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April 2026 was a very exciting travel month indeed. I embarked on a 17-day solo trip to Central Asia, visiting Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan!
It was my first time visiting this part of the world, and I had an outstanding time. In fact, this might have been one of the best solo trips I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to go back and explore more!
Let’s take a look at the month.
Table of Contents
Destinations Visited
- Prague, Czech Republic
- Almaty, Moon Canyon, Black Canyon, Saty, Kolsay Lake, Lake Kaindy, and Charyn Canyon National Park, Kazakhstan
- Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva, Uzbekistan
- Panjakent, Seven Lakes, and Durman, Tajikistan
Highlights
An incredible trip to Central Asia. It went incredibly smoothly — so smoothly that I was a bit surprised! It turns out that Central Asia is much easier to travel than you might think.
The most important thing is making sure you buy your Uzbekistan train tickets as soon as they go on sale (usually 45 or 60 days beforehand), as they can and do sell out quickly.
My trip started in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Almaty is a beloved city among my travel blogger colleagues, and I see why — it’s a wonderfully green city, super walkable, with lots of great cafes, excellent food, and views of snow-capped mountains in the distance (if you’re lucky and visit in mid-spring like me). It’s also an extremely affordable city. I could easily spend much more time there.
In Almaty I highly recommend taking a tour with Walking Almaty. The owner, Dennis, is a fascinating American guy who loves and is obsessed with Kazakh history and culture (to the point that he actually translated some Kazakh works into English for the first time).
Also, during our tour, Dennis literally helped an old lady cross the street. Like, it’s not a cliché — some people actually do that!
I also took a two-day tour to the natural wonders of the Almaty region of Kazakhstan: Moon Canyon, Black Canyon, Kolsay Lake, Lake Kaindy, and Charyn Canyon. A two-day tour is the best way to see all of these, as the one-day tours start super early, end super late, and are quite rushed.
All of these places were so cool to visit, but I especially adored Charyn Canyon, which looked like it was straight out of Utah or Arizona. You walk down the canyon as you’re surrounded by sandy rock formations.
The tour itself was big (43 people!) but fun, with great food and karaoke, and we spent the night in yurts.
Next up came Uzbekistan. I visited four cities: Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, and Khiva.
Bukhara was my overall favorite, with a calm, pedestrianized city center, beautiful architecture, and some of the most outstanding souvenir shopping I’ve experienced of anywhere I’ve visited in the world!
Samarkand had the best overall architecture of the trip, the kind of art that brings you to wonder — especially the turquoise tiles at Shah-i-Zinda Mausoleum. I also booked a photo shoot in costume at the Registan early one morning.
Khiva was very different — a walled city in the middle of the desert, very busy and catering 100% to tourism, but really beautiful and special and a treat for photography.
Tashkent wasn’t as cool as Almaty, but I still had fun there, including taking a food tour, visiting the Applied Arts Museum, and some cool coffee shops.
And I took a few craft workshops where I learned two Uzbek crafts — Suzani embroidery and Persian mini painting. I took a few classes with Craftnculture (they comped me the embroidery class and a food tour in Tashkent). You’ll hear more about those soon.
A cool day trip to Tajikistan. Did you know that Samarkand is only 50 minutes from the Tajik border? From Samarkand, I joined a small group tour to Tajikistan that visited the city of Panjakent and its bazaar; the Seven Lakes, perched up in the mountains; and the ruins of Sarazm, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (which, frankly, wasn’t that exciting).
Oddly, for me the highlight was the bazaar. It’s not a touristy area and people were excited to meet me and the other two guys on the tour. And Tajik women dress SO beautifully — it’s not unusual to see them wearing matching outfits covered with sequins and rhinestones. I saw one sparkle-covered woman working in a garden!
I have SO much to write about Central Asia, both on the blog and in social media, and I am looking forward to getting into that!
Good times in Prague. April is the month of the cherry blossoms, and though I missed most of them this year, I got a few days of pink blossomy goodness! April is also the month of green beer (yes, here green beer is for Easter, not St. Patrick’s Day).
We went to Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition. This exhibition has been traveling the world with quite a few artifacts from the Titanic. Overall, I found the exhibition a bit oversold for what they offer (so many of those artifacts are little twisted pieces of metal, or dishes), but I really loved learning the stories of the passengers.
I got an Ultra membership at Revolut, which means I now get three WeWork passes per month. So I’ll be coworking more often at the Prague WeWork, or maybe even other locations when I travel. I love my home setup (with cats!), but it’s nice to have a change of scenery, and I do work well around other people.
