AK Monthly Recap: June 2025

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Sometimes, you end up with a VERY busy month of travel — and that is what June was to me!

That said, the best time for a seaside summer vacation in Europe is in early June. It’s a bit before peak season begins, and at times, it’s mostly been me, Charlie and lots of Germans. (No matter where you go, there are Germans. They go everywhere.)

The one trade-off is that the water is often a bit cold at this time of year in the Mediterranean. And indeed, it was a bit too chilly for endless swimming in Crete in early June — but more than adequate for quick swims. And for me, that’s a fair trade-off.

Let’s take a look at everything that went down in June 2025!

It was a beautiful day at Elafonissi Beach in Crete!

Destinations Visited

• Kraków and Wieliczka, Poland
• Prague, Czech Republic
• Athens, Chania, Elafonissi, Milia, Vatolakkos, Agia Marina, Melidoni, Fournes, Drakona, Agios Nikolaos, and Krasi, Greece
• Paris, France
• London, England

It was a fun Polish birthday for Cailin!

Highlights

The rest of a great trip to Poland. Cailin and I arrived in Kraków late on May 30 and spent our first day visiting Auschwitz. We celebrated her birthday with paczki and pierogi, street markets, outdoor cafes, vodka tasting, fancy cocktail bars — and I found a few birthday candles with cat heads on them that she loved!

The next day, we visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine. Located outside Kraków in the town of Wieliczka (VEE-yeh-LEECH-ka), this is the perfect half day trip from the city. The mine has dazzling rooms, including their famous room with hanging chandeliers that would make SUCH a good wedding or party setting.

We were hosted by Kraków Booking, who are hosts to wonderful tours in and around Kraków. We loved our private ride in a luxury car to Wieliczka, though you should know all tours of the mine itself are group tours. You can see their salt mine tour here and their other tours here.

Wieliczka Salt Mine is stunning!

And two bits of advice: this mine is the BEST place to visit on a hot day! It’s so much cooler inside. If you’re visiting Kraków in the hot summer months, this should be a major priority for you.

And secondly, if you plan a trip to Kraków, you’ll see a lot of combination tours that do both Auschwitz and Wieliczka in the same day. I strongly urge you not to do this, as Auschwitz is such a heavy experience that you’re not going to want to do anything else that day.

Instead, don’t schedule anything in the afternoon, and keep your schedule light. Reflect on your experience. Maybe take a walk around the lovely park that surrounds the old town. You’ll be glad you did.

I FINALLY made it to Athens! About time!

My first visit to Athens ever! The day after coming back from Kraków, Charlie and I were off to Athens! Athens has long been one of my biggest oversights in Europe, and we spent two days there soaking up the sights.

We visited the Acropolis, got lost in the labyrinthine streets of the Anofiotika neighborhood, dove into all the Greek food, sampled Greek wines, watched the changing of the guard, ran around the Olympic stadium like Phoebe in Friends (that was just me), market-hopped, and enjoyed dinner and drinks with Charlie’s Greek colleagues. I even visited my friend Alexa’s favorite gyro shop from her semester abroad, 20 years ago!

The tough thing about Athens is that the best time to visit is in spring or fall, when temperatures are more pleasant — yet most people pair Athens with the islands and thus visit in the summer. Such is life. But I’d love to go back to Athens when it’s cooler and explore more in depth.

On our first night in Chania, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

A fantastic week in Crete. Charlie and I have long wanted to visit Crete, and let me tell you — this is an INCREDIBLE island.

We started with four nights in Chania in the west, and finished with three nights in Agios Nikolaos in the east. I think the west is the better part of the island, and Chania is a gorgeous little city. The day trips here are top-notch, and we did fun trips to Elafonissi Beach as well as a cooking class up in the hills.

Agios Nikolaos isn’t as nice of a town, but we stayed in a fabulous resort there — Minos Beach Art Hotel. This is a nicer place than we usually stay in, and it was a luxurious yet laid-back place for our final days. We also took a fabulous catamaran trip!

