1 . Like many young people, Jessica wants to travel the globe. Unlike most of them, this 25-year-old is doing it _______ . She and her husband have spent the last two years traveling the world, stopping everywhere from Paris to Singapore. It might sound like one long, expensive _______ , but the couple has an unusual way to make their travel _______ .

They’re part of a new form of the _______ economy: an online group of house sitters. Throughout their no-cost stays in _______ homes, they feed pets and water plants in the homeowner’s _______ .

It’s not all sightseeing. The two travelers carefully _______ their trips, scheduling their days around the pets that are sometimes difficult to _______ . But house sitting also offers a level of _______ they can’t find in a hotel. “It’s like ________ at a friend’s house,” Jessica says.

The couple has a high ________ rate in getting accepted as house sitters and they always go beyond the homeowner’s ________ . For Jessica, that means ________ plenty of pictures of happy pets, keeping the house ________ and leaving a nice small gift before heading to the next house. “You want to make the homeowner feel that they made the right ________ ,” she says.

2 . When I was in third grade, my family and I took on an unforgettable trip across the country. It turned out to be more than just a/an _______ journey; it was a journey of discovery into our _______. Every day, Dad _______ us with his trusty road map. Mom, the heart of our family, shared folk tales and painted pictures about the upcoming _______. We went through diverse _______from the thick forests to the vast deserts of the West.

One day, while hiking through the Grand Canyon, I _______   a particularly rough path. Frightened, I _______, not knowing how to proceed. That’s when my parents _______ .

As Dad showed me footholds, Mom coached me with calming _______and reminded me of the breathtaking views that lay ahead. Then, I________the confidence as my feet ________ solid ground again. When I finally overcame my fear, I felt we became ________ as a family.

From then on, every evening, we’d gather around a campfire for what we________called “Family Reflection Time”. During these sessions, we’d share laughs, ________, and insights from the day’s experiences.

The trip taught me that the true meaning of travel isn’t merely about reaching the destination but about the personal growth that happens on the route, and the family bonds formed when facing ________ together.

3 . I’ve reached the turn-around point of the day’s kayaking (皮划艇) trip. Sweat runs down my cheek as I ______ my fingers through the cool water. I look around. It’s just me, a couple of seagulls, and shining freshwater to the horizon. This, I whisper to myself, is ______.

Solo outings had never ______ my mind before because I always had loyal friends willing to tag along. But three years ago, I moved to Cleveland. Meeting close friends in a new city is ______. And a world wide health crisis made ______ impossible.

In October 2022, I decided to ______ a whole day on a solo hiking trip. I went to Cuyahoga Valley National Park (CVNP) to ______ the autumn leaves. Five miles in, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so alive. I was more ______ of my surroundings than I’d ever been while hiking that day. I studied the markings of trees, focused my ears on each forest sound and did something I had almost never spared ______ for: I listened to my own thoughts. Every word in my mind pointed to a newfound ______—solo hiking is my happy place. From then on, I have adjusted myself to any solo activity.

Pride ______ through my body when I first launched my kayak. My chest, ______ tightened by nerves, was bursting with happiness as I finally reached the middle of the river that I’d long ______ standing on shore before.

Adventuring alone has become like medicine for me! It’s also pushed me to go ______ my comfort zone and to meet new people. Through meetups and social media, my adventure friend circle has ______. But at least once per month, I schedule time to hit nature with my favorite trail buddy: me.

4 . I've always loved mountaineering (登山) and the mental and physical challenges that go with it. This time the peak (山峰) of Mt. Whitney is my ______. There are quite a few ways up to the big mountain, but we ______ the traditional one at last, almost 12 miles to the top.

I decided to make this trip less about ______ and more about the climb and my personal journey with a friend. Thinking about it this way, I decided to carry only one camera to ______ the course, but it still added 3.2 pounds to my backpack, which ______ 2.8 pounds without the camera equipment. Fortunately, climbing with a friend ______ sharing the weight, keeping our packs a little lighter. Therefore, we ______ reached the top just two days later. This particular trip was prepared for a personal trip on purpose to get to the peak and enjoy the breathtaking ______.

