Days not Homeless: 5 Years, 342 Days ...and loving every second of this alpine adventure!
New Scotland
Not to say that we didn't enjoy New Brunswick but we really used the Province as a means to get from Maine through to Nova Scotia. Apparently tourism falls short due to this reason! Three hours beyond the quaint seaside town of Saint Andrews and just shy of the NS...
Northeastern Highpoints
Completing the seven continental highpoints, or 7 Summits as they are commonly called, is still on hold for financial and fitness reasons. Also, with only the big price tag mountains of Everest and Vinson remaining there needed to be an interim goal that was...
Adirondacks & More
Yes, we know it’s been a long time since we’ve sent out a blog, and no, we didn’t move to Montana either. In fact a few weeks ago we once again left Andrea’s family in Kentucky and headed north in our trusted steed, Going Broke. After spending a few days with friends...
Europe & Middle East Recap
We’ve now been back from our six month tour of Eastern Europe, Israel, Jordan, Cuba and 110 miles of hiking around the Mont Blanc Massif for almost a month and are already discussing whats next. Funny how things go as one minute we’re talking about staying put and...
Cuba; pre Big Mac & Latte Invasion
By the time this blog gets posted JetBlue and Spirit Air will probably have scheduled flights to Havana from Fort Lauderdale and New York, bringing throngs of Americans to add to the already packed island. Some will be excited to introduce tacky Starbucks, McDonalds...
The Biblical Holy Land
PENDING... Dates January 25th - February 11th 2016 February 25th - February 28th 2016 I think that with trial and error both my photography and website design are getting progressively better so hopefully these newer, better quality images will inspire you to get out...
A Middle Eastern Showpiece
PENDING... Dates February 11th - February 25th 2016 I think that with trial and error both my photography and website design are getting progressively better so hopefully these newer, better quality images will inspire you to get out there and travel. Click HERE to...
Turkey Minus the Tourists
PENDING... Dates January 9th - January 25th 2016 I think that with trial and error both my photography and website design are getting progressively better so hopefully these newer, better quality images will inspire you to get out there and travel. Click HERE to see...
A City Divided
Almost everywhere we go is by one-way ticket, Edinburgh being no exception, so now we had to find the cheapest way of traveling from Scotland back to Turkey for unfinished business. The big airlines were way too expensive, Pegasus, the cheap Turkish airline only...
Hogmanay
It took over forty years to make it to Edinburgh, inexcusable being that it’s barely eighty miles over the English border and only 300 miles from my hometown of Leicester. Scotland was also to be Andrea’s fifteenth new country of our extended European tour. A short...
BA
Ever since I saw Madonna as Eva Peron in Evita in 1996, I knew I wanted to go to Buenos Aires. I had all these visions and expectations of a little Paris in Argentina! We arrived in Buenos Aires by plane since the long distance bus union was on strike and stranded us...
Weekend trip to El Bolson
Wayne and I took a side trip while in Bariloche to El Bolson which is a 2 hour bus ride to the south. We didn’t make any reservations because we planned on camping both nights to save some money. There are plenty of advertised camp sites near town so we walked and...
Los Siete Lagos
Yep, still over a month behind on the blog as we’ve since been to Buenos Aires and are now in Uruguay! It was great of David and Barbara to suggest we join them for the weekend driving route 234 and the Siete Lagos, primarily between Villa la Angostura and San Martin...
Bariloche – chocolate, hiking and lakes
It seems like an eternity since the last post, although we’ve been busy rafting, hiking and visiting the beautiful Argentine lake district. Bariloche, situated on Lago Nahuel Huapi, is surrounded by mountains and lakes which made some great adventures for us. We...
Ushuaia Recap
We spent a total of 9 days in Ushuaia at Galeazzi Basily B&B, a great Argentine owned bed and breakfast located a few blocks up a hill from the main street. Alejandro and his wife, Francis, were very friendly hosts, who provided us with plenty of recommendations for...
