A Drive on America's Most Scenic Highway

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! Stop by every Tuesday to link up your recent travel posts and read about one of my adventures. Today I'm sharing snapshots of my drive down California's coastal Highway 1 earlier this month.

My fiance's family was camping in Pismo Beach two weeks ago, so we drove down to meet them for the weekend. It's only about a three-hour drive from the Bay Area to Pismo if you use the major highways, but we decided to head over to the coast for a more scenic road trip.

Travel Tuesday: Hearst Castle, California

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! There is no suggested prompt today; simply link up with any travel post you wish! I'll be sharing photos from my recent trip to Hearst Castle, a State Historical Monument on the central coast of California. Hearst Castle was built for newspaper mogul William Hearst in the early to mid-1900s. I had been to the castle once before, in middle school, and gone on the typical "Grand Rooms" tour. This time, we elected to go on a specialized tour to see the private suites in the top floors of the main house, or "Casa Grande."

Travel Tuesday: Solo vs. companion(s)?

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! Today's suggested prompt is about your companion preferences while traveling: Who is your favorite travel partner? Do you prefer to travel in large groups, small groups or alone? As always, don't feel obligated to follow the prompt. All travel-related posts are welcome!

At the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. This is about as big as I like my travel groups to get!

Five Myths About Sororities

As you might know, I am a proud sorority woman who spent a year working for my international organization after graduating from college, so of course I was interested when A Greek Concept contacted me to ask about sharing an article on Semi-Charmed Kind of Life. Combating stereotypes is undoubtedly one of the toughest things about being in a sorority, and I definitely identified with the points included in post. Whether you're a sorority woman who has struggled with improving the Greek image or someone who has not experienced Greek life and wants to know more, the following post is definitely worth reading.

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We’ve all done it – stereotyped someone else (or a group of someone elses) because we didn’t know any better. What terrible mistakes we make before we see the whole picture! Greek life is an automatic target for stereotyping. Truth be told, it isn’t right not only because it’s not fair, but also because sororities bring about so much good in the world! Read the follow myths to recognize some really amazing contributions that sororities make.

Ask Me Anything!

As you may or may not know, today is my birthday, and I thought you might want to give me a little gift. ;) Don't worry—it's free! I have been wanting to do one of these "ask me anything" posts for a while now, but I was worried no one would ask questions and my idea would crash before it even got off the ground. So I figured: What better time to solicit questions than on my birthday, when you would have to feel like a horrible person to ignore my request for questions, right? Right?? ;)

Travel Tuesday: Happy birthday!

I originally picked birthdays for today's suggested Travel Tuesday topic because my birthday is tomorrow, but I also just realized Travel Tuesday celebrated its birthday two years ago on Friday! Woohoo! Awkwardly enough, I was planning to share my first trip to Switzerland (which coincided with my 18th birthday) for today's link-up, but I actually shared it already during my first Travel Tuesday post ever. Whoops. :/ So instead, I'll share some ways I wouldn't mind celebrating future birthdays:

Photo via Harry Litchman

>> Watching the sun rise over Grinnell Peak in Montana (pictured).

Best of January & February: Two Months in Review

January didn't really have enough going on to warrant its own post, so I thought I'd wait another month to have more exciting life updates to share with you. :) The beginning of 2014 has been low-key so far, but it is nice to relax, especially with the busy month we have ahead of us in March! We will be out of town for three weekends (including this one!) and running a 10K race on another weekend, so there is a lot going on. Here's a recap of the past two months:

Most Popular on Instagram & Notable Events

1 // 2 // 3 // 4

As you can see, I'm starting off the New Year right with two of my favorite things: books and travel! Or at least that's how it appears from my Instagram feed. ;) I finally got the huge National Geographic map I've been coveting for Christmas, and then my wonderful fiance made a frame for me to hang it. (Yup, he made the frame! That will be its own post one day.) It was so much fun putting in the pins and remembering all the places we've traveled (and finding new places we want to go!).

The only travel I've actually done in the past two months was a weekend trip to San Diego for my mom's birthday and another southern California excursion to attend a conference outside Los Angeles. My sister and I also threw my dad a surprise 50th birthday party, which was pretty sweet. The cake was definitely Pinterest-worthy! Locally, the weather has been looking up during the past few weekends in San Jose, so Jonathan and I have been venturing outside the house on weekends to find relaxing places to read (as you can see). My family also visited during the first weekend of January to "celebrate" Christmas at our apartment because that was the first weekend we were all available to meet up.

Travel Tuesday: What's in your carry-on?

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! This week's suggested prompt is "What's in your carry-on?" but as always, please feel free to link up any travel-related post. The more, the merrier. :)

Personally, I rarely check luggage when I travel, so I've learned to fit everything in a carry-on (or two). For the purposes of today's post, however, I'll be focusing on what I put in my "personal item." My most important items always include ample reading material, snacks, a water bottle, lots of chapstick and all my electronic chargers. Here's a sample peek inside my personal item from a conference I attended in southern California a few weeks ago:

The Five Coolest Winter Olympic Sports

Of course I had to get an Olympics post on here before the Games end! I will admit, I'm more of a Summer Olympics fan (mostly because I love gymnastics but also because of the greater variety of events), but any Olympics are awesome in my book! So, without further ado, I bring you the five coolest winter sports (in my humble opinion). Pun intended! ;)

Travel Tuesday: At the Home of the King.

Welcome back to Travel Tuesday! After devising suggested prompts for the past two weeks, I thought I'd leave this week wide open regarding the topic. I already shared some Instagram photos of my trip to Tennessee last fall, but today I thought I would go into more detail and share some photos of our afternoon at Graceland.



Graceland, as you probably know, was the home of Elvis Presley. I have to admit, I had always expected a much bigger and more lavish home, and I was somewhat surprised when we pulled up to the exterior. It's not that the house was not large; I just picture something very different when I think of a "mansion," and the house looked fairly traditional from the front yard. The inside definitely did not disappoint, though, as each room was more eclectic than the last. The upstairs rooms are not open to the public, out of respect to Elvis and his family, but we explored the ground floor and the basement.