Author: Mollie
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New Zealand: The Country I Never Planned to Visit
Much like Fiji, New Zealand was never on my list. Neither was Australia. Both felt too familiar, too Western, too much like the U.S. Why, I wondered, would I fly halfway around the world for what I imagined was just California with more sheep? To be even more honest, I hadn’t thought about New Zealand…
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The Fiji Chapter: A Land of Extremes
August 5, 2025 Fiji was never on my list of places to visit, so I had little knowledge of what I was getting into. But when you win a fully paid dive trip to Fiji, you go! Fiji is not subtle. It revealed itself quickly and in great contrast – between indulgence and simplicity, upscale…
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Five Days to Flight: Wrapping Up a Long Hot Chapter
June 11, 2025 It’s T-minus five days until I leave Arizona, my home for the past 18 years. Like New York City before, I never intended to stay here. I came for what I thought was a short stint as a visiting faculty fellow at ASU, and to finish an LLM (still one paper short…
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The Curious Case of Captain Mike
When the assist is off and the ego kicks in: the curious case of men who never ask questions. I went to rent an e-bike today. Easy plan, easy morning. While I was waiting, an older guy wearing a Navy cap showed up, heading the same direction. He asked if I’d like to ride along…
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When Kansas Meets the Caribbean: A Cautionary Tale in Flip Flops
April 25, 2025 There’s something about Lula’s BnB on Isla Colón that seems to attract the delightfully unexpected. Case in point: Chris from Kansas. Fifty-four, soon to be retired, and shaped like someone who once fought a vending machine and lost, I encountered Chris with wide eyes, sunburned ears, and the cautious optimism of a…
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Ville Vie Residences: A Floating Experiment in Reinvention, Residential and Personal
April 19, 2025 Imagine if a cruise ship, a retirement community, and an Apple new product launch collided mid-ocean. That’s Ville Vie Residences—billed as the first-of-its-kind, liveaboard, circumnavigation cruise ship community – currently gliding somewhere between utopian vision and sociological experiment. It’s an all ages (though not surprisingly primarily 55+) life-at-sea concept that swaps fleeting…