Beagle Channel Sea Lions
As we didn’t get on down to Antarctica this season we had to make the most of the wildlife in the Ushuaia area. Friday it was penguins, Saturday were foxes and woodpeckers in Tierra del Fuego national park, and today we had sea lions, seals and various birds in the...
The Penguins of Isla Martillo
We thought that a 5 hour excursion with Pira Tour to see a bunch of penguins on an island in the Beagle Channel was overpriced at $100, but how wrong we were. To see the two species that inhabit Isla Martillo, the Gentoo and Magellanic dancing, preening, and hanging...
“W” Circuit
This was my first multi-day trek with camping and I was really apprehensive about the “camping” part of it. I’m not much of a camper, but I’m trying to learn to enjoy it more. Wayne promised me we wouldn’t have to prepare our own meals as we could get them from the...
Patagonia
Wayne and I have been anxiously waiting to get to Patagonia to enjoy the cooler weather. We packed our down jackets for South America and we really wanted to use them. It was going to be a nice reprieve from the heat and humidity of Brazil. We flew from Puerto Iguazu,...
Iguazu Falls
Wednesday night, February 27th, we took the bus from Ipanema to the Rio International Airport with 3 hours until our flight. However, the bus made numerous stops causing us to arrive with little time to spare. We were fortunate that we had some assistance from the GOL...
Paraty
We headed to Paraty on February 17th by rental car since we were with friends from Virginia, Jeff and Colleen for the week. Paraty has become a popular tourist area in recent years, renowned for the historic town and the coast and mountains in the region. It’s an...
Around Rio
Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar) We headed to Sugarloaf on the 511 bus from Ipanema around 8am. I had to be back for work at 11am and Jeff and Colleen were arriving from DC at 10:30 so it needed to be a quick trip! We were concerned that we may not have enough time...
Carnaval – Sambodromo
Another “must do” on our list was to visit Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during Carnaval. The city and its suburbs are crawling with locals and foreigners. The buses are packed with people traveling from bloco to bloco (a bloco is a block party – some with just a few people...
Homeward bound
It took almost ten and a half hours to get from Belize City to Cancun by the ADO overnight bus. We arrived at the northern border town of Santa Elena in Belize around 11pm. It was the most expensive departure tax of our 100 plus day trip by far - $18.75pp. After...
Belize, the Good, the Bad and the Hot
We were concerned if we would have enough time to see the Tikal ruins in Guatemala, get to the border to cross into Belize and get to our accommodation 10 miles outside of San Ignacio all in the same day - no problem! The first town we encountered after crossing the...
Semuc Champey and the Peten Region
A long weekend of travel was awaiting us – 8 hours from Antigua to Lanquin on Friday, then another 8 hours from Lanquin to Flores on Sunday. Both trips were on a small van sized ‘turismo’ shuttle with 14-16 passengers. They were cramped to say the least! Leaving...
Antigua, we will return
Unfortunately we didn't allocate enough time in Antigua. It's the previous capital of Guatemala with a thriving language school and tourist population overlooked by Volcan de Agua with Acatenango, Fuego and Pacaya volcanoes very close by. After previously travelling...
Xela and the surrounding area
It was my decision to head to Quetzaltenango, Xela for short, because I had planned on furthering my Spanish education (really just throwing money down the drain). Xela is a very popular place for this, unlike Antigua, it's not full of foreigners and English is not on...
Markets Galore
The must see market town in Guatemala’s western highlands, Chichicastenango, is rammed full of local produce and artesanial products, aimed primarily at the influx of tourists that arrive every Thursday and Sunday morning from the surrounding towns. We headed there on...
Volcan Santa Maria
This was to be the first of two local volcanoes I was planning on hiking with Altiplanos Tours. Santa Maria, an active volcano in the Quetzaltenango area at an altitude of 3772m and Volcan Santiaguito which was created from an eruption of Santa Maria in 1902. Volcan...
