The first time I laid eyes on Argentina, I knew it was a place I had to visit. We had taken a tour boat across the beautiful Chilean lake Todos los Santos (2015). From the boat I could see enticing glacier covered mountain tops in the distance and I learned that if we continued our […]
I recently started riding an electric bike and it fills me with great shame. Or at least it did…until recently. Who knew a bicycle with a battery and a little motor would be so fraught with emotional baggage? It seems this bike has given me a front-row seat to the underbelly of both 1) the bike […]
There is always that one person on most every group travel trip. You know… “the one.” They often exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: An exhausting personality or offensive sense of humor. The embodiment of the crass and entitled (North) American tourist stereotype. Talking your ear off at dinner, all the while complaining about […]
For longer than I can remember, my work has had a tradition where fellow staff give lunchtime presentations about their international trips. It’s a fun way to learn about the world and dream up new exotic locations to visit before returning to the email-meeting-email hamster wheel we all seem to find ourselves stuck on. When […]
Somewhere along the way Glenn and I lost that sense of awe that comes from traveling. We no longer felt the little tingle in the pit of our stomachs that said “oh wow, look at that” or “huh, this is a new and somewhat uncomfortable situation.” Traveling went from a grand adventure to a little […]
I’m trying not to develop a complex, but natural disasters seem to follow us everywhere we go. I feel like our arrival in a new country should be taken as a bad omen as the power of nature will soon befall those in our path. When we arrived in Quito (Ecuador) the nearby volcano Cotopaxi began […]
Kiwis are an endearing lot. The people, not the birds. Although I am sure the birds are nice too. New Zealanders always seem to be happy and positive. I love how they tell you to have a great day and actually mean it. I love that they seem genuinely excited when you give them your […]
I think the sizable dose of codeine found in the over-the-counter cold medicine I was taking last week (no prescription needed here in New Zealand!) was dulling my senses and making my introduction to this country seem less than spectacular. I look back on my blog post highlighting my somewhat blasé attitude about New Zealand and […]
Sometimes it is better not to tell your mother what you are doing until after you have done it. Biking Bolivia’s notorious “Death Road” is one of those things. Surprise Mom! Before leaving for our trip I told my friend Sandra, who is from Bolivia, what we had planned and she said “What? My mother […]
Aside from my somewhat failed trail run half-marathon last year, it’s been a while since I’ve wanted to quit a physical activity. But, that’s exactly what happened when we set out to bike across the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia. After visiting the Atacama Desert (in Chile) and doing a 3-day driving tour through the Bolivian desert, […]
“Ride like a Chilean. Like you are making love to a woman,” Yasu our guide said about our impending horse ride. This…was our introduction to the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Glenn’s brother Chris had flown down from Santa Cruz, California, to join us for a little adventuring. On this first morning we found ourselves […]
Glenn spent our first night on Easter Island writhing in pain on the bed in our hotel room. We had come to the island, whose true name is Rapa Nui, to visit the stone figures called moai. (sounds like “mow-eye”) Unfortunately, Glenn decided to bring some stones of his own in the form of kidney […]
We’ve only been in Ecuador for a few days and we have already fallen in love. The people are warm, generous and very patient as we stumble with speaking Spanish. Everyone greets us with a smile and “buenas dias” – and we hope that is as far as the conversation goes because beyond that they […]
Croatia is the land of waterfalls, whiffs, warblers, weed-whackers and war. Glenn and I recently found ourselves in Croatia to run the first ever Dubrovnik International Half-Marathon and we spent some time after that event to explore this beautiful country. We decided to join an REI Adventures tour that included biking, hiking and kayaking across […]
A year ago this week I was bicycling through Vietnam – a dream come true. I had been captivated by the idea of biking the rice fields of Vietnam from the instant I saw pictures of such a trip on the REI adventure travel website nearly 10 years earlier when Glenn and I were looking […]
