Hannah Elise Schultz

Adventures in
Serendipity

— Hannah Schultz (biographical name): a Kentuckian, traveler, professor, hiker, environmentalist, and Great Pyrenees enthusiast

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things

Posts in Travel

Planning an International Trip Without Draining Your College Budget

It feels only fitting that on the one year anniversary of my last day in England I should be planning a trip that my best friend, Mary, and I have been dreaming of since freshman year of high school: a two-week backpacking trip through the United Kingdom (with a surprise layover in Iceland). A year later, I will be traveling back across the pond to my home away from home, ready to hand over copious amounts of money to the first crêpe cart I see. But both Mary and I will have just graduated from college, which means—you got it—we're broke. This means I've got to get creative if I want to be able to afford all those sidewalk snacks (not to mention airfare).

TravelHannah SchultzApril 17, 2017International travel, budget, college student, europe, airlines, packing, backpack, planning, plan, trip, vacation, Norwegian, Ryanair Comment

My happy place: University of Oxford Botanic Garden (ft. baby succulents)

The glasshouses were my favorite spot in the entire city. There were palm trees and coconuts, pitcher plants and lilies, lemon and orange trees. It was life, and life abundant. I could (and, in fact, did) spend countless minutes crouching and staring at the pond in the Lily House or trying to find every yellow plant to match my rain jacket. One glasshouse even included the corpse flower, which is a giant flowering plant that smells like rotting meat to attract flies for pollination. It is native to the rainforests of Sumatra, and this was the first time I'd ever seen one in person.

Nature, TravelHannah SchultzMarch 20, 2017Oxford University, Botanical Garden, Succulents, Venus flytrap, cactus, cacti, Lowe's, botanic gardenComment

The Life of a Short-Term American Expatriate

I've dreamed about studying abroad ever since I can remember. When my brother and I played house as little kids, I was always a missionary in China or a college student in Germany. Then, in high school, I became enraptured with British television (Doctor Who, Merlin, Sherlock—the works), and I set my sights on England, hoping to one day spend a glorious semester across the pond and become a bona fide anglophile.

TravelHannah SchultzJanuary 3, 2017Study abroad, england, Oxford University, Lexington, Asbury University Comment

A Solo, Budget-Friendly Weekend in London

July 8, 2026

Travel

A Solo, Budget-Friendly Weekend in London

This May, I traveled abroad alone for the very first time since becoming a parent. This rare opportunity was the result of needing to do some archival research at the British Library in London and the Museum of Rural English Life in Reading. I actually prefer traveling with Ryan and my toddler, but time-off and budgets did not align, so my trek across the pond was solo (and fully funded by my college). While I was initially not too happy about this prospect, my time in England reminded me, after ten years of traveling with Ryan and friends, that I am capable of hard things, that I like spending time with myself doing what I like to do, and that I can read a book extremely fast when I’m not interrupted every five seconds!

Travel With Me: A Toddler-Friendly Trip to Ireland in January (Dublin & Belfast)

January 18, 2026

Travel, Hiking

Travel With Me: A Toddler-Friendly Trip to Ireland in January (Dublin & Belfast)

If you’ve been a long-time follower of the blog (or know me personally), you might remember that I last visited Ireland in 2017 as a new college graduate on a whirlwind backpacking trip with one of my oldest friends. On that trip, not only was I a fresh-faced, sprightly new college grad, but I was on an incredibly tight budget and visiting in the summer. This time, I approached my visit to Ireland as an exhausted toddler-mom with a slightly larger budget and less flexibility, and we also had to navigate the various difficulties of Irish winter weather.

Life

A Year in Pictures: 2025

Unsurprisingly (at least to those familiar with my daily life), I missed my annual year in review post for 2024. I had my daughter in the fall of 2023, then scraped together my last remaining brain cells to balance teaching and finishing my dissertation in 2024. Fall 2024 was also when we lost Argos, my soul dog whom I’d had since childhood; he survived osteosarcoma against every odd but died unexpectedly in his sleep from a heart condition. In the midst of parenting, dissertating, and grief, a year in review post on my now seldom-used blog was not at the top of my priorities list.

Adventures inSerendipity

— Hannah Schultz (biographical name): a Kentuckian, traveler, professor, hiker, environmentalist, and Great Pyrenees enthusiast

Adventures in
Serendipity