That Time a Stranger Joined My Honeymoon

story and photos by Kirsten Koza

(first published in Perceptive Travel Magazine – USA)

Spring 1990: Malcolm, my ex-boyfriend, was on one knee amongst the rubble in my East London room. My bedroom was basically a walk-in closet where I kept a toppling tower of swords and tap dancing shoes. The only good things about my flat were my eccentric roommates, it was across from a pub, and it was just a five-minute stagger to East 15 Acting School where I was currently performing in Shakespeare’s Pericles.

Malcolm, a Civil Engineer, had flown from his orderly home, north of Toronto, to spend Easter with me in England, and I hadn’t even tossed my clothes into my wardrobe. He was holding an emerald ring. “Would you…?”

My flat was one-hundred percent slum. I’m not being overly dramatic. It was so bad that after we’d been broken into, a London Bobby walked into my un-ransacked room and said, “My-my, look what they did in here!”

Why was Malcolm kneeling? I wanted to kick him.

“Kirsten, will you marry me?”

I could say no. I was twenty-three and Malc, twenty-six. What was the rush? This was a logistical nightmare. Why was he looking at me all doe-eyed? Beam me up, Scotty. I fidgeted on the edge of my crappy single bed. I didn’t even have a toilet seat in my flat. Koza to Enterprise. Malc had gained weight since I saw him in January.

“Yes.”

I still wanted to kick him.

Malcolm obviously didn’t know what to say next. “Your production of Pericles was ummm…”

“Um is polite.” It was the worst show I’d ever been in.

Off to Sicily

It took Malcolm one day to decide he wasn’t spending his holiday in East London. I’d urged him to bring his mountain bike to the UK. That morning he’d left his bicycle at my place while I was at the college, and he took the tube into London. Malcolm returned with plane tickets to Sicily, a map, and a copy of The Rough Guide. This was to be our honeymoon, since we were already overseas and were going to be married in just a few months.

That very same night Malc was refilling his bike tires beside the baggage carousel at Palermo’s airport, and I was fiddling with my broken gear shifter.

“Hello. Do you want some riding company?” An Englishman in his late thirties had wheeled over his beat-up touring bike. He wore jeans with clips around the ankles.

“Sure. Which way are you heading?” Malc stuck out his hand.

“Towards Trapani, along the coast, but just to a nearby hotel for tonight.” The stranger looked at me. “I’m Christopher Crawley.” He saw me eyeing the bug nets attached to his bike. “Entomologist, with the British Museum. Everyone just calls me Crawley.”

“Kirsten and Malcolm,” Malc replied. “We’re heading towards Mount Etna. Opposite direction.” He pulled his map from his pack.

“You know, the traffic will be quite thick that way. Towards Trapani is much quieter and less populated this time of year.” Crawley peered over Malcolm’s shoulder at the map.

“Hmm,” Malcolm pondered. “Maybe we should go the way you’re going.”

I frowned. I really wanted to see an active volcano. And I really didn’t want to travel with Christopher Crawley.

“It’s eleven-thirty. Might as well go find a hotel. Maybe we should share a room to save money,” the entomologist suggested.

“Great idea!” Malcolm clapped Crawley on the back.

What? Had Malc just invited this stranger to share a room with us on our honeymoon? Oh, my God! He had! I shot dagger-eyes at Malcolm. He didn’t receive my message.

A Threesome on the Road Together

Two days later, we were still biking and bunking with the bug doctor. An old lady in black was showing us our room in the Spaghetti Western village of Scopello.

I was shivering after the pedal in pelting rain along the rugged coast from Castellammare. I jumped under a blanket on one of the many beds that butted end to end along the walls. If you opened the desk drawer, I bet you’d have found a bed.

The lady said something about no heat. “What?” I wailed as she left. Crawley rifled through his bags. He’d be used to freezing; the museum paid diddly-squat. He probably had some fingerless, Scrooge-gloves in his panniers.

Malcolm stripped off his wet clothes. I looked at his Schwarzenegger-like chest with disinterest. Crawley was watching him too. I decided to grab a shower before either of them used the hot water.

“We’ll just have to have some grappa,” Crawley pulled the hooch from his bag.

“Tutto, tutto!” Another old lady in black was stooped over my mixing bowl of penne “Tutto!” She motioned for me to keep eating. Why wouldn’t she leave? I rammed another forkful into my mouth. I raised my wineglass in salute. She smiled and backed towards the pensioni’s kitchen.

“Excuse me.” Crawley got up to go to the loo.

As soon as he was out of earshot Malcolm grabbed my arm. “Crawley proposed a threesome while you were in the bath.”

Wine filled my sinuses. “Pardon?” I spluttered. “What the hell did you say?” I blotted red wine off my turquoise jacket.