What did I love about Crete? The people are SO warm, welcoming, and friendly. The food is astoundingly good. The landscapes are beautiful. And I was surprised how affordable it was — you can go fancy if you want, but you can also have a dynamite souvlaki pita or gyro for 4 euros, which I did for many meals.

I’ll be writing more in depth about Crete in the future, but for now, my biggest advice is to treat Crete as THE destination, not part of the destination. Lots of travelers (particularly from the US) visit three or four Greek islands for a few nights each, and Crete is one of those. Instead, stay in a few different spots in Crete and you’ll love it.

After so many summer trips to Italy and Croatia, I think we’re hooked on Greece now!

Bruce for the first time ever!

Seeing Bruce Springsteen in Prague. Well…for part of the concert, anyway. Charlie and I went, and this was our first time seeing Bruce live. But about 45 minutes into the concert, it started raining really hard, and it was thundering and lightning.

We stuck it out for a bit, then bailed when we figured they would cancel the concert due to the lightning. And you know what? They did not! We enjoyed what we saw for an hour or so, but will definitely pack our ponchos for the future!

(Also at that concert? The Czech president, Petr Pavel, just hanging out in the GA area with everyone.)

Beyoncé in Paris! This was during “Riiverdance.”

Seeing Beyoncé in Paris. This trip was a bit on a whim, long after the tickets had gone on sale — but I love Beyoncé, and I love Paris, so why not?? I really wanted to go to the Renaissance tour in 2023, as that’s my favorite album, but I didn’t want to risk getting COVID so close to my two weddings.

The good thing was that Beyoncé performed a ton of Renaissance songs at this concert, too! And Miley Cyrus was the surprise guest — she and Beyoncé performed their duet “II Most Wanted” for the first time live, ever!! And of course I loved seeing Beyoncé’s daughters Blue and Rumi perform.

The concert was amazing, though I was kind of in an awkward seat and I wish I had spent more so I could actually see the big screen. I’ll keep that in mind for the future.

I loved seeing everyone in their cowboy costumes, though I didn’t take part in that myself (instead I wore a flamenco-style ruffled shirt for her song “Flamenco”). It was really fun seeing everyone in cowboy hats at the airport and all over Paris.

In fact — this is the first time I have been surrounded by people in western wear and actually felt safe. Like, nobody here had a gun. It was a weird but wonderful feeling, and I’m grateful to Beyoncé for giving us that.

London is always best viewed from a double-decker bus!

A lovely trip to London. After Paris, I took the Eurostar to London (Charlie left Prague about the same time and we raced to our hotel. I beat him by four minutes). We stayed for the weekend to celebrate my father-in-law’s milestone birthday.

In addition to having a really nice party with family and friends, we saw The Book of Mormon (how did I go so long without seeing this show?!), enjoyed Chinese food and cocktails.

And I took the time to see Rachel Zegler sing “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” to the crowd outside the theater where she’s starring in Evita. The crowds were insane, but she sang so beautifully, I cried. It was so incredibly worth it.

She sings around 9:00 PM at the London Palladium, and I would recommend getting there at least 45 minutes early.

Good times with friends. Too many to mention. Though I did do my first Escape Room of all time, and we had a blast!

Lewis and some bananas for scale.

Challenges

Heraklion Airport is the worst airport I’ve ever experienced in Europe. I know a lot of people have one bad experience and declare an airport the worst ever — but this one was BAD.

It was incredibly hot inside, there was nowhere near enough adequate seating, and in a first for me, I had lounge access but the lounge didn’t even have its own toilet. The only women’s toilet in the area had five stalls, two of which were out of order, and a wraparound line around the airport.

For what it’s worth, they’re opening a new airport in Heraklion soon. They need it.

And for transparency: my picks for the worst airports in the world are Kathmandu and Manila, while my favorites are Amsterdam and Qatar.

Packing too much in. I realized this month that between May 21 and June 23, I had exactly one day at home without entertaining out-of-town visitors. And as a result, it left me unmoored and a bit irritable.

I’ve gotten better at not scheduling too much travel back to back — what really did me in was having so many friends and family visiting, because I always forget how much energy it saps out of me. I love having people visit, but I need to be better about recharging.

