Helen Hatzis, is the Chief Exploration Office and Co-Founder of Trip Jaunt.
Helen is a recipient of the Governor-General Award, has been honoured as one of Canada's Nicest People! A true xenophile at heart, she finds joy in traveling and delights in sharing her experiences through Trip Jaunt (formerly Weekend Jaunt), an online travel community and hub she established in 2010. Her aspiration is to inspire others to explore the world as she does!
Helen is an esteemed advisory member of the North American Travel Journalists Association.
Williamsburg, Virginia, has long drawn visitors eager to walk through the preserved streets and buildings that shaped early American independence. The region’s appeal extends well beyond those foundational sites, however, with a mix of outdoor recreation, family entertainment, and local gathering spots that suit summer travel plans. Travelers who spend time here often discover a
Trastevere sits on the west bank of the Tiber River, offering visitors a compact district that balances historic architecture with everyday rhythms. Its narrow lanes and ivy-covered facades create an immediate sense of place, while proximity to major landmarks keeps the area convenient without overwhelming it. Travelers often choose this neighborhood as a base because
San Francisco’s Chinatown has long stood as the oldest Chinese enclave in the United States, a neighborhood shaped by generations of migration, resilience, and cultural exchange. This spring, it gained a new landmark with the opening of the OUT Museum, the first institution of its kind dedicated to Chinese LGBTQ+ artists. The bilingual space sits
A 2024 survey of 2,000 people in relationships found that 73 percent consider travel the ultimate test of compatibility. The number stands out because a shared journey packs months of everyday interactions into a concentrated span of days. Decisions arise quickly when plans shift, resources are shared, and surroundings feel new. These moments surface patterns
Every spring, something remarkable happens along the eastern edge of North America. Ancient towers of glacial ice, born from Greenland’s eroding ice sheets, begin a slow, silent drift southward into the waters of Newfoundland. It is one of the few places on Earth where travelers can stand on a rocky headland and watch these frozen
Image credits: Flickr There’s a certain kind of quiet that only exists above 8,000 feet, when the last trail sign is miles behind you and the only sound is meltwater threading through granite. Montana’s most celebrated glaciers are well documented, endlessly photographed, and increasingly crowded on summer mornings. The ones that don’t appear in travel
There’s a particular kind of food destination that earns its reputation slowly, through word of mouth, through chefs who stay rather than leave, through farmers who’ve been on the same land for generations. Wisconsin, and its cultural and culinary anchor of Milwaukee, is exactly that place. It hasn’t been shouted about on the cover of
America’s national parks have never been more loved, and the numbers prove it. The National Park Service’s 2024 visitation statistics reveal a record-breaking year, with the service reporting 331.9 million recreation visits – a nearly 2% increase from 2023 and surpassing the previous all-time high set in 2016. That kind of love, spread across hundreds
There is a particular kind of quiet that settles over the Hudson Valley on a weekday morning in spring. Fog lifts off the river, old stone walls run alongside country roads, and the towns sitting along those bends carry centuries of American life in their architecture, their cemeteries, and their rhythms. This is not a
There’s a certain rhythm to how seasoned travelers settle into a flight. Before the seatbelt sign even turns off, they’ve already arranged their small necessities within arm’s reach. That seatback pocket, cramped and often overlooked, becomes a carefully curated station for the next few hours. What goes in there matters more than most people think.
There’s a particular kind of dread that hits when your suitcase zipper refuses to close the night before a flight. Most of us have been there. You’ve packed “just in case” outfits, a backup jacket, and three sweaters for a destination that might get cold one evening – and now your bag weighs more than
The Oregon coast holds stretches of shoreline where the only sounds are waves and the occasional call of a seabird. Travelers who seek these quieter corners often discover that what they carry shapes how fully they can settle into the moment. Thoughtful choices in beach packing turn a simple day by the water into an
