Traveler Profile: Sarah Menkedick

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Turning Points: When Have You Suddenly Changed Perspectives?

This user hasn't written any guides yet.

Screen name:

Sarah Menkedick

Age:

Gender:

Female

If you must know:

I'm taken

Travel status:

Traveling now

Hometown:

Columbus, Ohio

Currently in:

Oaxaca, Mexico

Traveling Next:

Japan!

Favorite places I've been:

Patagonia, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, Kruger National Park in South Africa, Reunion Island, Borneo (Kota Kinabalu and the offshore islands), Hong Kong, Cotopaxi (Ecuadorian mountain)

Places I want to go to:

Patagonia again! Anywhere with big, high, scary, beautiful mountains. Prague, Spain, all of Africa (particularly Senegal), Brazil, Indonesian Borneo...and pretty much everywhere else.

About me:

I've been traveling, teaching and exploring the globe for four years now, and I live in a turbulent state between wanting to explore the new and unfamiliar and wanting to stick around the places I love and dig in deeper. I love the sweet sense of homesickness I get for all of the places I've lived, visited and loved. I am spontaneous, contemplative, and probably too stubborn, passionate and talkative for my own good. I drink too much coffee.

Profile URL:

http://matadortravel.com/travel-community/sarahmenkedick

Read more about Sarah Menkedick

I'm fired up on:

Climbing mountains, wandering the streets of cities, street food, cooking, trains, running, microbreweries, beer in general, coffee, long bus rides with the windows open, writing letters, airports.

Tunes I rock out to:

Lila Downs, Nina Simone, Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Manu Chao, Iron and Wine, Tito Puente, The Magnetic Fields, Luna, John Coltrane...and more, so many more.

Travel style:

Daypack crammed with too many books and notebooks and bizarre snacks from foreign supermarkets, bus rides followed by train rides followed by boat rides, coffee in the most unexpected places, a tent pitched wherever and whenever possible, finding little routines and mini-lives in particular places.

Sports I do:

Running (marathons when possible!), hiking.

Favorite artist(s):

Annie Dillard, Haruki Murakami, T.C Boyle, Nabokov, Hemingway, Bruce Chatwin, Julio Cortazer

Favorite books:

In Patagonia, short stories of Haruki Murakami, An American Childhood, Ada or Ardor, Rayuela

Who I'd like to meet on my travels:

Haruki Murakami, enthusiastic and thoughtful beer drinkers, hikers, writers

I want to make a difference by:

Breaking down assumptions about what is and is not "authentic", discussing and struggling with questions about how travel can help local peoples and economies without ruining environmental and cultural landscapes, coming up with ways and programs for people from developing countries to be travelers and see with travelers' eyes. Talking about travel as a way of seeing.

Languages spoken, other than English:

Spanish, French, and basic Chinese

I felt the most immersed in a foreign culture when:

I suddenly get a new perspective or understanding of something I was confused about for a long time. I see something from a completely unexpected light.

Why I travel:

To not forget that the miniscule details of everyday life are unique and interesting and can be truly cherished. To avoid falling into patterns and only seeing the obvious things from an ingrained personal perspective. To make unknown places into felt, lived places and to be able to imagine the daily lives of people in those places after I have left. To build connections.

Ideal place to watch the sunrise:

Running up a Bolivian riverbed.

Ideal place to watch the sunset:

Bundled up on a Patagonian mountaintop.

Before I die I'd like to:

Take a massive road trip, write a book, and do the John Muir trail.

Let's collaborate:

I'm interested in studying and writing essays about both helpful and harmful forms of travel and ways of thinking about travel. I'm also interested in forming connections between travelers and local communities in Mexico, and in ways of bringing youth from developing countries (particularly in Latin America) to the U.S to write about their perspectives as travelers. We almost always see travel from the eyes of people from the U.S, Europe, or other highly developed places. I'm interested in creating opportunities for new perspectives from other places.

