Bridget Gleeson writer + illustrator
Faraway places
Cuba, at last
Havana is both exactly what I expected and the opposite of what I expected. That’s how it is when you’ve imagined something for so long.
Traveling watercolors: 2016 in review
2016 wasn’t exactly the best year ever, but I did manage to take my traveling watercolor set to Nicaragua, Paris, and Tierra del Fuego.
What’s it all about? (Observations from the shoreline)
Surfing isn’t about catching a wave. Fly-fishing isn’t about catching a fish. Nothing is about anything.
Traveling watercolors: a year in review
Last Christmas, I received a travel watercolor set. In 2015 I took it to Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, the Grand Canyon, California, Spain, and Nicaragua.
Dodging the cruise ship crowd: Mexico edition
There’s a reason why there are a thousand resorts here, why the cruise ships all stop here. It’s the same reason that some phrases become clichés: because they’re true.
I make maps: you should, too.
Maps you make for work, maps you make for fun, maps that inspire you, maps that force you to be practical, maps that cause you to fight with your boyfriend.
Ringing in the new year, alone on an airplane
The start of a new year always makes you think. Traveling alone also makes you think. So what happens when you travel alone to a foreign place over New Year’s?
An ode to my traveling companion
We’d never been on such a long trip together, you and me, so I didn’t know how it would go. Six weeks of traveling through Brazil – no, seven.
Terra da felicidade: A Return to Afro-Brazil
‘The city of Bahia, black and religious, is almost as mysterious as the green sea…’
One for the Road
On traveling alone: accepting solitude, tolerating jerks and being your own best friend.
Seven Days in the Desert
I just spent one of the happiest weeks of my life in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.
Aventura Colombiana
Sunshine, coconuts and white sandy beaches – and wild crocodiles – and armed robbery – oh, Colombia.
Northern exposure
Siestas, asados, pelopinchos, empanadas… oh, how I love the laid-back charm of northern Argentina.
Ringing in the New Year, Punta del Este-style
We toasted the end of 2011 with heart-stopping steak sandwiches and wild fireworks on the sand.
At home in Santiago
When you stay in a foreign home, you learn what the locals wear to bed and how they take their coffee (in this case? Instant Nescafé with steaming hot milk and liquid sweetener.)
36 Utterly Selfish Hours in Budapest
I skipped the museums. But I had breakfast in the subway, pretended to shop for apples and saw lots of beautiful Hungarian women.
In hot water
Yesterday I floated in the waters of Budapest’s thermal spas. Yes, the system is confusing if you don’t know Hungarian – and yes, the older gentlemen are satisfyingly rotund in their tiny swimsuits.
Prague: my old flame
Or the ways in which revisiting a city where you once lived is like seeing a person you were once in love with.
Things we ate in Ecuador
A week of gourmet meals on a yacht in the Galapagos – plus a week of cevicheria-hopping in Quito?
Ten things I didn’t know about the Galapagos
The islands startled me. They’re rougher, colder and more spectacular than I expected – somehow bleak and lush at the same time.
Secret gardens in the big city
‘My life, which seems so simple and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafés where they like me and cafés where they don’t, streets that are friendly, streets that aren’t, rooms where I might be happy, rooms where I shall never be…’ — Jean Rhys (Good Morning, Midnight)