If they’re not already, the Azores Islands deserve a spot on your vacation short list. These Portugese islands are in the Atlantic Ocean, about a three hour flight from the mainland (or a 5 hour flight from the East Coast USA). The islands are accessible, affordable, easy to get around, beautiful, and so much fun! I can’t recommend a trip here enough. For this trip, I was traveling with my pal Katharine. Unfortunately, John didn’t have enough time off work to…
Preparing to hike the W trek in Torres del Paine National Park took some planning. Getting to and from Patagonia requires many flights, buses, and ferries. There are three different companies offering lodging within the park. Finding availability at the sites where we hoped to stay took a bit of shuffling until we got the nights we’d be in each spot just right. Needless to say, we were thrilled when it all came together and we finally arrived at the…
After leaving Moab, we continued south to check a few more national parks (and one city) off our list! Bryce Canyon National Park I didn’t know much about Bryce before we showed up and I was blown away by this park! We got there around 2pm and had no problem finding a campsite which definitely started our visit off on the right foot. After setting up and settling in, we set off for a hike in Byrce Amphitheater, the main…
We were so excited to get out to Utah to spend a whole week with the Garland family! John’s sister Carolyn lives out there so his parents and brother flew out and we all met for a week of fun in the Moab area. This was an absolute highlight of the summer. Here’s the lowdown on our week: Salt Lake City We all met up in Salt Lake City. John and I beat the rest of the family there by…
The five days we spent in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks were some of the best of our summer road trip! The parks are just gorgeous and have so many interesting and unique features, like tons of geothermal activity, big, beautiful mountains, and ANIMALS! Fun fact: Yellowstone is often described as the best place for a safari game drive in North America. Planning your own visit or just curious about our experience? Here are some of our tips for…
After a week of driving, we arrived in the Rocky Mountains! Seeing them felt like a big moment in our cross-country road trip. We knew we had driven so far! We spent some time in the Rockies on both the Canadian and American sides, starting with visits to Banff in Canada and Glacier National Park in Montana! Here’s a peek at what we did: Banff & Lake Louise We crossed the border into Canada (again!) for three wonderful nights in…
We couldn’t believe it when we crossed into South Africa, our last stop before heading home! Ah! We had about a week to explore a bit of the west coast of the country. We ended the trip in style with lots of wine, beautiful hiking, and, of course, animal activities! Wine Country Our first stop in South Africa was at a a family-run winery/camp ground called Highlanders. The owner Sparky (who hilariously has a dog named Ben) organized a wine tasting…
We’re back in the USA! We landed in D.C. on April 21 and have been enjoying the past two weeks with friends and family. While it’s been awhile since we were in Namibia, we wanted to share our stories and photos, both so that you can see them and so we can remember them! Thanks for following along, even when we get a bit out of sync with real time! The two weeks we spent in Namibia were the most…
New Zealand has a series of nine “Great Walks,” popular “tramping” (aka hiking + camping) trails that go through some of the most scenic parts of the country. My dad had heard great things about one of these hikes, the Routeburn Track, from his friend who is a New Zealand native so we decided to give it a try. Planning the Hike What is the Routeburn Track??! The Routeburn Track is located in the southwest of New Zealand, connecting Fiordland…
New Zealand is one of the places we’ve been most excited to visit; we heard great things about the people and expected the scenery to be awesome. It lived up to the hype and we had the most fun road trip here with my dad who flew to meet up with us for two weeks! What a treat! We rented a car from Rent-A-Dent in Christchurch (which is much nicer than it sounds) and spent two weeks exploring the South…