“I reminded him we’re engaged.”

“So! He’s married!” This was not what I expected from a mild-mannered entomologist who wore bike clips around his trousers. “Is he interested in guys too? How would it work?” I suddenly realized Crawley had been looking at Malcolm perhaps differently than I’d assumed. I’d thought it was muscle envy. How were we going to share a room with him now?

“I told him that I had no interest. He’s fine with it.”

“Well, I’m not.” I chugged the rest of my wine. “There hasn’t been a hint. How long has he has been thinking about this? Maybe that’s why he hooked up with us in the first place.”

Creepy Crawley was coming back to the table. I flushed tomato red. I waved to the old lady who was peeking from the kitchen door. “Grappa?” I called to her.

Tucked in our beds in the bone-chilling pensioni, the air was thick with tension. I couldn’t sleep. Malcolm was horny. I could tell by the object poking into my back. No way was I going to have sex. I could feel Crawley listening in the dark. I closed my eyes and called for the starship Enterprise.

At breakfast Crawley suggested we all go down to the abandoned tonnara for a swim. But after breakfast Malcolm bailed. He was sick and wanted to stay in bed. So, now I was down at the stony beach with Crawley—just me, and Creepy Crawley. The cliffs and old buildings loomed over us. The entomologist was puffing on a cigarette. I didn’t know what to say. I decided to go for a dip. I shed my clothes down to my black one-piece and tiptoed into the March Mediterranean. My breath was whacked out of me by the cold. I went deeper and a wave came over my shoulders. That was enough. I went back to my towel and Crawley.

“Can I bum a smoke?” Malc hated it when I smoked.

“Certainly. How’s the water?”

“Invigorating.” My hands shook as I tried to light up.

“Well, I guess I might as well.” Crawley stripped down to his underpants. Then, right in front of me, off came his boxers. I looked away. I looked back. Holy cannoli, the man was hung like a donkey, a stallion, a blue whale!

Crawley hobbled over the rocks. I stared at his white buttocks. I was in a state of shock, induced by the sheer mass of his manhood.

“Woah.” Crawley had entered the sea. “Wo—” a wave had lapped his privates. He ducked under. He turned around and walked towards me. The icy temperature had done nothing to the size of his penis, nothing! It still swung near knee-level. Where had he been hiding that beast? I looked at my cigarette. I looked at the historic towers on the cliffs. My gaze drifted over Crawley again and then darted quickly up to the fluffy, white, clouds.

Sicilian Longevity on Display

Crawley and I returned to the pensioni to get Malcolm for lunch. Malc rolled over in bed. So, Crawley and I decided to go for a beer. We sat at an outdoor table at the Scopello bar inhaling springtime between cigarettes. This was uncomfortable. And it was all due to this threesome thing, and well, now, the image of bug-man’s penis kept flashing through my mind.

“Do you want another?” Crawley pointed to my third beer.

“I think I’m done, or I’m going to fall asleep.” I snuffed my cigarette.

“Why don’t we go lie on the grass?” Crawley nodded towards the small park beside the patio.

“Sure.”

We paid and moved five feet over onto the grass. Just as we sat, a smoke billowing bus, belched open its doors and boisterous Sicilian seniors erupted from within. A couple of young women helped the more decrepit onto benches. Another heaved wicker baskets covered in brightly coloured fabric.

“Something tells me these people have their own teeth,” Crawley whispered. Huge lengths of chewy Italian bread were being sliced open. There were whole prosciuttos, capocollos and salamis. There was a wheel of cheese that could support the bus. There were stuffed tomatoes, slices of roasted eggplant and red peppers dripping in olive oil. Mount Etna sized sandwiches were erected and spilled filling like lava.

One of the young women handed sandwiches to Crawley and me.

“Guess how many years have I!” A spry old man in a charcoal three-piece suit danced before me. “What you say if I say ninety-nine years? My birthday next week and I have big party. You come!”

“I was going to guess seventy.” I was flabbergasted.

The old man kissed my cheeks. “Ninety-nine!” he bellowed. There was raucous applause. This was so unlike any North American nursing-home outing.

“My secret? It’s the olive oil!” The man who was almost a hundred beamed.

“Pomodori!” An old lady hollered.

Another yelled, “É tutto il vino!” and they all laughed.

“She said it’s all the wine he drinks,” Crawley translated.

“You guess how old my wife!” The spry man pointed to the woman who’d shouted about the wine.

“You all look so young.”

His wife dumped cookies in my lap. “Mangiate.”

“She ninety. I’m older,” the old man boasted.

She slapped her husband. “Ogni bel gioco dura poco.”

Crawley chuckled, “She just said, basically, that all good things come to an end.”

I was happy for Crawley’s company. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world. I was getting past the threesome thing too and his enormous penis. Or perhaps I was drunk.

