I moved back to the US from the UK after 4 years. Here are 9 things that have surprised me the most so far.

Moving is tough, let alone moving to an entirely different continent.

Picture it: You move to New York City. The Big Apple. The city so nice, they named it twice.

When I first moved to New York City from the Midwest as a freshman in college, I quickly learned to stop myself from talking to strangers.

Earlier this year, I went on a trip around India. Before returning home to the UK, I took a detour to Bali, Indonesia.

An American tourist was banned from entering the Philippines after he wrote "profane" words in his digital immigration form on November 7, the Inquirer, a local outlet, reported, citing the Bureau of Immigration.

On my first day in Iceland, I paid 2,690 ISK, or about $20, for a piece of avocado toast at the Blue Lagoon.

Alaska Airlines is celebrating more than three decades of flying to Mexico with a 3-day sale that has flights starting at just $99.

The Cycladic island of Ios is a rocky, mountainous environment of winding roads sometimes blocked by herds of bleating goats and sleepy villages hugging cerulean coastlines. In the 1960s, backpackers discovered the nearly untouched island and it became known as a hippie haven, hosting all-night beach parties, with a handful of cheap bars operating in the Chora (main town). A few decades later, nearby Santorini and Mykonos began to outshine their neighbor, attracting hordes of tourists each summer and investing in new developments. Meanwhile, Ios only got electricity across the entire island in the 1970s and most residents here are goat herders or farmers. Today, Mykonos has taken the nightlife crown and both it and Santorini have become severely over-touristed. Ios on the other hand, remains a quiet, mostly undeveloped paradise.

Throughout the five years that I worked as a VIP tour guide at Disneyland, I experienced the park through different lenses and noticed things that many parkgoers may not.

The strong earthquake swarm that started this week near Grindavik on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula is caused by magma forming a dike - a vertical fissure-shaped intrusion at shallow depth, which allows the magma to rise and get closer to an eruption. This now threatens one of Iceland's most important tourism regions and is home to the iconic Blue Lagoon Resort. Civil Protection just declared a Level Orange emergency, and residents of Grindavík were told to evacuate.

National parks are affectionately known as America's best idea. As someone who's traveled solo to 59 of the 63 major US national parks, I'd have to agree.

There are many things I love about living in New York City since moving from Wisconsin over 10 years ago, but there's nothing like a Midwestern grocery store.