And at the end of the month, I saw Miguel in concert at SaSaZu. I adore Miguel and his album Wildheart is one of my favorite albums of all time. I think he has one of the best voices of any living singer. He put on a great show.
Challenges
Charlie’s phone was stolen while we were out one day. We were sitting at a table at Manifesto Market and a guy came up to us with a piece of paper wrapped in a plastic folder. He held out the paper and we told him we weren’t interested.
Turns out he had been holding the paper over Charlie’s phone, and he took it while it was covered. This is a common scam.
What sucks is that this happened in a place we love, Manifesto. We actually held our night-before-the-wedding party there. And Prague is a city that feels SO safe, and pickpocketing is quite rare here compared to other popular European cities like Paris, Rome, and Barcelona. Plus, we were in an area far from the touristy center.
It just goes to show you need to be cautious everywhere.
I broke my phone screen in Samarkand. I was standing at the Registan, dropped my phone, and suddenly a white line of broken pixels appeared on the screen. I weighed my options, and realized that even though it was still functional, it would probably be a good idea to replace it in case it got worse.
A quick Google found me a repair shop next door to a boba tea spot (sweet!), and I hung out, sipped and chewed my boba, and read my Kindle until the screen was fixed, costing a painful $259. I’m just glad I specifically allocate money in my YNAB budget for unexpected business mishaps and tech repairs.
(And if you’re keeping track, you are correct, I also had to replace my screen in November after slipping in the snow and smashing it to smithereens. Not my finest few months.)
Early mornings and lack of sleep in Central Asia. I spent much of the trip sleep-deprived because there were so many early mornings. Three early tours and activities, two early trains, three early flights, and one wakeup in the yurt at 5:00 AM when one of the girls’ phones went off.
The irony is that sometimes when I fly westward, I keep an early schedule the whole trip! Up at 6:00 AM, bed at 9:30 PM. But flying eastward makes you want to go to bed late and sleep in, and that, coupled with the early wakeups, completely threw off my schedule.
I got locked out of my room in Almaty — in a hotel with no on-site staff. And the full story of that is in my reel below…
Blog Posts of the Month
How to Get Cheap Flights with Dollar Flight Club — I love what Dollar Flight Club offers — they send you alerts for when there are way-cheaper-than-usual flights from your home airport to any of your dream destinations! Plus other destinations!
Most Popular Post on Instagram
So, something crazy happened in Almaty, and I told the story on Instagram. I got locked out of my hotel room. Which has happened to me before, and usually isn’t a big deal — but this was in a hotel that rarely has on-site staff.
The only way to contact the staff is via WhatsApp. But I had locked myself out of my room, which had my phone in it. So I had to go around the hotel knocking on random doors — and hilarity ensued.
For more live updates from my travels, follow me on Instagram at @adventurouskate.
What I Listened To This Month
I’m listening to all 500 of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I am enjoying immensely. I am loving discovering new artists and listening to albums I’ve somehow missed my entire life until now!
In April, I got back to form and listened to albums number 92-69.
Favorite Discovery: Super Fly by Curtis Mayfield. I knew I was going to love this — I love funk and soul and the 70s and blaxploitation anthems and everything I’ve ever heard by Curtis Mayfield.
But this is the kind of album that I wish we had more of these days — an album by a single artist, fully crafted around a movie. There are even plot points in the songs! What the hell did Freddie do?! I need to see the movie now!
Overall, this was SUCH a fun, funky, and groovy album. An absolute pleasure.
I also really enjoyed Dusty in Memphis by Dusty Springfield. I’d heard a few of her songs over the years, but listening to this album gave me such a deep appreciation for her gorgeous voice, which is a perfect match for the jazzy-poppy songs on this album.
Other Favorite Discoveries: Baduizm by Erykah Badu, The College Dropout by Kanye West, Back in Black by AC/DC, Hunky Dory by David Bowie.
Favorite Revisited Album: Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morrisette. This was my most-listened-to album when I was in the seventh grade, and I am pleased to share that IT HOLDS UP AMAZINGLY. How is this album so good?!
Like Billy Joel’s The Stranger or Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, this album packs in a truly shocking number of incredible, memorable, and distinctive-but-cohesive songs. (And while it’s a recent album, I would put Chappell Roan’s The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess into that category, too.)
And the album has such a specific musical sound and point of view, with a beautiful blend of pop and rock and the stories of a young woman who has gone through some dark times. Nobody could sing like this but Alanis.
I also want to give love to another favorite album of mine: Renaissance by Beyoncé, which happens to be my favorite Beyoncé album. This album is a celebration of the Black queer and trans artists who pioneered so many different forms of dance music and the culture around them.
