Letters from a Wanderer is a weekly newsletter offering entertaining and informative travel stories, stories about places, and unique experiences from the road (including those from accidental or planned stops and destinations).
I believe the best way to understand our world is to wander through it, to travel to new destinations, as much as to explore the old, well-known places with new eyes. That’s what I try to do, that’s what I write about.
I strive to show you the beauty and diversity of our world, both the natural world and all the cultures in it.
My main interests and places I write about most often include the US Southwest and the Pacific Northwest, Mexico and Maya sites everywhere, Transylvania (my old home), our natural world, history, archaeology, culture, and languages.
The newsletter contains an additional section,
Travel Tales from the Land of the Maya, a travel memoir published on the main site. As part of the larger publication, you will receive these letters about past travels interspersed within the up-to-date stories.
However, you can choose whether your subscription includes it or not, here:
Subscription choices, by moving the toggles of the sections under Notifications to the On (right, green) or Off (left, invisible) position.
This is also the page where you can unsubscribe (although that would make me sad, but I’d understand - especially if you give me a reason).
Why a newsletter and why now?
I’ve been writing about travel for different publications on the web since 2015, and publishing a travel site, Wanderer Writes, since 2017.
However, several publications I used to write for either ceased to exist or changed to publish AI-created content.
As for my travel blog, it doesn’t offer me easy communication with my readers. I felt it needed a newsletter, but I didn’t like any I tried before.
I am so happy I discovered Substack! It not only gives me a platform for a newsletter related to my site, but writing here, I feel part of a community of like-minded writers and travelers, a place to talk about travel and life.
I hope you’ll join me by signing up for a free subscription.
You can also start by reading some of my most popular posts:
About me
I call myself a wanderer, not only because I often leave my home to wander through unknown places or places I already know well, but also because I wander through life, in the sense that I rarely have a plan. Not when I travel, not when I start something new.
Which is to say, I am still wandering through Substack, with a vague plan of connecting with an audience, and like-minded writers and travelers. I believe the road started to show itself already while I wandered here.
I might still be new to Substack, however, I am not new to writing. Or to travel.
I am a writer, blogger, traveler, occasional translator, Hungarian language instructor, knitter, and former teacher.
I write about my travels on Wanderer Writes and have bylines in several online travel magazines, including Lonely Planet and Matador Network.
I’m Hungarian. From Transylvania. Which is different from a Hungarian from Hungary, though we share the same language and culture. My cultural heritage is a huge part of who I am, even if I have lived longer in the US than in my birth country.
So I’m sure I often write from a Hungarian perspective. I also write a newsletter in Hungarian - most often translations of my English-language posts, in case I might find an audience in my language, too.
If you’d like, you can read a few pieces about my latest visit to my old home:
The longer version of About me (you can skip this part, unless curious about my story)
I first landed in New York City as a 25-year-old, fresh out of college, in search of adventure. My adventure was supposed to last six months, while I was going to explore the east coast of the US.
However, I met someone… so my six-month adventure turned into a lifetime adventure. After living in New Jersey for a year, we came to Arizona for a vacation. We fell in love with the state and the Southwest and moved here a few months later. It's been our home ever since.
Travel has always been at the center of my life.
Travel has brought me to the US, and it has remained at the center of my new life, with my new family.
It didn’t stop when I got married and we had no money… We took my husband’s ancient Jetta and old beat-up tent, and took road trips, camping trips.
It didn’t stop when we had children - we adjusted our travels and took them with us everywhere we went, starting from their first weeks of life.
Road trips, plane trips, short trips, long trips — we were on the move every time we had a break. Weekend breaks or longer vacations. We weren’t nomads; we had (still have) a home base.
Now that we are empty-nesters, my husband and I travel even more. And I still like to write about our adventures, about the new places we visit, and the people we meet.
Hope you’ll follow along and enjoy my stories. Thank you for reading!
Subscribe
If you subscribe,
Letters from a Wanderer will land in your inbox weekly, hopefully every Friday morning.
Subscription is free, and I plan on keeping it that way; nothing is or will be behind a paywall.
However, if you value my work, you can choose to upgrade to a paid subscription for $5/month, or $50/year. If you do, I will feel valued and grateful, but you will also contribute to helping displaced wildlife in the greater Phoenix area. I plan on donating all funds from paid subscriptions to the Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center.
I’ll also accept a coffee if you’d like to “buy me” one, as a thank you for a post you like.
Thank you for reading, and hope you’ll find something you’ll like here. When you like a post, please let me know by clicking the little heart button and/or commenting. I am here for the community, hope to connect with many of you.
Happy travels, and all the best,
Emese
*One more thing: Nothing on the site, including words and photos, is created by or with the help of AI.
