Originally when we were thinking about traveling to Australia, we were going to focus our time around the Sydney area. We knew we only had about a week to give, so we couldn’t do a full road trip around the continent (as I’d love to do someday!) so we figured we could spend our time in Sydney and its surrounds. But then we made some … Continue reading Reefs & Rainforest: 10 Fun Things To Do Near Cairns, Australia
After checking out the sights around Rotorua and Tongariro National Park, our next stop on New Zealand’s North Island was Waitomo, where you can see the famous glowworm caves! Those are a fantastic experience, but we found plenty of other things to do in the beautiful Waitomo area as well. (1) Glowworm Tour Options There are many options to see glowworms around Rotorua, including the … Continue reading Glowworms & More: 5 Things to Do in Waitomo, New Zealand
The city of Rotorua and its surrounding area (which I’ll say includes Taupo for the sake of this post) is a small town along the lake of the same name on New Zealand’s North Island. It really is a must-visit if you’re touring NZ, and you’ll find a wide variety of things to do there. Read on for a few must-dos, as well as suggestions … Continue reading 8 Rotorua, New Zealand Must-Dos
Originally our “Oceania trip” was just going to be a week in New Zealand and a week in Australia. But while looking to book a flight to New Zealand and thinking about how difficult it was going to be to get up and drive around NZ’s North Island after flying for nearly 24 hours and changing so many time zones, I had a stroke of … Continue reading 12 Reasons to Do a Stopover in Fiji
I didn’t set out to spend time exploring Long Beach, California. In fact, we only ended up there at all because I accidentally booked the wrong flight to Los Angeles. It was a day earlier than our LA to Fiji flight, so we ended up needing to spend about 24 hours in the Los Angeles region. LA and the cities around it are a pretty … Continue reading 24 Hours in Long Beach, California
This year I was lucky enough to visit three different US cities – Washington, D.C. over Easter weekend, Boston over the Fourth of July, and Seattle over a different weekend in July. Two of these trips (Washington, DC and Seattle) were done very cheaply and the other (Boston) was a bit more of a “treat yo self”, so I can definitely share some ways that … Continue reading How to Plan a Cheap Long Weekend to Any US City
There are many reasons you may want to get off the beaten path in Seattle. Maybe you’re on a tight budget and some of the more iconic Seattle spots (ahem, Space Needle) are too pricey. Maybe, like me, you get anxiety from crowds and would like to avoid the crush of people at well-known spots like Pike Place Market. Or maybe this isn’t your first … Continue reading 10 Ways to Get Off the Beaten Path in Seattle
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, it’s no secret that my first trip to Paris was less than stellar. On a two week trip where we visited London, Edinburgh, and Paris, that city was by far the worst of the three. When I returned I found out that I was not alone in my experience – many people have the idea of … Continue reading How to Avoid Disappointment on Your First Trip to Paris
Whenever I travel, I enjoy having regionally appropriate reading material for downtime–waiting at airports, on flights, in the evenings, etc. Here I’d like to share some of my selections for traveling through Peru. I will note that not all of these are necessarily set in Peru, because I am looking more to get a feel for the region through literature. Therefore I have a few … Continue reading 8 Books to Read While Traveling Peru
Machu Picchu is on just about everyone’s bucket list, but if you visit Peru don’t overlook some of the other incredible Inca archaeological sites you can visit! To be clear, this is a list of other accessible Inca sites you can visit in the Sacred Valley. There are lots of treks to Inca ruins too, whether you want an alternate trek to the Inca Trail, or … Continue reading Beyond Machu Picchu: 12 Other Archaeological Sites to Visit in the Sacred Valley