Hi, I’m Gloria!
The Wandering Almanac is a collection of our journeys—places we’ve been, meals we’ve shared, and moments we’ve gathered along the way.
I’m the main writer of this blog, although my husband, Rey, might also contribute from time to time.
I was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and raised in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, by Taiwanese immigrant parents. Growing up between different cultures, I often felt like a third culture kid, which helped spark my curiosity about the world and shaped my love for travel from an early age. Many of my earliest memories involve traveling with my family and discovering new places together.
After graduating from college, I moved from Brazil to Beijing to study and improve my Mandarin skills. A year later, I moved to Shanghai to pursue a master’s degree while working as a teacher, translator, and interpreter. After graduating, I started my career in marketing.
It was also in Shanghai that I met my now husband, Rey (my co-author). He had been living in China as well—first in Suzhou, then Shanghai—for about the same amount of time as me. We actually both arrived in China in the same year, just in different cities, and somehow ended up in Shanghai. Talk about meant to be!
While living in China, we traveled whenever we could. Over the years, we visited many places across Asia, including China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. We still return to Asia whenever we can—either to revisit places we fell in love with or to explore new ones across this vast and diverse continent.
In 2017, I decided to leave the corporate world in Shanghai after a few years, for several reasons: a lack of work-life balance, a difficult work environment, and, simply, burnout. Coincidentally, that was also the year my then fiancé (now husband) and I decided to leave China and move to Berlin, Germany, to start a new chapter.
Almost nine years later, we still call Berlin home and don’t plan on moving anytime soon. Of course, like many travelers, we sometimes dream about what it would be like to live elsewhere—but we’ve learned that no place is perfect, and it’s easy to romanticize what we don’t fully know.
While we both have our own careers, our shared love for travel, discovering new cultures, exploring local food, meeting people along the way, and expanding our horizons is what led us to create The Wandering Almanac.
We’re not hardcore backpackers, luxury jetsetters, travel influencers, or digital nomads—we’re simply two people with ordinary lives who take easygoing, meaningful trips whenever we can.
Our goal is to share our travel stories, guides, and experiences in the hope of inspiring and helping you plan your own journeys—whenever life allows.
This blog is our way of documenting those moments—and sharing them with you.