Days not Homeless: 4 Years, 341 Days ...and loving every second of this alpine adventure!
We assumed that we would have a few weeks to explore the north of Peru so we booked a flight from Lima to Fort Lauderdale a few months ago on the cheap and nasty Spirit Airlines – we actually exhausted all of our time in Ecuador to spend time with my family so getting...
With an abundance of relatively easily accessible peaks situated down Avenida de los Volcanes, Ecuador is a mountaineering heaven. The likes of Tungurahua, Sangay and Reventador are off-limits due to volcanic activity but it still left a variety of different...
Months before our departure, I researched as many boats as possible that spend between three and fifteen days island hopping through the archipelago. The costs were ranging from the high hundreds of Dollars to the high thousands. We both agreed out budget was around...
I’d always dreamed of visiting the Galápagos Islands since my first visit to Ecuador in 1980, at the ripe old age of twelve. More than twenty years ago my grandparents had spent a week on a cruise and talked about how amazing the islands were, but during both of my...
Andrea and I finally arrived in Quito some five hours after crossing the border at Tulcan. We had reserved a single night at Boutiquito, a new and trendy hostel, if not a little on the expensive side, before heading over to Cumbaya in the east of Quito to see my aunt,...
We’ve fallen behind with the blog, or at least I have since we left Popayan almost three weeks ago with a hop, skip and jump to Ecuador. In between we stopped at San Agustin for a few days to see the stone statues of its UNESCO World Heritage Site, Mocoa for the...
Personally one of my favorite places in Colombia, being a little rough around the edges but having great people and a relaxing old town. Cali is best known as the home of Salsa, and previously with the ruthless Cali drug cartel – nowadays the police presence is huge...
We were really looking forward to visiting this part of Colombia because we had heard so many wonderful stories from various travellers – we found that the cities were not overwhelming, the weather perfect, and the scenery stunning. And for me, loving coffee, I was...
Not too much to talk about on this blog as neither of us were enthralled with the mass of Bogota, located on a high plateau at 2625m above sea level, making it the third highest capital city in South America after Quito and La Paz. With over eight million people...
San Gil, the adventure capital of Colombia, and Barichara, the home to Hormigas Culonas roughly translated to Big Ass ants, were to be the next destinations on our journey through Colombia. San Gil offers a slew of activities like white water rafting, downhill...
Medellin, the city of eternal spring, and once the world's deadliest city with 381 homicides per 100,000 people, equivalent to 32,000 murders per year in New York City, is so far one of our favorite places to visit in Colombia. Safety has improved vastly since the...
Valledupar and on to Pueblo Bello and finally Nabusimake was very much an unplanned part of our tour through Colombia. It wasn't until we heard from Barbara, our new travel planner, about not missing out on the indigenous area in the south of Sierra Nevada de Santa...
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is an isolated mountain range separated from the Andes chain that runs through Colombia. It reachs an altitude of over 5.700 meters (18,700 feet), and just 42 kilometers from the Caribbean coast and is the world's highest coastal...
We finally arrived in a country that was once pretty much off limits, now transformed into a very up and coming place to visit with many world class attractions. Our arrival at the Romancing the Stone city of Cartagena was eagerly awaited, mostly due to the fact that...
I had decided some time ago that if Andrea wouldn’t hike through the lawless Darien Gap with me, then we would do one of the backpacker sailing trips taking in the San Blas islands en route. The Darien Gap pretty much begins where the Panamerican highway ends in...
Cusco, at 3.400 meters is totally a tourist trap, full of both cheap and expensive restaurants, hotels, spas and everything to get foreigners and locals alike to part with their Peruvian Soles. We loved it! Our accommodation in the touristy San Blas part of town,...
The Inca Trail is probably one of the most famous four day treks in the world. That being said, the Peruvian government has now imposed limits on how many hikers and porters it will allow to start every day - about 200 hikers and 300 porters. Wayne and I had to make...
After our fabulous trip to Isla Del Sol on Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca we boarded the bus, once again, for Puno, Peru. This was only a 5 hour bus journey with a quick stop at immigration. The border control agent didn’t even verify our passport names against our...
We hoped that leaving La Paz on a Wednesday night for the three hour micro-bus ride to Copacabana was a good idea and that the internet at our fancy accommodation would work for Andrea! We had chosen Hostal Las Olas for its unique suites overlooking Lake Titicaca, and...
