Anthony Bourdain, one of my heroes, once said:
“Travel isn’t always pretty… Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you… You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

 

📷 Goteik Viaduct, Myanmar

I snapped this photo leaning out the window of the train from Pwin Oo Lwin to Hsipaw. A lovely young woman from New Zealand had the same idea – we booth hung out over the rail to capture this incredible bridge, built during British colonial times and still in use today. To me, this photo captures that wide-open feeling of freedom we somethings get when traveling – when the air is warm, the view is vast, and for a moment, everything feels possible.

 

📷 Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Family trip to the temples! I lived in Phnom Penh back in 1993, and that experience shaped the heart of my first novel, The Foreigner’s Confession. It was wonderful to come back years later with my family in tow.

Travel Plants Seeds

The soft thump of a jacaranda blossom beside my coffee cup outside a Phnom Penh café. The sweet-sour tangle of jasmine and sewage on a Yangon sidewalk, as I nibble crunchy fried lima beans from a paper cone.  The sting of homemade rakija on my tongue beneath a plum tree in Sovjak, Bosnia—my daughter laughing beside me.

These aren’t just memories. They’re landscapes that took root in me—and later bloomed into fiction. Each of my novels grew from the soil of a particular country, shaped by its history, language, and the people who welcomed me in.

 

 

📷 Belgrade Café Table
Serbia does café culture right—iced drinks, fizzy water, sugar on the side, and plenty of people-watching. In my upcoming novel The Thirty-Fifth Page, coffee shows up constantly. (Too much? Maybe. But I regret nothing.)

 

 

 

📷 50th Street Bar, Yangon
Still can’t believe this place is open! I helped launch the 50th Street Bar during Myanmar’s early push toward economic openness. Every time I visit, I’m a little amazed—and nostalgic. The Worth of a Ruby follows a Seattle chef sent todo exactly what I did: open a restaurant in Yangon.

Where will summer take you?

I’d love to hear about the places that have left their mark on you. Write me back—or tag me on Instagram @lyabadgleyauthor—with your own snapshot or story.

Author’s Life

Final revisions?

Revising a novel is like walking a labyrinth—you think you’re near the center, only to find another turn. For authors, “finished” is a slippery word. There’s always a sentence that could be sharper, a scene that could breathe a little more. Letting go of a manuscript often means accepting that perfection is a myth—and trusting that the story is ready to meet the world.