In this corner of the web, you’ll mostly find travel inspiration for independent travelers who want to forge their own path, soak up history, and get lost in beautiful places with a dash of adventure. I think that locals know best and you’ll find many tips about the places that we’ve call home (so far). Similarly, you’ll find tips/stories about our adventures elsewhere.

Expect inspiring stories mixed with practical advice about travel, moving abroad, expat life, adventure travel, and off the beaten path travel. If you find an incorrect/out-of-date detail, leave us a comment or email us so we can make sure our content is as current as possible. Thanks for stopping by!

Karen

New Yorker–born and raised.
Lover of travel, adventure, culture, long bike rides, nature, city, dresses, and cats. Creator of Wanderlustingk.

Jacob

Proud Kentuckian & Karen’s husband.
Crazy cat man, beer snob, adventure travele, and rock climbing addict.

Steve

New Yorker–born and raised. Father of Karen. Lover of tennis. Curious. Frugal and independent traveler who believes that travel yields an understanding of different cultures.

The story behind Wanderlustingk

Karen & Jacob met

…in graduate school, but we began dating after an impulsive trip together to Italy. After several adventures around the US, we decided to move to Europe together. We moved to Amsterdam with our cat, got married, wandered around Europe, worked in Paris, and then moved back to the Netherlands.

We love traveling because…

…we love experiencing new cultures/food, exploring new natural landscapes/seeing wildlife (this includes cats), and seeing new types of architecture.

Our other hobbies–besides dreaming/researching adventures–include via ferrata [a form of rock climbing], photography, reading, marathoning TV shows, trying new foods/beers, and hanging out with our cat.

We don’t have a trust fund, so we try to keep it real with being frugal. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, make sure you check out our tips for saving for travel.

Our travel style…

We mostly travel together, although we sometimes travel for work separately. Our travel usually involves lots of planning using Excel (by Karen) and reaching out to locals. We usually focus on off the beaten path places, but we still enjoy museums and unique architecture.

Karen is very into cultural travel, however, Jacob is always about the adrenaline. We both love exploring cities while sampling a pint of beer and, when possible, finding the most epic castles/caves we can find.