My name is Karina, his name is Tyler and we are behind the H.O.T. name. By the way, we are spouses as well! I was born and raised in Lithuania, he’s a true American, we met in Italy, got married in Gibraltar, and currently living in the US. And who knows where are we going to end up next?
The main reason why we began this blog is quite selfish. I bet you’re immediately thinking we are self-promoters. Not quite true. You see, memories, unfortunately, tend to fade away. Within the years, we can easily remember the highlights of our trips, but sometimes it get difficult to recall the name of that awesome, downtown bar, or how many steps we made in one particular day (fun fact: we broke our walking record in Rome – 33 km (around 20 miles) in one day). Thus, the most logical conclusion was to document everything. If, by some chance, some of our stories will help or encourage our readers to start exploring this amazing crazy world, then we will be honored.
Before meeting each other, we had a bit different traveling styles. Tyler was one who wanted to see as much as possible in a limited amount of time. I, on the other hand, preferred a leisurely pace – I desired sitting on a riverbank, people-watching at a local coffee shop, or spend hours in an interesting museum. I traveled this way, despite not accomplishing my daily plan on occasion. Currently, we are enjoying the fusion of our traveling styles. At a glance, they seem juxtaposed. However, they seamlessly work together. I learned to hurry up sometimes, meanwhile, Tyler stops running.
It goes without saying, that our experiences are OUR experiences. We don’t even try to be 100 percent objective. As I like to say, a lot of things are relative in this world. Thus, the same place will resonate differently, for different people, based on their previous experiences. No matter how much I enjoy writing, I understand that not everyone has tons of time to read a blog about other’s adventures. Understanding this, I will attempt to conclude each post with a summary, or “our trip in a nutshell” for those who are in hurry.
We hope you will enjoy my words flow and Tyler’s photographic skills.
Karina & Tyler, aka H.O.T.