Get to know your tripwolf bloggers – Cristina (maglayas) - tripwolf travel blog

On the way to the San Blas Islands, Panama

We’ve got some strong personalities here at tripwolf, but we all have one thing in common – our love and desire to explore the world! We’re beginning a series which features these personalities – now you’ll know our writer’s hopes and dreams, and where they get their perspective from!

Cristina recently returned from an around the world trip, then came home to New York to get hitched! She’s our food culture expert – sharing recipes and culinary tales from Vietnam to her home kitchen. She’s always creating great trip ideas, and she also has written many descriptions for us! Her are her words:

I’ve traveled to 32 countries in North America, Europe, and Asia, so I can tell you all about where to go, but my real expertise in NYC and London. NYC is where I’ve been living for the past 4 years, and my husband is from London so I go at least once a year to visit family and friends. I’m also an expert when it comes to cheap, dirty backpacking.

My top 5 future destinations are Colombia, Tanzania, New Zealand, any of the Stans, Japan

I always take along:

- ziplock bags – for leaking shampoo bottles, dirty laundry, leftovers, god they are so handy
- headlamp – for all those podunk towns that don’t have electricity after midnight
- waterproof backpack cover – your stuff might be strapped to the luggage rack of a bus in the middle of monsoon season
- digital SLR
- duct tape - repairing tears, hanging up mosquito nets in a pinch, etc.
- sarong – for the obvious beach throw/wrap/impromptu towel, but you also never know when the curtains of your $3 room will have huge holes that compromise your privacy
- lots and lots of underwear

Where would I send people first?

The Philippines, hands-down. They are most beautiful islands I’ve ever seen, everyone is super friendly and speaks English, and there’s not a lot of tourists so you can totally feel like Robinson Crusoe.

Craziest travel experience?

Whenever I am crammed in the back of a truck – once I hitched out of Monteverde, Costa Rica and ended up crammed in the back of a pickup with 8 other ticos and the stuff they were going to sell in town, and it started pouring as we were rumbling down these windy mountain roads. Another time, an Indian tour guide decided he didn’t feel like doing the 2 hour drive back into town after our camel trek ended, so he flagged down a passing truck and paid them to take me and a friend across the Thar Desert in a pickup that already had 14 people and 2 goats in the bed. Actually, India in general is a crazy travel experience.

Ipod playlist – Beirut is so awesome when you’ve got hours to go on a rickety bus.

Happy travels! Cristina is a trip guru for India, Washington, DC, London, Lower East Side, New York City, and the Andaman Islands – send her your travel questions!