What I love is that this album is so LAYERED and DETAILED. Nothing goes overlooked. There are so many dance genres represented: disco, house, funk, dancehall, techno, ballroom, that ubiquitous early 90s genre of “beautiful woman sings with scary-sounding man.” And it’s ultimately a celebration of being yourself on the dance floor.
Other Favorite Revisited Albums: Blonde by Frank Ocean.
Favorite Songs: “Cuff It” by Beyoncé, “All Falls Down” by Kanye West and Syleena Johnson, “Break On Through (To The Other Side)” by The Doors, “Back in Black” by AC/DC, “Freddie’s Dead” by Curtis Mayfield, “Just a Little Lovin'” by Dusty Springfield, “Self Control” by Frank Ocean, “You Learn” by Alanis Morrisette, “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A., “Family Affair” by Sly and the Family Stone.
Get the playlist: I’m creating a playlist of my favorite songs from the 500 albums — maximum one per album — on Spotify. You can listen to it here.
Random Music Thoughts: I’ve written before about how angry I get when thinking about how Kanye West has gone from one of my favorite artists to an actual, Hitler-loving Nazi. In part because it’s so hard conflating his brilliant early music with his repugnant views.
This month was especially stark — The College Dropout is such a fun and goofy and trailblazing album, so different from what hip-hop was putting out at the time, and it breaks my heart that either young Kanye turned into a Nazi or young Kanye was hiding his inner Nazi-ness all along.
*Disclaimer: QUITE A LOT of the musicians featured on this list are problematic in various ways — there are even two murderers in the mix. I’m looking at their music solely from an influential perspective.
What I Watched This Month
One of my all-time favorite TV shows is back: For All Mankind on Apple TV+! I love this show so much that I recommend to everyone.
When Charlie and I watched the first episode last year, we loved it so much that we proceeded to watch an episode every single night, 40 nights in a row, until we had watched it all.
This show starts in the 1960s and is an alternative history about what would happen if the Soviets had landed on the moon first. Because of this, the space race never ended — the US and the Soviets continued racing each other to have a base on the moon first, to get to Mars first, etc. As a result, space exploration is so more extensive and exciting.
Each season takes place in a different decade, following the original astronauts and their families as they age and technology progresses. The of-the-time musical cues are outstanding (I’m still not over the immaculate use of DMX’s “X Gon’ Give It To Ya” in season 4), and because it’s Apple TV+, they spent a ton of money on production, and it’s looks expensive.
This month, season 5 started, which takes place in the 2010s, and season 6 will be the final season. Each episode has 10 hourlong episodes, so there’s a lot to enjoy. WATCH IT!!
Also, I saw the movie Michael in the theater. The plot is thin, but the music and dance sequences are stunning, and Jaafar Jackson (and the young Juliano Krue Valdi) did an incredible, uncanny job as Michael Jackson himself.
This movie is a reminder that Michael’s music, from the early days of the Jackson 5 through the Bad era, is some of the best pop music ever created, and I loved getting to listen to it for two hours.
What I Read This Month
I always get a lot of reading done when I’m on a long solo trip!
Yesteryear by Caro Clair Burke (2026) — Natalie Heller Mills is one of the most followed tradwives in America, raising her six children on a farm in Idaho. Of course, she has a TON of help behind the scenes, but her followers don’t know that. But then Natalie suddenly wakes up in 1855 and has to live the lifestyle she’s been pushing.
This is one of the buzziest books of the moment, and I really enjoyed it. The subject matter is tantalizing and I genuinely had no idea what direction the book went in, leading to a surprising ending.
That said, I feel like this book was rushed. It felt like it could have done with more robust editing, though I understand that the publisher wanted the book out FAST. There were a handful of odd issues I think could have been written differently (her Harvard experience felt more like a big nondescript university, and really, her father-in-law is the popular Republican Senator from California?).
And unfortunately, it only touched the deeper issues of feminism and performance in the lightest way. If it the book had chosen to reckon with these issues more deeply, it could have been one of the best novels of the decade. So I do feel a bit bad that this is the final version of it.
The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley (2025) — Adela Woods is a 16-year-old competitive swimmer who becomes pregnant and is banished to her grandmother’s small town in the Florida panhandle. While there, she meets the Girls — a group of outcast women and girls who were teenage moms and raise their children together.
The book changes perspective between Adela; Simone, the oldest of the group, who has four-year-old twins and finds herself pregnant again; and Emory, who brings her newborn to high school and is determined to graduate against the odds.
