I love to travel. Several years ago, my husband and I went to Ireland for our twentieth wedding anniversary. The trip of a lifetime! As a writer, I was in story-building overload. There wasn’t a town or castle visited that didn’t trigger an idea. Even my husband got in on brainstorming stories. We’d sit in our room at the bed and breakfast of the day and dream up endless possibilities together. What about the tour guide who took extra time to talk to us and dreamed of coming to America? Or the castle with hidden rooms and narrow passageways leading here, there, and everywhere? And the tea shops with gorgeous desserts lined up in delectable rows. Or the cliffs of Moher where someone almost fell over the side right in front of me?

I journaled every day of the trip to help remember details and places. Reading it now brings back the smells and feel of the rocks on the castle walls as if we were just there yesterday.

Someday, I want to write a series based on a world-travelling sleuth who visits Ireland. And I have a series I’ve been working on where one of the main characters is from Ireland and travels back every year to visit family and buy items for her shop.

I’ll never forget Ireland. It created some of the best story ideas I’ve ever had. If you get a chance to go abroad, put Ireland at the top of your list!

Erin Unger