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This Battered Suitcase

  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
    • Around the Web
    • Contact
  • Start Here
  • Destinations
    • Africa
      • Botswana
      • Egypt
      • Kenya
      • Morocco
      • Namibia
      • Rwanda
      • South Africa
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Zambia
    • Asia
      • Bhutan
      • Brunei
      • Cambodia
      • China
      • Hong Kong
      • India
      • Indonesia
      • Israel
      • Japan
      • Laos
      • Macau
      • Malaysia
      • Mongolia
      • Myanmar
      • Nepal
      • The Philippines
      • Singapore
      • Sri Lanka
      • South Korea
      • Thailand
      • UAE
      • Vietnam
    • Europe
      • Austria
      • Belgium
      • Bulgaria
      • Croatia
      • Cyprus
      • Czechia
      • Denmark
      • England
      • Estonia
      • Finland
      • France
      • Germany
      • Greece
      • Hungary
      • Iceland
      • Ireland
      • Italy
      • Latvia
      • Liechtenstein
      • Lithuania
      • Luxembourg
      • Malta
      • Monaco
      • Netherlands
      • Northern Ireland
      • Norway
      • Poland
      • Portugal
      • Romania
      • Russia
      • San Marino
      • Scotland
      • Slovakia
      • Slovenia
      • Spain
      • Sweden
      • Switzerland
      • Turkey
      • Vatican City
      • Wales
    • North America
      • Antigua and Barbuda
      • Barbados
      • Belize
      • Canada
      • Costa Rica
      • Cuba
      • Dominican Republic
      • Grenada
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Jamaica
      • Nicaragua
      • Mexico
      • Panama
      • St. Kitt’s and Nevis
      • St. Vincent and the Grenadines
      • USA
    • Oceania
      • Australia
      • New Zealand
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Bolivia
      • Brazil
      • Chile
      • Colombia
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
      • Uruguay
  • Topics
    • Advice
    • Fashion
    • Lifestyle
    • Opinions
    • Romance
    • Stories
    • Travel
    • Writing and Blogging
  • Work With Me
Category:

Stories

    StoriesTravel

    I Forgot to Take Photos at Winnipeg Folk Fest (and here’s why)

    written by Brenna Holeman
    July 19, 2018
    24 comments
    6 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • LifestyleStories

    2017: The Good, The Bad, and the Oh So Very Ugly

    by Brenna Holeman January 3, 2018

    2017 held a lot of great moments for me, but it also held a few not-so-great moments, too. Here is the This Battered Suitcase 2017 review: the good, the bad, and the oh so very ugly.

    0 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • AdviceStoriesWriting and Blogging

    How I Got Started: My Journey Through 11 Years of Travelling and Writing About It

    by Brenna Holeman October 24, 2017

    It’s one of the most frequently asked questions I get via email, comments, and messages across social media: how do I do what you do? And by what I do, I assume people mean…

    4 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • Dating and RelationshipsHighlightStories

    This Is How Your Heart Breaks

    written by Brenna Holeman
    October 2, 2017
    50 comments
    9 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • Dating and RelationshipsStories

    The Last Time I Saw You (Part Seven)

    by Brenna Holeman August 29, 2017

    The last time I saw you, we hugged goodbye at the airport. It was cold outside, a dark November morning. The air felt sharp in my lungs, like if I breathed in…

    7 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • LifestyleOpinionsStories

    Taking a Break From the Thing You Love

    by Brenna Holeman July 26, 2017

    Zanzibar sunset. Photo by Helen It has been exactly 56 days since I last posted on this blog. 56 days! The longest I have ever gone without posting on This Battered Suitcase.…

    2 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • AdviceStoriesTravel

    Because In the End, I Choose Travel

    written by Brenna Holeman
    May 31, 2017
    76 comments
    1 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • Stories

    On Belonging: A Story from Japan

    by Brenna Holeman February 28, 2017

    I met Ai almost exactly one year after I’d moved to Japan. I’m getting ahead of myself, though – I need to go back to the beginning.

    In my early 20s, I was addicted to travelling; I had perpetually itchy feet. Travelling had me in its grasp, my wanderlust an uncontrolled entity. And like most addictions, I needed more money to sustain it. At twenty-four years old and jobless, my savings fast running out, I needed to start making money to support my habit. It only made sense that I’d look for a job in a different country; it seemed, in my mind, to be killing two birds with one stone. Soon I was looking up international jobs, researching visas, investigating how much I’d need for the plane ticket. I then did what seemingly every other twenty-something English-speaker with a university degree but no idea how to use it does: I decided to teach English abroad. It was relatively easy to find a job online, and after an interview and a grammar test, it was confirmed. I was going to be a teacher in Japan.

    1 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • StoriesTravel

    My Sister’s Influence

    by Brenna Holeman January 26, 2017

    I went to South America because of my sister. She went to South America because of a bottle of mezcal.

    Wait. Let me back up. At 22 years old, I took my first long-term solo trip around Europe. That led to years of solo travel and living abroad, including a year travelling through Asia. In that year, I’d met another backpacker who became my boyfriend. When we broke up, I felt totally lost; we had made all of these grand plans together, and suddenly I was stuck in a Winnipeg winter trying to save my pennies as a bartender. I had no idea what to do next.

    “You should go to South America, you’d love it,” my big sister Zalie said to me the night I got dumped, as if it was the natural next step. And just like that, a seed was planted, a fire lit. Within five months of that conversation, she was dropping me off at the airport to fly to Belize, where I’d start a nine-month journey through Central and South America.

    People often ask me where I got the confidence, the bravery, or the idea to travel the world on my own.

    “Easy,” I say to them. “I simply followed in my sister’s footsteps.”

    1 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
  • LifestyleStories

    Why I Marched: Thoughts on the London Women’s March

    written by Brenna Holeman
    January 23, 2017
    17 comments
    1 Facebook Twitter Google + Pinterest
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About Me

About Me

Hi, I'm Brenna

My name is Brenna Holeman and I drink a lot of whisky. No, wait. That’s not how I want to start. After over 100 countries over 14 years, many of them solo, I tend to write about travel a lot, but I write about other things, too: getting dumped, buying way too much jewellery, and yeah, OK, whisky (none of those things are related, I swear). You’ll find a mix of advice, opinion pieces, and stories on this blog, but either way, I hope to make you want to read more. For more about me and what you'll find on This Battered Suitcase, click here .

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INSPIRATION

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life." - Jack Kerouac

Currently in

WINNIPEG, CANADA

Last Stops: Namibia, USA (TX, AZ), Italy, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Kosovo

Up Next:  Canada (Manitoba)

Disclosures

This Battered Suitcase is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and links to Amazon.com. For the full disclosure/privacy policy, please click here.

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