I really enjoyed the characters and the setting of this book, and especially getting into the perspectives of teen moms who are seen as outcasts within their community. While it didn’t quite blow me away, this was a great read.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (2025) — Sybil Van Antwerp is a woman in her 70s who has written letters her whole life — to her brother, to her best friend, to writers like Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry, to her former colleague’s teenage child, to the dean at the university where she wants to audit classes.
This epistolary novel is a collection of letters to and from Sybil over the course of several years, as she struggles with relationships with her kids, is courted by two different men, and deals with the onset of a disability.
This book has been an unexpected breakout hit, and I see why! The letter-writing is an excellent device, showing you only what Sybil wants people to know and letting the truth seep in little by little in the other letters. Sybil is not a lovable narrator. She’s complicated, she’s gruff, she keeps people at a distance, and I love when women characters are allowed to have an edge like this.
One warning: there is an animal death in this book that really upset me, and to be frank, was handled in a cruel way and kind of ruined the reading experience for me. They’re making a movie of the book, starring Jane Fonda (who will be FABULOUS, as she always is), and I hope they cut the animal death altogether.
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid (2022) — Carrie Soto is one of the greatest tennis players of all time, with a record of 20 Grand Slam wins. But in 1994, five years past retirement, a new young player named Nikki Chan is about to break her record. Carrie decides to come out of retirement at age 37 to be coached by her beloved father, battle Chan, and keep her record once and for all.
I love Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books, which are always told by strong, successful, and complicated women characters. The core of this book is a woman reckoning with who she is if she doesn’t have the one thing that she’s worked for all her life, and rebuilding a relationship between father and daughter.
That said, while an enjoyable read, I think Carrie Soto is Back is one of Reid’s weaker books (and Atmosphere is her best). Carrie’s father is from Argentina and they speak a lot of Spanish mixed with English, but honestly, the Spanish just seemed so cringeworthy to me, with no hint of Argentina, and it was painfully obvious that Reid doesn’t speak Spanish herself.
Orbital: A Novel by Samantha Harvey (2024) — This novel shares the thoughts of six astronauts and cosmonauts from different countries who have been orbiting the Earth together for the last nine months. Each of them ponder their existence and the beauty of our planet as they prepare to return to it.
This is a beautiful elegy, and well deserving of all the awards it has received. While it tends to hold each of the characters at arm’s length, you soon learn that the wonder of it is how beautifully they each care for our planet.
Audition: A Novel by Katie Kitamura (2025) — A Broadway actress is approached by a young man who believes he may be her son. From there, two different narratives spill outward, and the relationship between the two of them veers in some truly wild and confounding directions.
I really loved Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies, about an interpreter working at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, but this novel didn’t do much for me. I appreciate it for being well-written and for taking some big risks, but it overall left an unpleasant aftertaste.
Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss (2016) — I listened to this audiobook a few years ago and wanted to read it and actually take notes this time, because it’s really helpful.
This book is all about how to negotiate and get what you want. And while I do think it’s a bit overly tailored to men in general, and straight white men in particular, there are lots of excellent tips here that I would love to put to use.
Coming Up in May 2026
This month will mostly be spent in Prague, but Charlie and I do have a trip at the end of the month. We’re heading to England — and while we visit London frequently to see his family, this trip is about exploring new parts of his country.
We are going to Cooper’s Hill for the annual cheese-rolling! After watching the We are the Champions docuseries on Netflix, which profiles a strange and unusual competition in each episode, we knew right away we had to witness the cheese-rolling for ourselves. We actually booked our hotel more than a year in advance.
It’s not as fun and cutesy as it sounds. The hill is STEEP and it’s not uncommon for people to flip over themselves violently and break bones. In fact, it’s not an official event because of the injury risk.
No, we are not taking part in the cheese rolling. We are here strictly as spectators for the event, and pub-goers afterwards.
We’re padding out the trip with some time in the Cotswolds (which I visited in 2015 and really enjoyed), and the city of Bristol. In Bristol, we have a reservation at Wilson’s, a new Michelin star-holder featured in Apple TV+’s docuseries Knife Edge! It looks like a wonderful, sustainable restaurant and we’re really looking forward to eating there.
We’re also visiting Cheddar Gorge, which feels like a pilgrimage to me, as this is where cheddar cheese originated! CHEESE TRIP! (Man, I should take Murray the cat here someday. He loves cheddar, too.)
We are missing three of our favorite food festivals in Prague for this trip (Pivo a Burger, Korso Krymská, and The Italians’ catalogue party), so it better be good!!
What are your plans for May? Share away!