Since we had to pass through the big city on our way to Las Vegas (more on that later), we decided may as well spend a couple nights. While not a whole lot of time, it had been over 15 years since my last and only visit, and somehow Laynni had never been there before […]
Adios, lake. Bienvenidos, city life. Having had an entire day to make our way to Xela, we opted to go the piecemeal public transport route, leading to a journey that went a little something like this: Tuk tuk, pickup truck, minivan, chicken bus, second chicken bus, taxi. All of which still only took a total […]
Weekly blogs have become a thing of the past while in Guatemala, as you’ve probably noticed by now. For the same reason I don’t bother writing much when we’re back in SK, Lake Atitlán has become our de facto second home, and our daily and weekly routines so commonplace (at least to us) that they […]
Drinking, games, and some rather lewd gestures which may cause me trauma for some time (watch closely for suggestive sexual content around the 5-minute mark). Laynni was the organizer (not surprisingly) and chief instigator behind all the jello shots. Andree graciously shot almost all the videos and most of the photos. This is what happens […]
I was recently given the opportunity to offer up all my questionable opinions on travel, travel writing, self-publishing and my “role” in all this. Check it out, or even if you feel like you’ve had your fill of my thoughts at this point, there is a lot of other interesting stuff on the Birds of […]
On March 1st, 2008 we boarded a plane headed to Cairo, Egypt, the very first stop on our questionable new journey as “people without real jobs”. The original idea was for a 3-5 year pre-midlife crisis sojourn away from the real world, but here we are, exactly 10 years later, still just as shiftless and […]
In Roam: The 9 Greatest Trips on Earth, I finally give my definitive answer to the question “What is your favourite place?” In fact, I have written up an entire list of the best trips we have ever done, all of which can be experienced in two weeks or less. Stories and anecdotes, of course, but also […]
Road trip time! Or at least it was, like, three weeks ago. Hey, I never promised these entries would be prompt. Or if I did, I lied. Either way, in late January we decided to piggyback onto a brief excursion by some of our fellow Pasajcappers to check out the active volcano of Santiaguito, organized […]
Visit number eight. That’s right, this is the eighth time we have ventured down to Guatemala and settled into our “white studio with a view”, and the arrival at Lake Atitlán into the welcoming arms of the looming volcanoes is still just as exciting as the very first time. Maybe more so now, as we […]
After a terrific month on Tenerife, where we did a fair bit of hiking, for some reason we upped the activity quotient even further for our last 10 days in Europe, hitting the nearby island of La Gomera, which is even more famous for its nature trails. In addition to a steeply sloped terrain leading […]
Our entire hike, condensed into a manageable 3 minutes of video clips. Some of the magic, none of the pain! I had hoped to have this ready right after we finished hiking but the small netbook we had taken on this trip simply wasn’t up to the task. Better late than never, here is a […]
We closed out our “90 days in Spain” adventure with a 10-day stint on the beautiful hiking island of La Gomera. Just a short ferry ride across from Tenerife, it benefits from a steep, forested terrain that makes it ideal hiking territory. An added benefit is being close enough to Tenerife that almost every hike […]
As promised, here is a detailed list of 10 hikes you can do around Tenerife. Some are incredible, some pleasantly scenic, a couple are just an easy way to get a bit of exercise without straying too far from the comforts and beaches and bars of Puerto de la Cruz. All are easily done as […]
We had booked a month in an apartment in Puerto de la Cruz, in northwestern Tenerife, one of Spain’s Canary Islands sitting just off the west coast of Africa. We had very little, actually not much of anything, on the agenda. Our time here was far more about all the things we would not have […]
In between our long, meandering Camino adventure and our current daily regimen of hiking and scarfing down fresh bread on the island of Tenerife there was an awkward little bubble of time during which we lacked any firm plans. Once we booked our flight to the Canary Islands out of Madrid, however, we knew we […]
Caminos aren’t just really long hikes. They are also fascinating social experiments during which a lot of weird, funny and occasionally freaky stuff takes place. This final entry takes you down that rabbit hole. Unfortunate Injuries Everyone expects a few ailments throughout the course of a 6-week hike. Back pains, blisters, leg cramps, indigestion, fever. […]