Charlie and I are talking about going to Italy in October, and I’ve already said that I need two weeks at home after my big Madagascar trip before we go somewhere else.

Murray is still fascinated by the drone — especially when its lights are on.

New on the Blog

25+ Fun Things to Do in Portland, Maine — I think the East Coast Portland is one of the most underrated cities in the US. Don’t just speed through here on the way to Acadia — actually stop for a few days and enjoy a really great city.

Most Popular Reel on Instagram

My most popular reel in May was all about the Umbrella Cover Museum on Peaks Island, Maine, just off the coast from Portland!

This is easily the quirkiest museum I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen many). I mean, it’s a museum not devoted to umbrellas, but specifically the sleeves that hold the umbrellas.

The museum is run by a fun lady named Nancy, who is so passionate about her collection. You will absolutely fall in love with this place.

You can watch this reel on Instagram or watch it on TikTok. I’m @adventurouskate on both platforms.

What I Watched This Month

I really enjoyed The Four Seasons on Netflix. A perfect little comedic miniseries with a bunch of actors you love. Tina Fey, Will Forte, Steve Carell? I’ll watch them in anything. And while Colman Domingo is one of my favorite actors at the moment, it was so nice to see him in a comedy.

Another nice thing about this series is that it’s about a bunch of fifty-somethings with fifty-something problems. You don’t always see that age group represented in romantic comedies (dramedies?).

And I enjoyed the fantasy of having such good friends, you go on four trips together every year!

What I Listened To This Month

I’m listening to all 500 of Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, which I am enjoying immensely. I am loving discovering new artists and listening to albums I’ve somehow missed my entire life until now!

In June, I listened to albums 340-319. I didn’t listen to anything while I was in Greece, so that’s why there weren’t as many. This month was a bit of a slog — it was a VERY male collection of albums with few female voices, and a bit too much of Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Here are the highlights:

Favorite Discovery: Norman Fucking Rockwell! by Lana del Rey. I have never listened to a Lana album before — I’ve maybe heard two or three of her songs? — and this absolutely blew me away. Her songs are beautiful and dark, ephemeral and messy.

On top of that, these are both songs of love gone wrong, and an interesting reflection of a version of American life today. I always enjoy dark perceptions of California. Now I need to dive into more of her stuff.

Other Favorite Discoveries: Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation 1814 by Janet Jackson, Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg, Abraxas by Santana, Endtroducing… by DJ Shadow, A Rush of Blood to the Head by Coldplay.

Favorite Revisited Album: I haven’t listened to any of this month’s albums in full before (maybe I listened to Madonna’s Like a Prayer at a friend’s house when I was a teenager?), so let’s just go with there was no full album to actually revisit.

Favorite Songs: “Incident at Neshabur” by Santana, “Come Back to Me” by Janet Jackson, “A Quick One, While He’s Away” by The Who, “Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones, “Mariners Apartment Complex” by Lana Del Rey, “God Put A Smile Upon Your Face” by Coldplay.

Get the playlist: I’m creating a playlist of my favorite songs from the 500 albums — maximum one per album — on Spotify. You can listen to it here.

Lowlight of the Month: Los Angeles by X. Another late 70s/early 80s album sitting squarely between pop and punk — a specific genre that I’ve figured out I absolutely hate whenever I hear it. The whole album seemed a bit juvenile for my taste.

Random Music Thoughts: This month, two more artists I listened to on the top 500 albums passed away. RIP to Sly Stone and Brian Wilson. Thank you for your music.

Part of me hopes that their ascension closed the darkest timeline that began with the deaths of Prince and David Bowie.

Nuremberg made a lovely stopover on my way to Frankfurt and back.

Coming Up in July 2025

The month began with a quick overnight trip to Frankfurt to see Kendrick Lamar and SZA in concert! And it was absolutely FANTASTIC. It is so, so worth it to see the artists you love the most in concert.

And that’s pretty much it for July. No other travel, as I enjoy time with the kittens and recharge before my weeklong Slovakia-Poland trip in early August.

What are you getting up to in July? Share away!