La Paz, sitting in a bowl at an altitude between 3.200 and 4.100 meters, is the highest capital city in the world surrounded by the high mountains of the altiplano, specifically triple-peaked Illimani. Behind Santa Cruz de la Sierra, it is Bolivia’s second largest...
No idea why it had taken us so long to make it to Egypt but we're already raring to go back! This occasion was just a week long vacation to get us away from the cold of the Alps and for me to enjoy (if there is any enjoyment!) recovering from hip replacement surgery....
After what felt like an eternity it was a random email from a good friend in the US that prompted a plan of attack for the remaining 8 state highpoints. Unfortunately they were spread far and wide and included four that required some level of technique and multiple...
Our Route des Grandes Alpes map from Cluses to MentonCol d'Izoard DescentCol de Turini DescentSt Martin VésubieValbergArvieuxRoute des Grandes Alpes Day 1: Cluses to Le Grand-Bornand to Beaufort-sur-Doron Col de Romme, Col de la Colombiere, Col des Aravis, Col des...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
Unable to take a rental car into Albania on a prior roadtrip through Europe we made it a mission to discover what would turn out to be a gem, and not one of those expensive gems! EasyJet supplied the direct flight from Geneva to Tirana, public transport was dirt...
Unable to take a rental car into Albania on a prior roadtrip through Europe we made it a mission to discover what would turn out to be a gem, and not one of those expensive gems! EasyJet supplied the direct flight from Geneva to Tirana, public transport was dirt...
Not quite what we had planned regarding a big Swedish adventure, our 3 week Kungsleden hike turning into a city break in Stockholm. Oh well, it was still fun, and we got to explore another scenic European city. With EasyJet flying the dirt cheap route directly from...
The thought of travelling for two days to visit family in New Zealand without adding on a South Pacific island trip was now only a thought! After spending a little over a week in Niue on our previous trip where would we go this time? Whilst my mum had already been to...
With a few hundred Euros in TAP Portugal credit and no real idea of where to go that didn't involve connections and long flights we decided to just head somewhere warm and that we'd never been to before. The Algarve sounded like that destination. Unfortunately the...
Approaching Greenland ice shelf from the air was humbling, the size of the glaciers tumbling into the sea, the iceberg’s with their turquoise underwater colours, the sheer expanse… and we were barely north of Greenland's narrowest point - there was a hell of a lot...
So here it is, time for another fairly long bike-packing adventure following the length of the mighty Rhine river. The other getaways I was toying with were either a north south traverse of Iceland on foot or a photography shoot in the Faroe Islands - for both it was...
Over eighty days of skiing under my belt, it was time for Andrea and I to head to warmer climates. We had spent some time in the French island of Corsica a couple of years ago and now it was time for the Italian island of Sardinia. We had zero plans; just the desire...
Not what we had initially planned but more than happy that crap high mountain reports ruined our early spring 4000m peak bagging adventure! What was a loosely organised Monte Rosa trip, overnight turned into a well oiled Haute Route ski tour (thanks for demanding a...
Andrea heading home to visit family for a little over 3 weeks made the perfect excuse to make my third trip to Nepal. This time would be kind of strange as it wouldn't involve the Icefall, the Lhotse Face, nor the summit of Everest! I had to find something different...
Not entirely hopeful that we would have time to attempt a second Dolomites high route we hadn't planned or reserved anything for Alta Via 1. Having a copy of the GPX route downloaded to Gaia and a list of the more popular refuges was the extent of it. Whilst winging...
Planning a long hike during Covid was not as easy as we anticipated. Our, or at least my first option of the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland was pretty much closed - we needed a plan B. We had never really thought too much about the Dolomites but after reading...
Outside of Cape Epic in South Africa the Swiss Epic in Graubünden, Switzerland, is probably the big destination mountain bike race of the Epic series. Being one of the qualifiers for the Cape Epic, the two-person-team five day event is hugely competitive, packed with...
With the forecast calling for rain to fall for multiple days on Chamonix yet again it was time to search out another European city. Having recently got back from Nimes in the south of France it was the turn of Italy. We toyed with a return to Venice, then thought that...
Whilst Mont Blanc comes in at the highest mountain in western Europe its normal "Goûter" route is one of the easiest in the Alps. The 4810m snow covered summit looms over Chamonix, the lower glaciers of Bossons and Taconnaz winding their way down from the upper...
So you want to know what we’re getting up to whilst traveling around the world right? Yeah, thought you did. So come on, sign up here right now and we’ll be sending you a new blog whenever we get around to writing one.