So, like I said, we did a pretty weird camino. Last time I explained that we did three weeks on the normal Norte, just like everybody else. Well, normal except for all the alternate routes we found on Wikiloc that kept tempting us off the beaten path and onto those pretty, very unbeaten, occasionally confusing […]
Well, hello again. It’s been a while. Longer than usual, anyway. I believe my last entry – roughly 7 weeks ago – left off with us sitting in San Sebastian on the Atlantic Coast of Northern Spain waiting for our friend, Leigh, to arrive to join us on the Camino Del Norte. Well, he did, […]
I’m quickly rushing through this to provide a small update before we head out tomorrow morning to hike the Camino Del Norte, mainly because the sooner I finish the sooner we can pack up this netbook for safekeeping (also known as exposing it to the whims of the Spanish postal system). Since any belongings we […]
Well, it’s that time of year again. The summer has flown by, as it always seems to, and we find ourselves packing up our bins and getting to work on our annual carpet vacuuming. It’s been a great summer, as usual, with plenty of time spent up at Waskesiu, plenty of sports and, for me, […]
I guess to be truly accurate this wasn’t really just my second road trip ever. There have been many others over the years, from car camping in Banff to a frigid January drive down to Mexico to a group excursion to Delisle for licorice. Or maybe I dreamt that one. Either way, though, this most […]
The following material contains nudity, homosexuality, masturbation and hammocks. Some images may be considered offensive or hilarious. Reader discretion is advised. Two travellers stand alone by the side of the road in southern Mexico, looking vaguely lost and a fair bit dishevelled. Baking under the hot sun, they gaze around uncertainly, slowly considering how exactly […]
Last time I covered all the different villages around Atitlán and discussed the pros and cons of making each your home base during a lake stay (i.e. rowdy trivia contests vs. full moon chanting sessions). Now, children, our topic is “hey, you’re here, now what?” You’ve got yourself a cheap room with a view of […]
Well, although it has been a while since my last post, not to worry, you haven’t missed much. I mean, sure, we’ve continued doing a couple hikes per week, some new ones, some same old, same old. Most nights we spend an hour or two at “Happy Hour” in the palapa above our apartment, joining […]
Since we know at least 4 people who should be arriving imminently, here are some tips for those looking to visit Myanmar: You can buy sim cards with data in the airport for less than $US 10 and considering how often the internet cut out on us during our time in Myanmar, having a […]
The Kingdom of Happiness. Or so they claim. A bold proclamation, and one that certainly caught my full attention. Being inherently confrontational, and often uncontrollably contradictory, at some vaguely remembered point in time a few years back while reading some random – and I seem to recall rather bland – magazine article, in Wanderlust, I […]
Ubud is known far and wide as both the cultural heart of Bali and the most reliable producer of frighteningly large penis key chains (most vendors also sell comically large penis bottle openers, but that’s a whole different discussion). Penestanan, on the other hand, is merely a sleepy little suburb of its much more brazenly […]
With Camino planning season upon us again a lot of people are starting to get interested in all the little details they need to know before they set out sometime this summer. Since we always get a lot of questions from prospective pilgrims, we decided to put together a bit of an advice cheat sheet. […]
Well, if you read Part I earlier this week then you know where we went, what we did, who we did it with, and what we did it to, so now I it’s time to go through some of the highlights, lowlights and dim but memorable lights, like the beam of a flashlight with old […]
Next up on our list of iconic South American trips this winter were the Galápagos Islands. Part of Ecuador despite being located around a thousand kilometres off the coast, this isolated chain of volcanic islands are famous the world over for their vast variety of wildlife, much of it found nowhere else in the world. […]
The moment you’ve all been waiting for. Well, the moment Laynni and my mom have been waiting for anyway. So, in the last entry I rambled somewhat incoherently from topic to topic, focusing mainly on life aboard the Sea Spirit, especially all the perks, benefits and preposterously large meals we ate three or more times […]
A visit to Antarctica, the southernmost land mass on Earth (just a little info for those of you who consider geography to be one of those obscure things best left to professionals, like aerial acrobatics or using salad forks) is something that has always featured prominently on our master list of “things to do before […]