Climbing such tall peaks ______ every aspect of you, as a nature photographer. It can test both your physical strength and photographic ______. Can you imagine being 14,000 feet up, ______ the thin air of the high-altitude (海拔) environment while also trying to be ______ with your compositions (作品)? That’s what we were doing! And that’s the joy that comes with climbing Mt. Whitney as well.

Like any other ______ in nature, there are risks in mountaineering, though, Extreme altitude and the unpredictable (无法预测的) weather will test even the most ______ climber. Despite the fact, mountaineering for me is all about the experiences, which makes me live to the ______.

5 . Borneo is home to some of the most extraordinary wildlife. Several years ago, I decided to go there for a visit. A local person offered to be my guide, which was a great bonus for me.

One day, my guide turned off the smooth road and took me across a ________ hillside instead. We picked our way carefully when ________, a Rafflesia (大王花) popped into my view among those stones. Oh, dear! More than ________, I bent down and put my nose practically inside the flower’s core.

________, to my surprise, it was only one of the ________ during the trip.

As I ________ the end of my trip, there was still something I had yet to see. We planned to ________ most feared creature there, the saltwater crocodile, which can grow to a ________ of 6 meters or more. When we shone a flashlight towards the muddy shore, little sounds ________ in the darkness as if something unseen underwater had broken the ________ Taking a second look, we spotted two greedy ________ just above the water line. As we drew near, it ________ and we saw clearly it was a crocodile. With great caution, we neared it and finally could ________ its true dimensions. It was a baby-no more than 0. 6 meter long. Aha, whatever, I could now report to the ________ back home, who had never been to Borneo, that I had ________ a hungry crocodile in the wild and lived to tell the tale.

The world out there is so fascinating. Don’t let work run your life. Why not step outdoors and enjoy the wonders nature offers to you?

6 . Before our round-the-world trip we always thought that in Peru visiting Machu Picchu would be our most amazing experience.

Although Machu Picchu is simply indescribable, it _________ out that a totally improvised (即兴的) adventure gave us a much stronger _________. When we were staying at a Couchsurfer’s place in Cusco, we _________ him whether it would be _________ to visit a real Quechua village.

He said we could _________, although we would have to find it out ourselves since these Quechua _________live quite far in the Andes. _________, there’s no public transport to get there. In the end, we got very lucky. While_________ for transport, we found out that the local doctor and other social workers were going to _________ some of these tribes and they let us join them.

We were __________ happy because we had the chance to stay in a Quechua community. We __________ about their traditions, saw the colorful clothes they wore every day and __________ their daily routine for some time. We often had to use __________ to communicate, since most of these people don’t speak Spanish, only Quechua. This is one of our most interesting travel __________ and a real heart-warming experience that we will never __________.

7 . On Christmas of 2017, I was born again. We like to spend our Christmas holidays somewhere warm abroad, and that year we_________Uganda. Nature, wildlife, and sunny days were a_________when it was so_________and dark in Europe. Life was beautiful, and we had a rental car and a busy schedule ahead to explore the country.

This is where this short travel story turns into one of my most_________travel experiences. At Murchinson Falls National Park, we had a car accident. I lost _________of the car, and it rolled over, destroying windows, chassis(底盘),and the engine. But we were alive! My right arm was_________injured, but we_________to walk to our lodge(旅馆), not far inside the_________. In the lodge, I was_________to learn that there was a pretty decent American hospital in Masindi that was just a one-hour drive away. Moreover, one of the lodge’s guests was a nurse who__________the wound while we were waiting for the taxi. The hospital took care of us and after a couple of injections and stitches(缝合), I was__________to head to our new hotel in Masindi; however, my wound required daily__________and more injections, so we were__________to stay in town for a few days.

The town’s highlights were the market and our__________visit to the hospital, so we__________looking for the small things,__________with the medical staff and the people in the market, and learning more about their customs.

We learned to slow down. When we were allowed to__________, we took a road trip through the country to see something else. We did not care about our travel bucket__________anymore - we were__________, and we wanted to enjoy Uganda’s unique nature and its people. In the end, our Uganda trip was not about the places that we saw, but the people that we met. It was travel for__________VS sightseeing.

8 . I grew up in Michigan and have loved boats since I was young. I’d go out on my dad’s fishing boat, and every birthday I’d get a miniature boat with a viewing window. In Michigan, we’re _________ by lakes and I soon discovered that I loved diving and _________ skipped school days for the beach.

