🎃 Think you got what it takes to crack the new Mini Voyage? 🎃

Down:

1. Often made with gold foil and ritualistic seals, this paper money is offered to the dead, through burning, in many Chinese cultures.

2. Children disguised in costumes, visiting the neighborhood from door to door for food or coins.

4. In 2014, this hamlet (a human settlement that is smaller than a town or village) in Canada moved trick-or-treat indoors to the community hall due to the risk of encountering polar bears.

Across:

3. The Gaelic festival marking the start of winter. Widely believed to be the ancestor of modern Halloween.

5. In Mexico, family and friends gather during the Day of the ______ to honor and remember those who have passed away.

🔠 Answers to the previous Mini Voyage 🔠

Did you solve the Wordsearch? Here’s a quick introduction to each of the six names.

HALLDORLAXNESS: Winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature, Halldor Laxness wrote across many genres, from novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, to travelogues, and short stories. English-speaking readers may recognize him as the author of novels including Independent People and The Fish Can Sing.

ALDASIGMUNDSDOTTIR: Alda Sigmundsdottir is a journalist and my fellow self-publishing author. Her witty, bite-sized Little Books of Iceland series helped me better understand Icelandic culture during my own research for Armchair Iceland. She also publishes a fun newsletter, Letter from Iceland, that’s worth checking out on Substack.

ARNALDURINDRIDASON: Arnaldur Indridason is one of the most prominent figures in Icelandic crime fiction, best known for his Detective Erlendur series. One of its titles, Jar City (also translated as Tainted Blood or The Bog), was translated into English and is noted for its sharp critique of a large-scale genetic research conducted in Iceland in the early 2000s.

RAGNARJONASSON: Ragnar Jonasson is another prolific Icelandic crime writer. All six books from his bestselling Dark Iceland series have been fully translated into English. The first book in another series of his, Hidden Iceland, was recently adapted into the Icelandic TV show, The Darkness (2024), available for streaming in the States on Prime Video or Apple TV at the time of writing.
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Non-author imposters—

GUDRUNOSVIFRSDOTTIR: Gudrun Osvifrsdottir is the main protagonist of the Laxdale Saga, one of the classic Sagas of Icelanders recorded between the 13th and 15th centuries.

OLAFURDARRIOLAFSSON: Olafur Darri lafsson is an active Icelandic actor well-known in both Iceland and Hollywood. You may have spotted him in the TV show Severance, the Zachary Quinto–led series NOS4A2, and the Iceland-themed comedy movie Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.

🚀 Vegout HQ Happenings 🚀

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I’m so excited! The weeks ahead are going to be a whirlwind of events in my corner of the world: my partner and I are in musician mode, preparing for a band gig for Halloween. Literally within hours after this show, I'll be hopping on a plane heading to a work conference. Once I come back, we are anticipating celebrations for our anniversary, my partner's birthday, then Thanksgiving with the in-laws, which promptly leads into the December choir concerts, and ...wait for it, our year-end trip to Tokyo!

So umm, haha, after my mopey and melodramatic newsletter update last month, I’m mostly over it now. (Thank you to everyone who reached out or asked me what has been going on 💚 You are the best!) I’ve been working on a series of pivots that hopefully will prove themselves useful soon:

• First off, I'm working on website 2.0 based on your feedback and Amazon book reviews, mostly to make it clearer what exactly the deal is with this virtual-travel-crossed-with-variety-puzzle concept.
• We'll be jumping ship around the end of the year to a different email provider that's supposed to be a bit more powerful now that my humble little newsletter is slowly growing. When this happens, except for minor formatting modifications, you should not experience any changes.
• I'm in the middle of making an inventory of books, merch, and other accessories, with a focus on identifying any fluctuations in availability and production costs affected by tariffs. Most likely, there will be some product changes coming to the vegoutvoyage.com website. On Amazon, Armchair Iceland is not affected by these changes.
• This leads me to our final fun news—I’m putting together the first-ever Vegout Voyage holiday gift bundle! Picture this with me, one book, two "Side Quests," plus a surprise new puzzle printed directly on the mailing box itself. I'm really digging the puzzle design process. I hope some of you and your holiday gift recipients will have some fun solving them too!