A Collector of Stories

Decades later: It was Malc’s and my anniversary. We were in our unorderly kitchen, north of Toronto. My mess was everywhere; nothing had changed. I told Malc about the elderly couple in Scopello. Then I reminded him that he invited a stranger to join us on our honeymoon. “Why did you do that?” I demanded. “Come clean. You still do this. I hate it.”

Malc paused. “Because I’m a collector too, but unlike Crawley, I don’t kill my specimens. I like hearing strangers’ stories. Anyway, that wasn’t our honeymoon. It was before the wedding.”

“But you don’t do anything with the stories.” I was baffled.

“I remember them. You invite strangers now too. You do it bigger. You invited ten women from the internet to bike the Andes with you.”

Crap. He was right. Maybe things did change. Maybe I’d changed. “Let’s go to Sicily. You owe me a honeymoon because according to you, we didn’t have one.”

“Really long flight.” Malc looked unenthused. “Maybe Scotty can beam us there.”

“He won’t,” I rolled my eyes. “I just read that nobody on Star Trek ever said, ‘beam me up, Scotty.’ I reckon that’s why it never works.”

Decency Be Damned: a seven-day roving writing workshop across Yorkshire, England, hosted by Writers’ Expeditions and Exploring York – from June 2nd to 8th, 2025.

Writers of any genre of fiction and nonfiction: You are invited to leave your safety nets at home and join us for a rollicking week of writing across Yorkshire, where you’ll be encouraged—and enabled!—to go beyond the bounds of decency. You’ll acquire techniques and exercises used by actors on the stage and apply them to the page. With your pen or keyboard, you’ll improvise, method act, and perform dangerous feats. Inspiration will be gleaned from the activities we’ve planned and places we’ll stay. We’ll brave a ghost walk in Europe’s most haunted city, devour an orgasm of chocolates, and we’ll hunker down and write with an internationally bestselling crime novelist in the very hotel where Agatha Christie hid during the national manhunt for her. We’ll plot mayhem at the Guy Fawkes Inn, will spend a night in Lewis Carroll’s house, and we’ll feast on the exploits of the Vikings and Romans—of course, all the while, delighting in English countryside, seaside villages, and stately homes.

Writer’s block be damned! Decency be damned! This workshop is a daring adventure of storytelling and writing!

**Scroll down for itinerary, details, and prices for Decency Be Damned. This is a small group workshop which accommodates just 12 participants.**

Scroll down for itinerary, prices, and hosts’ bios. If you contact us, please know that we respond quickly by email: writers-expeditions@mail.com, and please CC kirstenkoza@gmail.com, if you don’t hear back, either we didn’t receive your email, or our reply is possibly in your spam bin. We can also be messaged from our Writers’ Expeditions Facebook page, which seems to work without fail.  

TOUR ITINERARY 

Monday, June 2nd, 2025

Afternoon: check in at our hotel (owned by Hilton) at Monk Bar, which is a 14th century gate (not a bar) and is also the largest and most ornate entrance to the walled city.

Afternoon & Evening: meet & greet at our warm-up writing workshop, in the hotel bar (an actual bar and one with an extensive gin menu), before we head to dine at the Guy Fawkes Inn (which also has fabulous vegan, veg, and gluten-free options). This medieval inn is the birthplace of the infamous plotter, Guido Fawkes.

9:00 pm – Ghost Tour: York is home to some of the world’s more notorious ghosts. It was named the most haunted city in Europe, and tonight our guide promises to give us the creeps as he reveals York’s spooky secrets around each dark corner of the cobbled streets.

(Dinner, Ghost Tour, Overnight in York)

(Several of 2024’s participants ordered the vegan, bourguignon, pomp of pie, at the Guy Fawkes Inn, and devoured it with gusto. The inn is famous for their meat version of this pie, but you may order what you want from the fabulous and varied menu. Photo by Kirsten Koza, Writers’ Expeditions host)

Tuesday, June 3rd

Morning: After enjoying an English breakfast (or something lighter if you prefer), you’ll be given a writing prompt, and then our guide will take us on a tour (imbued with quirky trivia) of York Minster, the world’s third largest medieval gothic cathedral and York’s most acclaimed historical site.

Then we’ll indulge in York’s Chocolate Story. Chocolate has resulted in renown and fortune for York for near 300 years. We’ll learn the art of the chocolatier and how to eat chocolate too – yes, we’ll receive a chocolate eating lesson. (Free time for writing and lunch.)

