda, the Quan Am Pagoda, and the Giac Lam Pagoda. The Quiet American for a literary take on Saigon during the French colonial period and war shortly before America’s ostensible involvement in Vietnam’s civil conflict.

After such a long time apart, I finally got to spend some quality time with him at Fort Jackson’s Family Day and Graduation, two days which commemorate the end of Basic Training. I thought I would write this post to start sharing my new experiences and travels as a military spouse and specifically to give family members of SITs a few ideas for activities in Columbia on Graduation Day. We ended up stopping by a Starbucks not too far away from Fort Jackson and then decided to find a taco place that I found with the Foursquare app called the White Duck Taco Shop . Columbia sits along a geological feature known as the Fall Line, a place where a piedmont plateau meets a coastal plain, typically resulting in a drop in elevation creating waterfalls in rivers that traverse it, making river navigation challenging.

After arriving in Amalfi, the son of our Airbnb host in Ravello, located us near the ferry docks and drove us up a winding road to our lodgings for the next two nights, an old paper mill in mountainous area between Atrani and Ravello. We started at the Villa Rufolo, admired its marvelous terraced gardens, historic buildings, and views of the famous umbrella pine framed by a bright blue sky and deeper blue ocean. Del preferred the gardens at the Villa Rufolo, but I really enjoyed the sky terrace and statutes at the Villa Cimbrone as well as the promenades that offered stunning views of the lemon groves and terraced landscapes in the valley below. I was especially intrigued by the Villa Cimbrone’s connections with famous literary figures, such as members of the Bloomsbury Group, who held meetings in one of the plazas of the villa.