If you’re reading this blog, chances are that you’re a traveler who doesn’t drink, for whom drinking isn’t the main point when you travel, or who travels with a friend, partner or family member who doesn’t drink and are looking for a site that goes beyond the usual “10 places to get in trouble after midnight” content found on even the best conventional travel blogs.

I started this site not because I think nondrinkers need bumpers to protect us from the world, but because as someone who loves to travel and to read about other people’s travels, I started to notice that travel sites tended to portray travel as little more than an opportunity to drink in a different language. Just now, as a quick experiment, I took a look at just the most recent post on a few well-known travel sites I read regularly. Here are some phrases that jumped out: “Epic cocktail menu!” “A guide to our favorite craft beer bars.” “The truth is hot wine makes every experience more magical.” “Wine lovers visiting the City of Lights will no doubt want to learn a bit more about the masterpieces that are French wines during their trip.” (That particular writeup of Paris mentioned wine more than a dozen times). A guide to Montana says a trip to the state wouldn’t be complete without visiting some of the local distilleries. The Economist’s (!) business (!!) travel guide (!!!) offers “the best travel tip ever”: filling quart baggies with mini bottles and taking them through TSA checkpoints. A mega-popular travel site aimed at women lists dozens of places around the world where you can have “an unforgettable night out” with your girlfriends. It is a list of bars.

And hey, I get it. Boy, do I get it. Before I quit drinking five years ago, I couldn’t understand the point of going out, much less traveling to another country, without at least a couple of drinks, although the number I actually preferred was “as many as I can drink before I pass out.” And even for people who don’t drink problematically, travel is seen as a time to let loose and relax, and what better way to let loose and relax than sampling the local wine, beer, or nasty-tasting digestif (hand to heart, I never had a shot of Jager until I went to a wedding in Munich and I felt like I was really connecting with the culture as I grabbed a shot off the dirndl-wearing waitress’s tray, then another, then another). Drinking is how many people celebrate, and that’s okay. But it isn’t how I celebrate, not anymore, and it isn’t how I travel, either.

Traveling wasn’t something I ever thought I could do, certainly not alone, or on a whim, or without building in plenty of late mornings for sleeping off late nights and the hangovers that always followed. When I drank, I was afraid of the world—afraid of taking risks for fear that I might say stupid or get lost in a strange place, drunk, at 2 in the morning, or embarrass myself in front of strangers who I assumed were more sophisticated than me. When I got sober, I realized that I could do whatever I wanted and go wherever I pleased. That sounds stupid, but it felt profound: The boundaries I had put around my own possibilities were self-imposed. So I decided to travel.

And when I did, I realized a few things. The first was that the world wants me to drink. I’m not being solipsistic; they want you to drink, too. Unless you’re traveling to a country where alcohol is outlawed (or, in my case, visiting my teetotaling family in Mississippi), you’re going to encounter opportunities to drink and people who make you feel weird when you don’t take them up on those offers. Hotels offer free champagne or a complimentary wine and cheese hour every afternoon. Destination restaurants offer drink menus where the only nonalcoholic options are juice and water. And city guides don’t offer nighttime options for adults who want to do more than just sit in a bar and drink.

This blog is not going to be an encomium for sobriety, nor is it going to condemn people who drink. Most of my friends drink, my partner drinks, and I work in an industry where “let’s get a drink” is synonymous with “I would like to get to know you better in a professional sense.” I even go to bars, often, although I look forward to the day when they realize my money is just as good as the people ordering $17 cocktails and make nonalcoholic cocktails a regular feature of their menus.

Instead, this blog will give readers a sense of how I travel, as one person who stopped drinking and found that the world opened up to me. Whether you drink or not, I look forward to your company on this journey.