Afternoon: We’ll meander the  streets and alleyways of the walled city with our guide. Roman York became the birthplace of Western Christianity, but the Romans’ achievements were brutally exsanguinated when the Vikings transformed Jorvik into an international trading hub centuries ahead of its time, making Medieval York the capital of the North. We’ll visit the Jorvik Viking Centre, where we’ll ride a Jurassic Park-like theme ride through a life-size diorama of Viking Jorvik, complete with an authentic whiff of Viking life and ending in a museum of artifacts, including entire skeletons that are visibly afflicted with the ailments of the era, and a ginormous Viking coprolite (as in a fossilized Viking poop that has been compared to the crown jewels for its significance).

Cocktail Hour & Characters Workshop – and then free time for dinner and to explore more of York.

(Breakfast, Entrances to the Minster, Chocolate Story and tasting, and Viking museum, Overnight in York)

Wednesday, June 4th (pack your steamer trunk this morning, because today we take the steam train to the seaside where you’ll be writing yourself into scenes from Dracula and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass while staying in the house that was a favourite of Lewis Carroll’s.)

Morning: breakfast – and then we’ll take the steam train along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway from Pickering through Goathland (film location for the Hogwarts Express train station at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry), and of course we’ll discuss the success of J.K. Rowling – the whys and hows – and how this relates to stories going viral on the Internet, and then we’ll continue our train ride to Whitby.

Afternoon: We’ll visit the coastal town of Whitby, the birthplace of Captain Cook. But, also, it was while visiting Whitby, after an exhausting theatrical tour, that Bram Stoker got inspiration for Dracula. Then it’s down (or should we go up?) the 199 steps from Whitby’s gothic abbey, culminating in the reward of award winning fish and chips (gluten free, vegetarian, and vegan options available). If you can’t do stairs, our driver will chauffeur you to the restaurant.

Then we check in at La Rosa boutique hotel where they describe themselves as “more boudoir than boutique.”

Evening: cocktail hour and character readings in the lounge bar (which is all ours) at La Rosa. Then you’ll be given a unique writing prompt for the evening, followed by free time in Whitby to dine, explore, and write.

(Breakfast, Steam Train, Lunch, Whitby Abbey Tickets, Overnight at La Rosa in Whitby)

Thursday, June 5th

Morning: Breakfast will be delivered to you in a hamper in your room this morning! Then we’ll check out of our hotel and travel through the countryside to Castle Howard where you’ll be given a “Decency Be Damned” writing assignment.

This Yorkshire stately home is one of Britain’s finest. It’s resplendent in world famous art and opulent architecture. You might recognize Castle Howard as it was used in both the TV and film adaptations of Evelyn Waugh’s book Brideshead Revisited.

Writing time: outside on Castle Howard’s spectacular grounds or at one of its indoor or outdoor patio cafes.

Afternoon: We’ll take our private mini bus to the Yorkshire Dales National Park, where we’ll be dining and spending the night at The Lister Arms Hotel, in the perfect picture-postcard village of Malham. At this evening’s workshop, if you have bladder issues, you might want to pull on some diapers, because you’ll be laughing so hard you won’t just be crying.

(Lister Arms Hotel, Yorkshire Dales, Malham village, photo by Kirsten Koza, Writers’ Expeditions)

(Breakfast, Dinner, Castle Howard Entrance, both tonight and tomorrow night are spent at the Lister Arms in the village of Malham)

Friday, June 6th 

We have an exciting creative adventure planned for you today. Our writing workshop will be held in the courtyard of Richard III’s ruined castle.

We’ll have lunch at a country pub, and (in our private mini-bus) we’ll traverse the limestone scenery and the unique valleys known as dales. You’ll see stone-built villages, field barns, drystone walls, Swaledale sheep, flower-laden meadows, plus the Aysgarth Falls (you might remember these waterfalls from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves), and the North Yorkshire village of Kettlewell (of Calendar Girls fame).

Free time, writing time, or perhaps a walk. You may dine on your own time, either over the bridge at The Buck Inn, or once again at The Lister Arms.

(Breakfast, Overnight at The Lister Arms)

Saturday, June 7th

Morning: After breakfast we’ll travel to a secluded valley to explore Fountains Abbey, one of the biggest and best preserved ruined (which sounds like an oxymoron) Cistercian monasteries in England.

(Fountains Abbey has hundreds of glorious acres to stroll or find your ideal spot to sit and write. Photo by Kirsten Koza)

(Image of Chloë, one of 2024’s participants, inside the ruins of Fountains Abbey)

Afternoon: We’ll stop at The Black Sheep Brewery for lunch, where you can also put finishing touches on your story before we head to Harrogate. We’ll check in at The Old Swan which is surrounded by idyllic English gardens and is just a three-minute walk from the spa town’s centre. Our hotel “combines Victorian splendour with contemporary luxury.” It was here where Agatha Christie hid in 1926, resulting in an 11-day national manhunt for her.

Evening: three course dinner in Harrogate at an excellent brasserie, and readings back at The Old Swan.

