About Me

Hello, thanks for dropping by.  

My name is May Martinez, and I love, love, love writing and traveling. My love affair with words started way back when I was shy little girl in elementary school. The school library was my most favorite place in the entire school, I would spend hours in it browsing the shelves for  Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley, Enid Blyton and various Newbery books. 

Tuk tuk ride through Siem Reap, Cambodia

But traveling really didn't come into the picture until I was well into my college years, when our teacher introduced our class to travel writer Pico Iyer. His travelogue on China, "The Door Swings Both Ways," captured my imagination and made me yearn to step into strange lands and write about them as captivatingly as he did.

Fast forward to several years later and, by God's grace, I found myself traveling to places like El Nido, Palawan, and Krabi, Thailand, writing for various travel publications.

After a short stint teaching at an international school (five of the best years of my life!), I'm back in the travel writing industry as  the Features Editor of Balikbayan magazine, a travel and lifestyle magazine for our Filipino countrymen living overseas. I also contribute to the Filiipino-American newspaper Asian Journal, which holds offices in New York, New Jersey, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. Soon, hopefully, we will launch our first local title -- a Manila guide called Manila Life 24/7.

But this blog -- I like to think of this blog as my own travel publication,  where I am the editor-in-chief, managing editor, copy editor, staff writer, and official photographer. My only hope is that I'm not the only reader as well, hehe.

Here you can find a mixture of fully-sponsored trips and events, and my own D.I.Y., meticulously budgeted travels. Hopefully this little space can inspire, motivate, intrigue, and ultimately, help you book that trip -- whether it's a small, weekend getaway, or the trip of a lifetime. After all,  few things in life are as delightful as the falling-in-love feeling of traveling, and we shouldn't leave our longings (the good ones) unattended.

"And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again -- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more. " --Pico Iyer

"When I consider your heavens, the work of Your  fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, son of man that you care for him?" -- Psalm 8:3-4

My personal blog: Whatever Is Lovely 

Email me at: maycmartinez@gmail.com