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Diamond Beach and Glaciers Galore
At the beginning of our trip, if you’d asked Tony what one thing he was most excited to see, he would have said, without a moment of hesitation, Diamond Beach. The interesting thing about his...
Darjeeling
Darjeeling is beautiful!!! I already feel like I need to come back here to do some hiking. The crew I’m with right now is not exactly the hiking type, so I don’t think we’ll be...
Havuts Tar Monastery
Victoria and I decided that we wanted to go on a Saturday adventure, so we planned a mini-excursion to visit Havuts Tar Monastery. It was on my list of places to go because I read...
Ada Foah aka Paradise
Fernanda leaves us at the end of the week, so she got to pick the location for our weekend travels. Her demands were simple; she wanted to go someplace pretty and relaxing. And so, that’s...
A Day in Dubai: The Burj Khalifa
Dubai Day started bright and early… and after an INCREDIBLY restful four hours of plane sleep on my flight from Beirut. My flight landed at 4:45AM, I zoomed through immigration, and I tried to somewhat...
Bath: Roman Baths and A City Frozen in Time
My adventures of blindly following the advice of strangers continued the next day in Bath. Why Bath? I didn’t know. What’s there? I also didn’t know that. My entire knowledge base going in was that...
Macaw Morning
If you’re looking for a relaxing vacation where you can sleep in and lounge around, the rainforest probably isn’t a good destination for you. Well, there’s plenty of lounge time, and you couldn't pick a...
Ecuador
Welcome to Quito and Quito Botanical Gardens
Welcome to Quito! After nearly two weeks of baking in the Galapagos sun, the cool, night air that greeted me in Quito, Ecuador’s capital, was a welcome change! Quito is way up in the highlands,...
Isabela Island – Los Túneles
Does it feel like we’ve been in the Galapagos forever? Well, there are certainly worse places to spend however many months it’s taken me to write these posts. Believe it or not, though, we’ve made...
Isabela Island – Sierra Negra Volcano
Most Galapagos day tours have a similar pattern… boat ride, walk around and look at animals, snorkel, boat ride, home. On our second-to-last day, we did something a little different and went on a hiking...
Isabela Island – Tortoises, Flamingos, and the Wall of Tears
After our morning tour to Las Tintoreras, we still had half of the day free for more activities! My aunt and I went into town after a brief stop at our hotel and started asking...
Isabela Island – Las Tintoreras
Welcome to Isabela Island! After our few days on Santa Cruz, we relocated one final time to Isabela, the largest island in the Galapagos. We’ll talk more about Isabela in the next few posts, but...
Santa Cruz – Tortoises and Tortuga Bay
Last time, we did some adventuring around Santa Cruz Island. We visited some spots downtown and checked out Las Grietas (aka the best snorkeling spot), Los Gemelos lava craters, and the lava tubes of El...
Santa Cruz – Las Grietas and Los Gemelos
We had one “free day” worked into the schedule while we were on Santa Cruz, and like before, that didn’t mean “do nothing day”. My aunt had a whole list of things that we could...
North Seymour Island
The day after we explored San Cristobal’s highlands, we made our first relocation from San Cristobal to Santa Cruz, the second largest island in the Galapagos and home to their most populous city, Puerto Ayora....
San Cristóbal Highlands
Following our two days of full-day tours, we “took it easy” with a “free” day that ended up being one of the most exhausting of all. We didn’t have an official tour scheduled, but that...
Kicker Rock
In my mind, there are two types of vacations: the “lounging and relaxing” type (not worth going too far from home because you can lounge equally well anywhere), and the “I need a vacation to...
Española Island
Our first tour day in the Galapagos started nice and early. We were making a day trip from San Cristóbal, where we were staying, to Española, one of the many uninhabited islands. Before we left,...
Welcome to the Galapagos Islands!
The morning after my short day in Guayaquil, I met my aunt, uncle, and cousins at the airport for our flight to San Cristóbal, our first stop in the Galapagos! I was really excited that...
Patagonia/ARGENTINA
Casa Rosada and La Boca
It’s our last day in Argentina, folks! Mike and I had an evening flight back to New York which gave us most of the day to do some last-minute sightseeing. I was excited because it...
“Random Buenos Aires” Tour
Welcome back to the world’s longest day! I’ve already talked about our morning of wandering and visiting Recoleta Cemetery and our tour of Teatro Colón. When we left the theater, it was only 1:30PM! We...
Teatro Colón
We left off last time as Mike and I were headed to Teatro Colón, the national opera house, for a tour. In case you didn’t know, I have a theater/opera house obsession… and while I...
The World’s Most Beautiful *fill in the blank*
Instead of spending another day aimlessly wandering the city, like on our first day in Buenos Aires, we attempted to formulate a plan to make the most of our only full day in the city....
Welcome to Buenos Aires!