(Breakfast, Dinner, Overnight at The Old Swan in Harrogate)

Sunday, June 8th

The grand finale of Decency Be Damned: a fabulous day of murder led by internationally bestselling (and also, notably, a Sunday Times bestseller) crime novelist, David Mark—in the library, at The Old Swan, with something other than a lead pipe.

Sink into your armchair and prepare to write dangerously!

Before writing twenty acclaimed books, including the internationally bestselling Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy series, David spent more than fifteen years as a journalist—and for seven of those years he was a crime reporter with The Yorkshire Post. This man knows murder, and you can tell when you read his books which aren’t just page-turners but are superbly crafted works of literature which engage all your senses.

David is a sought-after performer and public speaker at literary festivals, but the twelve of you have him all to yourselves.

David’s BBC Radio 4 drama, A Marriage of Inconvenience, aired the year before last, and his first novel is currently being adapted for the stage.

(David Mark at Penguin Random House: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/authors/231321/david-mark/)

Today’s writing workshop with David will end around four PM, and you can either head to the Harrogate train station (just a mile from The Old Swan) to travel to your next destination or airport, or you can book another night at our group rate and enjoy the Turkish baths or a cream tea, in this Victorian spa town.

(Breakfast in the Wedgewood, the Victorian glass ceilinged dining room at The Old Swan, plus workshop with David Mark)

(Decency Be Damned’s 2024 participants with internationally bestselling crime novelist David Mark [up to no good in the back row], at the end of our murder mystery workshop…but why are two of the participants missing from this photo?)

BIOS OF EXPEDITION HOSTS – FOLLOWED BY PRICES, INCLUSIONS, AND MORE PHOTOS

Kirsten Koza (writing workshop host): is a humourist and adventurer. She is the author of the book, Lost in Moscow, published by Turnstone Press and dubbed by CBC radio Canada “the ultimate what-I-did-last-summer essay ever.” Kirsten edited the Travelers’ Tales (USA) humour anthology, Wake Up and Smell the Shit, and read thousands of stories for that book before narrowing it down to the 31 writers she selected for the volume. She’s had over 75 stories published in books, magazines and newspapers around the world and has repeatedly been invited to speak at the American Society of Journalists and Authors annual conference in New York, on the power of social media for writers and making stories go viral.

Kirsten has taught both postgraduate and 3rd year acting, in England, at the University of East London and East 15 Acting School (famous for method acting). She did her BA in theatre at Dalhousie University, in Canada, and her postgrad in the UK at E-15. The final production of her postgrad was staged in Yorkshire. Prior to becoming a professional writer, she worked in theatres across Canada and was the Artistic Director of Canada’s oldest professional summer theatre. Her theatre background has had a massive impact on how she writes, and she looks forward to sharing these methods and other tips with you on the Decency be Damned writing workshop, in Yorkshire.

You can read a couple of her adventures (published in books and magazines) by following these links, and you’ll probably surmise why the management at Travelers’ Tales publishing house affectionately call Kirsten “the Canadian lunatic”: “Chasing Tornadoes” published in the ninth volume of The Best Women’s Travel Writing books, and “The Mountain Men Who Don’t Exist in Kyrgyzstan” published by Perceptive Travel magazine.

Matthew Greenwood (your local guide & expert): created his tour company, Exploring York, in 2004, out of a love for his native county of Yorkshire and his lifelong passion for travel. He has guided a wide variety of groups ranging from policemen from Sudan to venture capitalists from New Mexico and adores showing visitors from around the globe his home city and county.

When Matthew was a child he wanted to be a hotel manager and had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of international hotel chains. His interest in all things travel continued through life. He says the reason we embark on journeys is for the unknown, to make discoveries outside our realm of imagination. His own travels have circled the planet. A chance-meeting with a charity worker led to a lifetime dream-trip to Rwanda where he walked among the mountain gorillas, something he couldn’t have imagined coming true when watching Gorillas in the Mist as a child. That trip also fed Matthew’s appetite for learning about war and atrocities and how humanity can endure and overcome. This passion has led to him taking self-study trips (what he calls holidays) to Bosnia, Serbia, Cambodia and Vietnam, where he and Kirsten met in Hanoi outside Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum.

Matthew has a keen interest and knowledge in all aspects of history, British and American politics and world affairs.

PRICES AND INCLUSIONS: prices include hotel accommodations – full breakfasts daily – three three-course dinners –  one lunch – daily tours -museum and historical site entrances – transportation (our own private mini-bus, and a steam train journey) while on tours – private guide – and writing workshops.

The price based upon a twin shared room is £2200 per person. If you prefer a single room all to yourself at the hotels, there is an additional hotel cost of £200 total, for the entire trip.

