Tessa Cruz

Name of Viajera : Tessa Mendoza Cruz

Age:  37          Marital/Family Status: Married, no kids

Profession/Occupation: Physical therapist and writer

Cities you’ve lived in: Quezon City (Philippines) and metro Atlanta Georgia (USA)

City you’re currently based in: Duluth/Atlanta, Georgia

Your last trip was to:  New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont)

Your next trip is to: Blue Ridge mountains, Georgia

 

20 Questions:

1. If you had 24 hours to spend anywhere, where would it be and what would you do?  Stare out into the vast wilderness in the Snaefellsness peninsula in Iceland then watch the Aurora Borealis at night.
2. What language would you like to be fluent in?   Mandarin Chinese
3. What is your earliest travel memory?  Going up to the Snack Bar at Camp John Hay in Baguio.
4. Aside from the basics (passport, money), what three items are must-bring things for you on your trip?  iPhone, travel bidet, a shawl
5. What is your favorite travel movie or a movie that inspires travel?  The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller version).
6. What is your travel pet peeve?   People who skip lines.
7. What do you fear the most when you travel?  Not seeing everything.
8. Favorite foreign curse word you know Punyeta 
9. Which celebrity or historical figure would you want to travel with?   Ellen Degeneres
10. If you had a theme song for your travels and adventures, what would it be? A Whole New World (Lea Salonga) 
11. You’ve been given a round-trip ticket to anywhere on the planet and could take one person with you. Where are you going, what will you be doing and who are you going with?  Hong Kong, food tripping with my Papa.  
12. What was the memorable meal you’ve ever had while traveling?  Cuy (guinea pig) in Peru 
13. Let’s say you believed in past lives.  Where do you think or wished you lived in a past life?  Wish: The Gilded Age in America (late 1800s to early 1900s), as a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller.  
14. What is your favorite souvenir? The Chicken Bag, from a store in Asheville, North Carolina. 
15. If you had Groundhog Day version of traveling, what one day would you want to repeat over and over again?  The day my parents, brother and I island-hopped around Palawan. 
16. If you had US$1 million to spend on travel, how would you spend it? I’d fill an airplane with family and dear friends and take them to Spain. 
17. What do you fear the most when you travel? That I’ll love a place so much but won’t get to come back and see it again. 
18. Where is the most memorable place you’ve ever stayed at? A beautiful and impeccably decorated AirBnb apartment in Madrid right in Plaza Mayor. 
19. What was the best thing about your most recent trip?   Seeing New England for the first time in full fall glory, with a traveling sister who loved and appreciated it as much as I did.  
20. What is the last place on earth you’d want to see and visit before you die?  My room in my parents’ house in the Philippines.