Since it’s been a while since my last post about Mike’s and my trip to Patagonia/Buenos Aires, let me reacclimate you. We just finished 7 days of hiking, hiking, and hiking, and by some miracle,...
Argentina History: 1900s to Present
Last time, we talked about Argentina’s transformation from a land of indigenous tribes to a Spanish colony to an independent republic. It entered the 20th century in the middle of a very prosperous golden age....
Argentina History: 1400s – 1800s
Welcome back to Argentina! I know it’s been a while... I’ve put off this post because I had to do some research, and that's always a bit more time-intensive than when I primarily have pretty...
Chorillo del Salto and Strolling Around El Chaltén
Our final day in El Chaltén was also our final day of hiking... our seventh in a row. The fun wasn’t completely over - we had a flight to Buenos Aires the following day, but...
Laguna de los Tres
Our only full day in El Chaltén was dedicated to the hike to Laguna de los Tres. It’s the most popular hike in the area, is listed as “difficult”, and is supposed to take 8...
El Chaltén and Laguna Torre
Our stay in El Calafate was especially short the second time around. We arrived at about 10:30PM, went to sleep at 3:30AM because we apparently love to self-sabotage, and caught a bus to El Chaltén...
The W Trek, Day 4 – Mirador Las Torres
Our final day in Torres del Paine started bright and early… if by bright you mean dark because the sun wasn’t up yet. We had about 9.5 hours of hiking ahead, and we needed to...
The W Trek, Day 3 – Lake Nordenskjöld
Our third day of the W trek started out much better than the second. There was no wind in the forest where we were camping. I didn’t wake up terrified of blowing away. Nothing disturbed...
The W Trek, Day 2 – French Valley
I had possibly the worst sleep of my life after our first day of hiking in Torres del Paine. The day was windy enough to make you feel like you were going to blow away,...
The W Trek, Day 1 – Grey Glacier
Torres del Paine National Park is well-known for two major treks. One is called the W, and the other is the O… very creatively named for the approximate shapes of the trails. Based on our...
The Road to Torres del Paine
My alarm jolted me awake at 5:15AM, and it didn’t take long for the feelings of soreness and tiredness to sink in. Ugh. Mornings are the worst. Especially early mornings after long days of hiking...
Perito Moreno Glacier Trekking
Our first full day started out bright and early with a 7AM bus pickup from our hostel. In writing that, I realize that 7AM isn’t actually that early, but on vacation after a day of...
Welcome to Patagonia!
I know, I know. I practically just welcomed you to Peru, and now we’re in Patagonia? What is this? Confusing, that’s what. But here we are, and if you ever want to hear about Patagonia...
Poland
Wieliczka Salt Mines
I left Auschwitz around 4PM and took a bus back to Kraków. I had plans to leave Poland the following day, and I still had one thing I wanted to do – visit the Wieliczka...
Auschwitz II-Birkenau
As I explained in my last post, Auschwitz was actually a camp in many parts. The two largest were Auschwitz I which I talked about, and Auschwitz II-Birkenau which is probably the most well-known. Auschwitz...
Auschwitz I
Poland was added to my "must go" travel list during a visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. Before that, I don’t think I’d ever thought twice about Poland, but I was standing there, looking...
Kraków Ghetto and Wawel Hill
I didn’t have any big plans for my second day in Kraków, so I allowed myself a leisurely morning before setting out to investigate the random collection of things I had on my “to see”...
Kraków Old Town
My next stop after Warsaw was Kraków (kra-kohv) in southern Poland. I was sad to leave Warsaw behind, but at least I still had more time ahead in Poland. I wasn’t ready to move on...
Warsaw Museums
I spent a lot of time wandering aimlessly around the streets of Warsaw, partly because I was recovering from Iceland and partly because sometimes it’s nice to simply wander. You know me, though. I also...
More Warsaw
Last time, we left off in the heart of Warsaw Old Town, Old Town Market Square. Now, let's go to the edge of Old Town and the old city walls. Starting in the 14th century,...
A Walk Around Warsaw
My flight landed in Warsaw (Warszawa in Polish, pronounced like "Varshava") at about 6:30 in the morning. I wanted to collapse from exhaustion, but I still had a whole day ahead so that wasn’t an...
History of Poland, 1797 – Today
When we left off last time, Poland had just been partitioned for the third time, resulting in ALL of the Polish lands being given to other countries. Poland was gone. Clearly, considering that Poland is...
History of Poland, 996-1797AD
Are you ready for a Polish history adventure? I hope so because this is a long one, but in order to understand the Poland of today, I think it’s important to know the history behind...
Welcome to Poland!
I know it feels like we’ve been in Iceland forever, but in realtime, it was only a week (ha!). My Icelandic adventure ended a bit anticlimactically… with a 16-hour stay in the airport. My brother’s...