A deposit of £300 reserves your place (this amount comes off the total). Canadians and Americans can pay the deposit in dollars (CAD and US) – the currency conversion will be calculated on the day you make the payment.

The group size for this trip is just 12 participants! Please email Kirsten at writers-expeditions@mail.com (and to make sure we get your email please cc kirstenkoza@gmail.com), or message us from the Writers’ Expeditions Facebook page with any questions you might have. We respond quickly, so if you don’t hear back within 24 hours, please do try the method you didn’t, or check your spam bin for our reply.

EXCLUSIONS: international flights and transportation to and from the first and last hotels, alcohol.

Photos from previous expeditions:

(Photo through a window of some of 2024’s Decency Be Damned participants wandering the streets of Harrogate)

(York Minster, photo by Kirsten Koza, Writers’ Expeditions, Yorkshire, England)

(Getting absinthe minded at characters and cocktail hour, photo by Brittany Moone, 2024)

(Evening at Whitby Beach which is a very short walk from our hotel. Photo by Kirsten Koza)

(Decency Be Damned participants don their Guy Fawkes masks before dinner at the Guy Fawkes Inn. Photo by your expedition host, Kirsten Koza)

(The Shambles in York. Photo by Kirsten Koza. Some of the street’s buildings date back to the 14th century.)

(Decency Be Damned participants travelling through the Yorkshire Dales on our private bus. Photo by Kirsten Koza)

(Decency Be Damned 2024 read their stories of great indecency at The Buck Inn, in Malham, Yorkshire)

(Decency Be Damned, Writers’ Expeditions. Photo by your host, Kirsten Koza)

Our annual Halloween adventure across Romania (including our private dinner party on Halloween night in the room where Vlad Dracula was born inside the medieval walled city of Sighisoara, and also the Halloween party held at Dracula’s Castle in Bran) will run from October 28 through to the end of the day on November 3rd in 2025. The full details for the Vlad Dracula Expedition will be posted here in the next couple of months. If you’d like to be added to the list to receive the information as soon as we have it, just email us at writers-expeditions@mail.com and please CC kirstenkoza@gmail.com. Participants are already reserving their spots!

I cut my hair during the pandemic. So, if I’m meeting you for the first time, I no longer look like my old bio photos or my cartoon either. I also don’t look like my passport photo – to the point that on a domestic flight recently, airline personnel stopped me at the gate before boarding to address that I do not not look like the photo on my ID (any of my ID). I countered, “Wouldn’t a faker try to look more like the image in the passport?” The passport office in Canada, however, won’t give me a new one. My fingers are crossed that the customs agents in Panama (in a couple weeks) let me into the country.

I’m the author of Lost in Moscow (published by Turnstone Press in Canada) which CBC radio dubbed “the ultimate what-I-did-last-summer essay ever.” And I was the anthology editor of the Travelers’ Tales (USA) book Wake Up and Smell the Shit. I’ve had around 85 stories (plus my photos) published in books, magazines, and newspapers around the world.

You’re invited to join our annual Vlad Dracula Expedition, a seven-day dinner party and Halloween celebration through Romania which includes our private dinner on Halloween night in the room where real-life Vlad Dracula (Vlad the Impaler) was born (inside the medieval walled town of Sighisoara), and it also includes the ultimate costume party at Bran Castle (“Dracula’s Castle”) celebrating Romania’s Day of the Dead.

**We have a new opening for one: we had someone have to postpone until 2025 and can now accommodate a single, solo traveller, for 2024**

2024 Expedition Dates: October 28 through November 3

Group Size: small group – 15 participants

Scroll down past the itinerary for prices, inclusions, how to contact us, and the hosts’ biographies.

We’ve made the reservations—you just need to pack a costume and your inner child (or demon) for this howling party across Romania. Our seven-day (small group) expedition includes attending the Halloween festival on Day of the Dead, at Bran Castle (known as Dracula’s Castle, built circa 1377), which was owned by Vlad’s grandfather (Mircea the Old). And on Halloween night our group will have a private dinner in the chamber where real-life Dracula, Vlad Drăculea (known as Vlad the Impaler), was born, in 1431. We’ll be spending Halloween night at an inn of similar vintage, just a few doors down from the house where Vlad was born, inside the (UNESCO) medieval walled city of Sighișoara. We were the first people (and are the only) to ever host a Halloween dinner party in the room where Dracula was born, and each year we barely make it through cocktails before we are regaling each other with spine-tingling ghost stories and scary experiences from our lives.

Our Transylvanian guide (with whom I explored Romania extensively) and I have designed a journey that will take us to the best local haunts: medieval castles with gruesome history, torture chambers, moody cemeteries, all contrasted with one of the most beautiful times of year to visit Romania which will be glowing in autumn colours.

