Author: Diana Southern

In March 2014, Diana called it quits on her traditional American working life and set out to explore the world with her partner in crime (and love of her life) Ian Norman. They now live a sustainable life of full time travel, working for themselves and seeking adventure at the same time. Here on North to South, Diana documents their journey in achieving and maintaining this "road less traveled" way of life.
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U.S. Road Trip Re-Cap: Week Two (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas)

U.S. Road Trip Week Two: The American Southwest -- Arizona, New Mexico and Texas

U.S. Road Trip Week Two: The American Southwest -- Arizona, New Mexico and Texas

Two more National Parks and three new National Monuments, including the most beautiful (and surreal) place I’ve ever seen! Week two of our summer road trip took us all the way from Arizona to Texas, with a scenic desert drive through New Mexico on the way.

Below is a photographic re-cap of our second week of road-tripping across the U.S. in our little red Yaris. Read on for beautiful white sand dunes, cacti that actually look like the ones you drew when you were a kid, and a couple of neat ruins speckled about the American Southwest!  Continue reading “U.S. Road Trip Re-Cap: Week Two (Arizona, New Mexico and Texas)”

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Shot of the Week: Wanderlust and White Sands (White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, USA)

Shot of the Week: White Sands National Monument sunset hike

Shot of the Week: White Sands National Monument sunset hike

Roaring wind. Rippling sand. Rolling dunes. All were present on the night we backpacked out to our backcountry campsite at White Sands National Monument. As luck would have it, we’d gotten the last available site. And we were grateful. Otherwise we’d’ve had to backtrack 30 miles toward Las Cruces and the nearest campground.

Up and over and in between the dunes we hiked, each carrying our backpacks, cameras at-the-ready. It took us 45 minutes to get to our campsite, racing the setting sun. We set up camp, took off our boots, and set out barefoot for the top of a neighboring dune, getting in just a few more photos before darkness and the evening wind settled in. We’ve now completed week two of our cross-country U.S. road trip, and White Sands stands out as one of the most beautiful places we’ve ever seen. It was magical. Enchanting, even. If you’ve never hiked over sand dunes before, add it to your bucket list. It’s surreal.

This photo was taken on May 18th with the Sony a7 II and Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Heliar III lens. Continue to view full photo.  Continue reading “Shot of the Week: Wanderlust and White Sands (White Sands National Monument, New Mexico, USA)”

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Shot of the Week: American Woman (Simi Valley, California, USA)

Shot of the Week: American Woman -- American flag photo shoot

Shot of the Week: American Woman -- American flag photo shoot

With this post, we’re now officially caught up on our Shot of the Week post series. (Yay!) And since it’s Memorial Day, we’ve got an America-themed photo to share.

As we’re road-tripping around the U.S. this summer, Ian and I are working on an American Women photo shoot for my women’s travel fashion blog, which I’ll be publishing the first week of July. I’m gathering friends (and friendly strangers) to create a collection of photos of American women with the American flag in cool places around the U.S. The best photos we get — from two months of shooting — will be featured in a post on the blog!

This shot is from our first day of shooting, when my two L.A. friends Maya and Vaish joined me in the rocky peaks overlooking Simi Valley, California for a sunset shoot. This isn’t the best shot from that evening. I’m saving those. I’m really really happy with how the photos are turning out, and I’m super excited to share them on Stylish Travel Girl in just a little over a month! P.S. I’m still looking for women to participate in St. Louis, Chicago, and beyond. If you’re interested, please don’t be shy!

This photo was taken on May 2nd with the Sony a7 II and 35mm f/2.8 lens. Continue to view full photo.  Continue reading “Shot of the Week: American Woman (Simi Valley, California, USA)”

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[4HB DIET UPDATE] One Month In: Ian’s Ab Muscles Have Reappeared, and Diana’s Thighs are Shrinking!

4-Hour Body One Month Results: Shrinking Thighs and Reappearing Abs on the Slow-Carb Diet

4-Hour Body One Month Results: Shrinking Thighs and Reappearing Abs on the Slow-Carb Diet

The results are in, and the news is good! It’s been just over 4 weeks since we began our 4-Hour Body Diet endeavor, so it’s time for a quick update. We’re measuring our progress by weight, circumference and photo comparison, and all three say the diet is working.

Read on for our progress report and our opinions on the diet after faithfully following it (well… mostly) for one full month.  Continue reading “[4HB DIET UPDATE] One Month In: Ian’s Ab Muscles Have Reappeared, and Diana’s Thighs are Shrinking!”

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Shot of the Week: The Grandest of Canyons (Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA)

Shot of the Week: The Grandest of Canyons (Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA)

Shot of the Week: The Grandest of Canyons (Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA)

One week into our road trip, and we finally made it to the Grand Canyon! Before this visit, I’d been there for a brief stop along one of my many journeys between St. Louis and LA in college, and Ian had only flown over it in a plane. It was time for both of us to really see this place. And see it we did, in the sun, rain, sleet, hail and snow!

We camped for two days at the South Rim’s Desert View Campground — a deal at just $12/night — and endured cold, snowy weather inside our warm sleeping bags and tent (see more of our camping essentials here). After roughing it at Lake Mead and Williams the two previous nights, I was SO happy to finally be staying at a place that had showers (thought it did require a 20+ mile drive to the other side of the park). It was also the perfect, iconic place to round out week one of our all-American road trip.