Three years ago, I _________ put forward an idea of running glass-bottom boat tours to an investor. It started in 2018. At present, My sons _________, manning the deck(甲板)and phones. We head out on the Cheboygan river and Lake Huron. We sail past lots of places of_________, with a historian on board explaining the history. We often scan the river to see what we can find.

One weekend this year, I met a _________ client. I thought I should find something to show him and managed to find a giant shell. Then I saw a green bottle. I swam to my boat, took a photo and then opened the bottle. It was full of water and had a paper inside. I _________ the paper and saw the date —November 1926. We were all amazed. The note_________: “Return this paper to George Morrow.” I was so excited to have found it.

We made sure to keep the paper safe. Before leaving the harbor, I posted a picture on my Facebook page and didn’t expect what followed.

The next morning, my phone _________ with messages. While I was driving home, I got a phone call from Michele Primeau. She told me she was George Morrow’s daughter. I didn’t believe her __________. She said her dad would float notes in bottles when he went on vacation or __________ them in walls when redecorating. She __________ he had posted this one on his 18th birthday.

In autumn, Michele came to visit. She brought some of his writing and the handwriting matched. She __________ I keep the message and the bottle.

It now sits in a display case in my shop. That Facebook post now has 87,000 __________. In a hard year, the discovery has brought purejoy.__________a Scuba diver(水肺潜水员), this feels like a lifetime achievement.

9 . I found a wonderful picture of Maolan karst cones online and presented it to the innkeeper. “You can’t go there,” the innkeeper ______ me. “The viewing platform has been closed due to ______ that too many visitors could cause geological damage.”

Despite our disappointment, we ______ an alternative: a seven-hour hike through the “funnel forest”. Initially, we were ______ to run the risk. However, I had ______ the tourism motto in the nature reserve: “If you don’t do it now, you won’t do it in your lifetime.” Three of our group ______ decided to venture into the forest. The innkeeper responded with a knowing ______ : “Great. Bear Grylls went there.”

The next morning, we set off with a local ______ . Rain came and went three times, and before I actually ______ to climb over the first mountain, I had already got wet to the skin. I was a walking ______ of mud and water.

Our guide, in his 50s, behaved like a botanist, introducing the locally specific plants to us, but I was hardly in the ______ . Every step sank into the muddy, sucking ground. Every log or rock in front of us was a physical ______ . “One can never reach those places without strong willpower,” I murmured, reciting that millennium-old ______ , over and over again.

Sinkholes and entrances to underground rivers kept popping up along our ______ . Thinking of them leading to an unknown world, I began to ______ the road that I can control even more.

Wandering in a green chaos without any obvious landmarks is also breathtaking.

10 . Apartment owners cash in on upcoming holiday trips

The National Day holiday is around the corner, and those making last-minute plans to travel at that time are busy booking _______ hotel rooms in popular tourist destinations.

In a bid to cash in on this rush for rooms, social media users are _______ platforms with offers of apartments for _______ just for the holiday week, at prices that are a part of what is being _______ by hotels, many of which are sold out.

Unlike hotels, those renting out their homes are not charging anything _______ for cleaning the apartment while it is _______, no contract or deal needs to be signed and the ID information of the renters is not _______ required.

Meanwhile, some netizens have expressed _______ over this trend of renting out personal apartments.

“It is so unsafe. What if the people install a camera in your home or make it a complete mess,” one asked while _______ on a post seeking tenants(房客). Another said, “Won’t you be afraid of people opening your computer and checking what’s inside?”

Experts said this novel way of sharing one’s home not only means extra earnings for the homeowners, but also improves the ________ of the cities. However, they also warned that there are risks involved.

Fu Jian, a lawyer at Henan Zejin Law Firm, said that as there is no written ________ being signed between homeowners and renters, and the ID information is not ________, it would be very difficult for the owner to safeguard his or her rights should an argument ________.

Moreover, if there is a theft or an accident involving the guests during their stay in the apartment, the owner will more or less be held ________, he said.

He advised owners to be aware of the rules and regulations before renting out their apartments, and added that renters should also choose ________ to avoid unnecessary risks.