We will also be guiding you during our escapades to capture photos of a lifetime, whether you’re using a mobile device, point & shoot, or a DSLR with multiple lenses. Plus we’ll be providing you (throughout the expedition and when you get back home) with digital images of your adventures.

*New to 2024, video: We’ll be joined this year by the producer and videographer of a 19-times Emmy Award winning news correspondent who will not only provide you with video of your trip but will help those who wish to shoot video like a pro, even if you’re just using a phone.

Keep scrolling for itinerary, prices, inclusions, and hosts’ bios.

Day 1:  October 28th  – Meet in the lobby of our hotel, in the old town of Bucharest in the late afternoon. Next door to our hotel are the ruins of the Princely Palace, the castle that Dracula built in celebration of his own greatness or evilness. In the evening we’ll explore the historic pedways of the old town which was first settled in 70 BC and by the 1400s was the wealthiest city in Eastern Europe. Then we’ll dine at The Beer Chariot, a dazzling 19th century restaurant which is always packed with locals and boasts an extensive menu of tasty Romanian dishes. – Dinner, Overnight at Europa Royale Bucharest Hotel ****

Day 2: October 29th – After a hot buffet breakfast in the hotel’s award winning restaurant, we’ll travel along the grand boulevard outside the Palace of Parliament, the heaviest building in the world (according to Guinness World Records) and the second largest administrative building in the world (following the Pentagon), and it’s also a legacy of a more recent “Dracula,” the communist dictator Ceaușescu (executed in 1989). Then we’ll break out the treat bags for our scenic drive to Targoviste and Curtea de Arges.

The townsfolk of Targoviste were blamed by Vlad for their involvement in the assassination of his brother by the Turks. Vlad killed nobles and enslaved the townsfolk to build his clifftop castle at Poenari. Poenari is where Vlad Dracula’s wife plunged to her death to avoid capture by the invading army of Turks. We’ll be going there tomorrow. Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner – Overnight in Curtea de Arges****

Day 3: October 30th – Dracula’s Fortress (where Vlad’s first wife plunged to her death off a cliff to avoid capture) and then to the mind-blowing Transfăgărășan – The ruins of Poenari Castle (Dracula’s Fortress) are perched high on a rugged crag above the Arges river gorge. There are 1,480 stairs to Dracula’s “vulture nest.” One of our previous participants worked it out to being 100 storeys. Now, if you really think you can’t make the climb–there’s a lovely lodge and restaurant down the road from the first step. Please note, that due to bears in the area, sometimes we can only view the ruins from the bottom. A bear proof fence has been installed around the area, though. Following Poenari, we’ll cross the Carpathian Mountains on the Transfăgărășan Highway.

We then plunge further west into Transylvania to Corvin Castle where Vlad Dracula was fugitive, or some argue prisoner. This is one of the largest castles in Europe and has been host to many paranormal investigative television shows from around the world. You’ll see why, or maybe some of you will feel it. – Breakfast, lunch, dinner – Overnight in Hunedoara ****

Day 4:  October 31st – Halloween – tonight we have a private dinner party in the room where Vlad Dracula was born in 1431! After exploring Corvin Castle and the grisly torture chambers at its gates, we’ll take a picturesque drive to Sighisoara, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

(A small sample of food on our expedition. We can cater to omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, vampires and carnivores.)

We’ll be spending Halloween night inside this preserved walled town, in a medieval hotel, a few doors down the street from the house where Vlad Dracula was born in 1431, which is where we’ll be dining. After scaring each other with spine-tingling stories around the dinner table, we’ll also pay a nighttime visit to the Saxon cemetery which also has a section along its winding downhill path for soldiers who died in World War I. – Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Palinca tasting. Overnight in hotel which is over 500 years old!

Day 5: November 1st – After breakfast we’ll revisit Sighisoara’s hauntingly alluring cemetery in the daylight and will climb the town’s clocktower to see its inner workings and for a breathtaking view. Then off to Rasnov: where we’ll explore the 13^th century, mountaintop fortress built by Teutonic Knights, before heading to our picturesque rural mountain inn in Moieciu (where we’ll be spending the next two nights), not far from Dracula’s Castle. -Breakfast, lunch, dinner – overnight at our Transylvanian mountain inn, which although rural still has ensuite baths, wifi, and boasts delicious traditional food.

Day Six: Day of the Dead! November 2nd: Costume party at Bran Castle!

After a hearty rural breakfast, we’ll drive to Brasov where we’ll conquer the medieval ramparts, watchtowers, and Saxon churches (if they don’t conquer us). But best of all, this walled city boasts one of the narrowest streets in Europe. You’ll have some free time in Brasov to wander or shop, as well.