This photo of the Grand Canyon was taken on Thursday May 14th with the Sony a7 II and Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Heliar III lens. (Continue to view full photo.)  Continue reading “Shot of the Week: The Grandest of Canyons (Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, USA)”

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Our List of Awesome: 5 Crazy Cool Moments From Our Lives This Past Month

Our List of Awesome: 5 Crazy Cool Moments from Our Lives this Past Month

Our List of Awesome: 5 Crazy Cool Moments from Our Lives this Past Month

A lot of exciting stuff has been happening to Ian and me this past month. Many of you already know about some things from following us on Facebook or being a Lonely Speck subscriber. (Thanks for your support!) But I still wanted to document all the neat things that are going on with Ian and me here on the blog. So I made a list!  Continue reading “Our List of Awesome: 5 Crazy Cool Moments From Our Lives This Past Month”

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Shot of the Week: Busy Bee (Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, USA)

Shot of the Week: Flying Bee and orange flowers at Huntington Botanical Gardens, California, USA

Shot of the Week: Flying Bee and orange flowers at Huntington Botanical Gardens, California, USA

One hundred thirty-six. If you’ve ever wondered how many shots it takes to capture a killer, in-focus — and in-flight — bee photo, that’s your answer.  We don’t typically do this type of photography, but the setting we found ourselves in earlier this week gave us the perfect opportunity to practice. My cousin Val is visiting California this week, and luckily (for once) I was in town! While searching for something to do together near to where she’s staying, I remembered the Huntington Gardens. I’d been once or twice before, several years ago, and I always enjoyed spending a few hours meandering around the Garden’s huge variety of flowers, plants and trees.

The weather’s been chilly here in California the last few days, but Monday treated us to a beautiful sunny California day. Hummingbirds were flitting about, the gardeners were busy pruning, and bees were buzzing around all the vibrantly colored flowers.

Ian, having just borrowed a new lens to review from B&H Photo, was eager to take photos. While flowers are a fine subject on their own, they’re certainly more interesting when there’s something flying around them. But these little buggers just wouldn’t hold still! This photo is #121 out of 136 bee photos he took in this spot. (Just ask me how many external hard drives we have — completely filled with photo files…)

This photo was taken on Monday, May 4th with the Sony a7 II and Voigtlander 15mm f/4.5 Heliar III lens with the Hawk’s Helicoid V5 close focus adapter. (Continue to view full photo.)  Continue reading “Shot of the Week: Busy Bee (Huntington Botanical Gardens, San Marino, California, USA)”

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Sony RX100 III Review: Why It’s the Best Travel Camera I’ve Ever Had (and Why I Sold My a6000 to Buy It)

Sony RX100 III real world review of the best travel camera I've ever owned

Sony RX100 III real world review of the best travel camera I've ever owned


Before I met Ian, the nicest camera I ever owned was probably the one on my cell phone. Well, he fixed that faster than you can say “interchangeable lenses,” and gave me my first digital SLR (a Canon T2i) after just two months of us being together. That was three years ago. Since then, the digital cameras I’ve “owned” include a Canon EOS M, a Sony a6000, and finally, my beloved Sony RX100 III. The T2i was a great camera to learn on, the EOS M I never really grew fond of, and the a6000? It was GREAT! Until I tried the RX100 III and just HAD to have that instead. Keep reading to find out why AND to see my favorite photos I’ve taken with this camera.  Continue reading “Sony RX100 III Review: Why It’s the Best Travel Camera I’ve Ever Had (and Why I Sold My a6000 to Buy It)”

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Getting Started on the 4-Hour Body Slow Carb Diet: Weight and Inches Lost in Week One!

Week One on the 4-Hour Body Diet: Weight and Inches Already Lost!

Week One on the 4-Hour Body Diet: Weight and Inches Already Lost!

I’m not a big Tim Ferriss fan. I tried SO HARD to read The 4-Hour Workweek about a year back, but I just couldn’t make myself finish it. The content wasn’t terrible. And I’m sure he’s got plenty of readers who worship him. But in my opinion, he sounds like a cocky jackass.

So why the hell are we trying his diet?

In Ferriss’s series of “4-Hour” books is The 4-Hour Body, a book on “rapid fat loss, incredible sex and becoming superhuman.” He provides a diet plan in the book, which we’ve decided to try for four main reasons:

  1. We got fat last month in Mexico. Too much yum.
  2. Ian had read the book before and considered trying it, making it a less foreign idea when I recently read another travel blogger’s post about the diet.
  3. The diet focuses on losing fat, not just losing weight.*
  4. Cheat Day

Note: I much preferred the similarly-themed The $100 Startup by Chris Guillebeau to Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek. The tone is inspirational rather than snarky and antagonizing.

*This is the most important point for me. I don’t want to just lose weight willy-nilly. I’d like to knock out the extra fat. I haven’t “dieted” since we started traveling because I haven’t seen the need to. My weight’s stayed at a healthy level over the past year. But since I quit my job to start traveling, I no longer ride my bike to work every day. I no longer nearly effortlessly achieve a toned body from my commute. So I wanted to do something about it. And here we are.  Continue reading “Getting Started on the 4-Hour Body Slow Carb Diet: Weight and Inches Lost in Week One!”