Author: reneebruns
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Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, and St. Kitts and Nevis
I was sitting at a café along the beach in St. Vincent when Floyd approached me. He leaned over the balcony and asked for the WiFi password. “FrenchFries, both capital F’s,” I responded. And before I knew it, we were engaged in a long, deep conversation. Floyd was born in the UK but was Jamaican. […]
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Suriname, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago
I’ve been feeling very directionless lately. After a long weekend in Minnesota with my family, I got back to Atlanta. I dreamt about my old job that first night. It makes sense, given that the apartment I live in is also where I worked, where I spent 11 weeks indoors during the pandemic, not leaving […]
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Memories
“We are all just passing through,” my Dad told me as we were talking about some of the takeaways from my trip. I don’t often get time to sit and chat with my Dad, just one-on-one, really listening to each other. This resonated with me and I’ve been thinking about it for about a week […]
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America
“Everyone wants to come to America.” I cannot believe that I am one of the 5% of the entire global population who holds an American passport. I cannot believe that because of this blue covered booklet that says United States of America on it, I am one of the most privileged and coveted people in […]
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Azerbaijan to Armenia (and an unexpected intro to Georgia)
As soon as the wheels touched down in Baku, Azerbaijan, the entire plane erupted in applause. I had heard of cultures that do this but never experienced it firsthand. It was quite surreal. Azerbaijan is a country that some consider to be part of Central Asia while others consider it to be part of the […]
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Uzbekistan and Tajikistan
This has been the most difficult and lonely part of my trip. Don’t take that as an Oh my gosh, Renee is struggling message, but rather an, Oh my gosh, Renee is learning message. The English speakers are far and few between in this part of the world, and there are few tourists, so having […]
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Kazakhstan
A few weeks ago, I was having these boughts of emotion where I would just cry and cry and cry. The tears were mostly about myself, about what I had accomplished. The feelings started to diminish as I got further into my journey and realized that I really could do anything I put my mind […]
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Kyrgyzstan
Of all the things I’ve learned traveling, the most prominent is that we are all more alike than we might think. We all have a longing for the same basic needs – food, water, shelter, and human connection. I arrived into Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan around 1 pm after ten hours of overnight flying from Europe. The […]
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Lithuania and Poland
My family and I have this strange tradition where we collect random coins from the streets, sidewalks, and public places. The person with the most amount of money at the end of the year gets everyone else’s coins. In 2020, I collected 82 cents from the streets…and I spent much of my time indoors due […]
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Estonia and Latvia
I had one final night, alone, in Naples, Italy before I headed to The Baltics. I walked in the door of my hostel to find a flight of stairs going down with no elevator in sight. Dead on the top step was a giant cockroach. It was evident that I was back on my own, […]
Wheels Travels 