My links:

www.huevosalamexicana.com

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by sophialove | 2009/06/18

Hello
My
name is Sophia,i saw your profile today and became intrested in you,i will also like to know you the more,and i want you to send an email to my email address so i can give you my
picture for you to know whom i am.Here is my email address( ) I believe we can move from here I am waiting.
(Remeber the distance or colour does not matter but love matters alot in life)
Thanks
Sophia

by kellylove | 2009/05/21

my dearest new friend,
it give me a great honor to contact you after viewing your profile which interest me in having communication with you so that we can get to know each other and see what happened if you will have the desire with me,i will be very happy if you can write me back for easiest communication.i will be waiting to hear from you so i can tell you more about my self and send you some of my recent photos for you to see who you are dealing with.
take care of your self But you can send me an e mail with my privite mail box [kellywilliams1923@yahoo.com]
yours new friend.
kelly.
Pls dont for to email me here.[kellywilliams1923@yahoo.com]

by ulises cruz | 2009/05/19

lol, I am from Oaxaca currently in Columbus Ohio.
I embrace the quirkiness of the phrase "small world"

by dinojay2 | 2009/04/04

Thanks for the message, although we unfortunately we won't be making it down that way on this leg of our journey. We're going to start the long road back to Canada in a couple week. However, we are leaning toward spending a few months in Guatemala next winter in which case Oaxaca could be on the list. I'll keep an eye out to see if you're still there. Enjoy Japan!

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by uccella | 2009/04/03

Hello there! I'm a word nerd (I study Spanish and linguistics), and was told by Julie Schwietert that you were working on a piece about idioms. I'd love to contribute to this article, so let me know if you would like some input.

Looking forward to your piece,

Cassandra

by Goyaman | 2009/04/02

My advice is to enjoy every waking minute of it! Nagoya hmmm! Not that familiar with it, drove past in one time going from Gifu prefecture to Yokohama. I've heard its bad for Yakuza, the so called Japanese Mafia. But it's not supposed to be as bad as Osaka.

Try all the different foods you can. Sometimes its better to ask after you've tried it and decided you like it. The Japanese pallet is much more subtle than the American. Seasoning for many things is very light and they don't put ketchup on everything.

If you love baseball, take in a game. It (Japanese Baseball) is an experience like no other. The cheering and bands start well before the game and continue non-stop throughout. Nagoya is home to the Chunichi Dragons. If you saw the Tom Selleck movie Mr. Baseball, that is the local team and I believe they have a pretty good shot at a pennant this year.

If you get a chance to travel, try to visit Takayama and shirakago. The former is one of the most beautiful mountain vistas you'll ever get the chance to see and the latter is picture postcard perfect village with the old style thatched roof houses. Note, Mt. Fuji is considered a must see but IMHO better from a distance. Having climbed it, I feel safe in telling you you're much better off visiting the Hakone Onsen district to the south and viewing it from afar.

I currently live down in Okinawa, the southernmost prefecture. Here it is a subtropical paradise but a two and a half hour flight to Tokyo. We don't visit mainland often but might try to get up that way for a few days this year. Only time will tell.

Enjoy your visit and if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask.

Keith

by runningcate | 2009/04/02

I ALWAYS take running stuff with me! When I was living on a ship for two months, I alternated between laps around the main deck and the treadmill (I would have gone crazy without it!)
I'm moving to Korea for a year, and I'm definitely going to try and run the Seoul marathon next March. It will be my first race outside the US and I can't wait!

by LayneLeeAnn | 2009/04/02

Hi Sarah - Thanks for your message and apologies for the delayed reply (i'm just getting the hang of Matador). Yes, I'll start thinking about a piece on Argentine food...Saludos!

by Liligi | 2009/03/30

Yea, Beijing is outta control. Seoul's air pollution doesn't top that at all. It's actually tolerable.

by geotraveler | 2009/01/22

Thanks Sarah, your book recommendation is up - http://matadorgoods.com/in-patagonia-by-bruce-chatwin/

by Sarah Menkedick | 2008/09/19

Thanks for the forum! The piece looks great. I hope we can get some good discussions going.

by Bailey | 2008/09/19

Great suggestions for Matador, Sarah! I hope you've had a chance to check out the piece.

I also created a forum post based on the travel myths idea you had (no worries, I gave you credit!!)

Check it out here
Travel Myths debunked!
http://matadortravel.com/forum/2681

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