Then it’s back to Moeciu for dinner and to put on our costumes for the festivities at Dracula’s Castle! Tonight is the ultimate costume party –  at Dracula’s castle, Transylvania. Adults of all ages come from around the world for this festival. Every year they decorate the castle differently. You’ll get to photograph some fantastic costumes. Whoever wants to stay to dance into the night is welcome to do so. If anyone would rather return to the inn, they’ll be driven back to Moieciu. – All meals, overnight at mountain inn

Day 7: November 3rd – today we travel to Vlad the Impaler’s grave on an island – and then back to Bucharest

This morning we’ll sleep in before heading away from Transylvania back to Wallachia, stopping for the climax of Vlad’s life – his death – and his unusual burial wishes.

Farewell: We’ll then drop you off (near 6:00 PM) at the airport, or in Bucharest, or at an Otopeni airport hotel, or the train station in Bucharest, for the next leg of your journey. – Breakfast, lunch, return to Bucharest 

PRICES AND INCLUSIONS (FOLLOWED BY HOST BIOS): This trip includes tons, so please do scroll down to inclusions – it is $2000 USD per person in a double/shared room for two (either twin beds available or queen/double for couples). If you want a single room and don’t want to share, the single room supplement (to have your own burp and fart space) is $250 USD for the entire trip, which is nothing more than the extra cost to have that single room. A deposit (which comes off your total) of $300 USD reserves your spot. Anyone from around the world is welcome, and you can check the currency conversion from USD to yours in a quick google search. Please contact us with questions or to join the expedition at:  writers-expeditions@mail.com (and cc kirstenkoza@gmail.com). We respond quickly (if you don’t hear back within 24 hours, check your spam bin). You can also message us at our Writers’ Expeditions Facebook Page.

Inclusions:

• All accommodation (the delightful inns are small and unique – three and four star, with private bath, and wifi)
• All meals (don’t blame us if you gain weight – the food in Romania is fabulous, and you’re the one ordering what you want from the menus)
• Photography and videography sessions for those who wish
• Professional digital images of your journey
• video of your adventure
• Writing tips for any who wish (however, please note this is a roving dinner party and photography adventure, not a writing workshop)
• All transfers and transportation on tours
• English-speaking, Transylvanian guide
• Our own driver and private vehicle
• All entrance fees to castles and museums

Exclusions:

• Airfare
• Alcohol
• Visa (not needed for North Americans or Europeans)

Kirsten describes your hosts:

Our Romanian guide, Horia:

I first met Horia in 2004 (wow, twenty-years-ago), when he had just finished his degree in tourism, and he took me on a mountain biking adventure across Transylvania, Romania. He’s one of my favourite guides on this planet, and he now also owns a beautiful mountain hotel, not far from Bran Castle (“Dracula’s Castle”). We’ve been running this expedition for a decade now, and every year Horia adds a new treat. He also is a fabulous story-teller and is just so relaxed and cool that he didn’t even drop his camera when he punched an approaching wild bear on its nose. You can ask him to show you the video when we’re in Romania.

Drake-ula: videographer, producer, editor, and photographer

Drake works as a video producer, editor, and all-around camera and tech expert for 19x Emmy Award Winning reporter John Stossel who you probably remember as a correspondent and anchor on ABC’s 20/20.

Drake will be making a video of your adventure and helping you to capture your own as well.

He regularly produces short documentary style videos that get millions of views on social media.

His work has helped expose unconstitutional overreach, cronies and corruption (like a government seizing an old man’s home, selling it, and keeping the profits over just $8 in unpaid taxes. Yes, really. $8. That’s not a typo).

Drake has worked on video interviews with big names across all sides of different issues like: whistleblower Edward Snowden (and the man who wanted Snowden executed: Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo), former NBA star Enes Kanter, the controversial Jordan B Peterson, Republican Senator Rand Paul, and previous Democratic presidential hopefuls Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard.

Kirsten Koza: I’m your host and expedition designer and am a professional adventure travel writer, photographer, author, humourist and journalist. I ruthlessly pretest the Writers’ Expeditions trips to find the best local guides, tour operators, and unique adventures, so you can have a great experience. I’ve had more than seventy-five stories (and my photos) published in books, magazines, and newspapers around the world, on topics as varied as going inside the largest Syrian refugee camp, bullfighting, cannibalism, tornado chasing, mountain biking, dildos, dictators, Putin, gluten, mutants, and politics. I’ve even made the front page of Kyrgyzstan’s national newspaper. I’m the author of Lost in Moscow: A Brat in the USSR and edited the Traveler’s Tales anthology Wake Up and Smell the Shit: Hilarious Travel Disasters, Monstrous Toilets, and a Demon Dildo.

And we leave you with some photos of Halloween costumes, food and fun from past expeditions and a three-minute documentary made by Kyle Keyser who will be joining us again on this expedition. Turn up your speakers for it! The Dracula Expedition Video!