Who are we?
Hi! Welcome to our space on the web! We are Megan Starr (USA) and Aram Vardanyan (Armenia), two friends coming together on this blog to help you travel the world!
This travel blog was started in 2010 by Megan when she moved to Norway and was looking to share her European travels and expat life with friends and family back home. The blog really focused on traveling in Norway and Eastern Europe in its early days but has evolved to include additional destinations over the years.
In 2018, Aram joined forces and was able to bring a fresh perspective and new voice to the blog.
We also created an Armenia travel blog outside of this one where we focus on tourism development in his home country and have partnered with USAID, the EU, the Smithsonian Institute, the UN, and more.
Over the years, we have written for or been featured in several publications across the web, including National Geographic, Forbes, BBC, The New York Times, Lonely Planet, Conde Nast Traveler, Roads & Kingdoms, The Guardian, Rough Guides, RFERL, iNews (UK), Reader’s Digest, Buzzfeed, The Independent, Food & Wine Magazine, and more.
We also co-authored Fodor’s ‘Essential Norway’ where we wrote all of the chapters about Arctic Norway, one of our favorite destinations!
Our team of 2 has grown to include a team of other writers and destination experts… as we continue to deliver insider tips and hidden gems to you, the traveler!
On Megan & Aram travel blog, you will find a big emphasis on travel in Scandinavia, the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe (we don’t travel there as often as we once did, but we still have some handy resources about the region), and the Caribbean (one of our writers is an expert on the islands!).
What You Can Expect on Our Blog
Megan and Aram aim to help you plan your trip – from inspiring you on the best places to visit in a destination all the way down to the best food tours to take in the city.
We want your trip from the airport to the city center to go as seamlessly as possible and for you to come back from your trip ready to plan another (hopefully with us)!
This blog started as a hobby in 2010 and stayed as one for nearly 8 years before deciding that it would be fun to turn a hobby into a business (honestly – best decision ever).
We very rarely work with tourism boards or hotels these days and pay for most of our travels from our own pocket, giving us the full experience of planning the trip and empowering us to showcase what we think is worth (and NOT worth) your money on a trip.
While we plan most of our travels independently these days, we have collaborated in the past with several tourism boards and brands. You can catch a glimpse of some of them below:
We are not overly active on social media, but you can like our Facebook page to see occasional updates from new articles or our pictures from the road!
We have helped over 10,000,000 readers in the last year across this site and our others and we hope to help millions more to come in the future.
About Megan
Born in Ohio and raised in Virginia, Megan started this travel blog in 2010 and kept it as a hobby for nearly 8 years before turning her passion into a business.
As a kid, she traveled a lot for sports but found her solace away from the chaos in her local library, where she would sit in the corner and read travel guidebooks about Norway and Iceland. She got her MBA in International Business and started working her way up the US corporate ladder when she decided to cash it all in for a fresh start in Bergen, Norway.
After a year in Bergen and 3 years in Oslo, she uprooted her life (and her dog, Jax) to move to Frankfurt, Germany. After some time there and short stints living in Kazakhstan, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria, she eventually moved to Armenia.
Fast forward a few years (and a pandemic) later, she has realized that her heart is 100% in the Nordics and bought a house in Rovaniemi, Finland… giving her a base to explore the Arctic with ease.
On the blog, she focuses mostly on travel in Scandinavia and the Nordics, Western Europe (because of a love affair with Italy!), and the USA… where she has visited 45/50 US states and several national parks.
Today, Megan is based part-time in Finland and part-time in Germany… with long trips to the USA in between. She is obsessed with fragrance (and has a huge perfume collection), dogs (and all animals), miso ramen, photography, birch forests, cold weather, and early mornings.