After traipsing the Greek mainland to visit various historical and archaeological sights, we figured it was time to treat ourselves (errr….Jess) with a bit of the glamorous side of Greece: its islands. In doing so, however, we wanted to avoid the most popular (and expensive) Greek islands (most notably, Santorini Read more…
It’s not controversial to say that Greece is a popular tourist spot. Makes sense. The interesting thing is that it seems to be a somewhat narrow type of tourism, with people mostly spending time in Athens and the islands (and even then, it’s usually just a couple famous islands). Since Read more…
After picking up our rental car from Athens (a brand-new car, but still a manual transmission, which once again meant that Rorie would be taking on all of the driving in Greece), we set off north toward Meteora, a fantastic-looking natural area with monasteries perched on the top of sheer Read more…
Throughout our travels it has been jarring to change countries – new languages, cultures, currency and other idiosyncrasies which often unveil themselves over time. Landing in Athens, Greece in the early evening, however, was weird in that it was a totally different experience – we were immediately enveloped in familiarity. Read more…
From Petra we headed a couple hours south into Wadi Rum, the large and well-known red sand desert that has been the setting for films such as Star Wars, The Martian, and Lawrence of Arabia (not to mention the real-life location of the latter, as we would soon come to Read more…
After over a week in Jordan, we were finally ready to go see its main attraction and one of the 7 wonders of the world: Petra! To get there, we began by driving several hours south along the Desert Highway, which is a fairly descriptive name for this stretch of Read more…
As you can probably gather from the title, the few days covered by this post will have a little bit of everything. On our way from Amman to Dana Nature Reserve, we stopped to visit Kerak, which is another historic castle that is apparently larger and more significant than the Read more…
After a month of traipsing around the U.S. during our unexpected detour, we finally set out for the next stop in our travels – Jordan – via an overnight flight from NYC (connecting through Ukraine on its national airline, which folks should avoid at all costs). We finally arrived in Read more…
After saying goodbye to us in Borneo, my parents headed east around the world to hit Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Beijing in China before returning home to Seattle. Meanwhile, Rorie and I continued west around the world and left Asia, our home for the past seven-ish months. Our destination Read more…
After a couple of days visiting animal conservatories and other sights around Sandakan, Malaysia, we took our first foray into the “wild” side of Borneo by heading to a lodge on the Kinabatangan River. This was our first of three jungle lodge spots on our Borneo tour, each of which Read more…
Before getting started, we want to apologize for the delay in our blog posts. I experienced a family medical emergency (no worries – it’s all turning out okay now) that forced us to catch a last second flight from Dubai back to the U.S., which threw an unexpected wrench in Read more…
The city of Georgetown, located on the island of Penang in Malaysia, marches to the beat of its own drum. As it relates to tourism, it sorta zigs where everyone else zags and has embraced a fairly alternative scene that makes it the Brooklyn of Asia (in our estimation). Since Read more…
We hopped on a short flight from Bali to the town of Labuan Bajo on Flores Island, the main town (and only airport) located near Komodo National Park. This national park is comprised of a collection of untouched islands, including the only islands in the entire world where wild Komodo Read more…
Once we joined back up together on the island of Nusa Lembongan, the next several days were spent not doing a whole lot. We took the motorbike around the island, exploring and finding beautiful ocean-side cliffs and views, eating more smoothie bowls than you can count, and laying by the Read more…
After 1.5 months of fairly rigorous (but very rewarding!) travel through Myanmar and India, we needed a break. Additionally, despite spending almost 6 months in Asia, we had only spent roughly 2 weeks of that time at the beach – an amount of time that Jess wasn’t a big fan Read more…
After a short flight from Udaipur to Mumbai, we began our last stop in India in its largest city (even larger than Delhi). Mumbai also happens to be the most expensive city we visited in India, and after some unsuccessful hotel searches we settled on an Airbnb for our accommodations. Read more…
Our first few stops in and around the Indian state of Rajasthan were in a trio of cities known as “The Golden Triangle” – Delhi, Agra and Jaipur – which were wonderful and beautiful, but also a veritable viper’s nest of con artists and scammers attempting to prey on us Read more…
A popular tourist trail in India is known as the Golden Triangle, which includes Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, so our arrival from Agra to Jaipur signaled our end of this loop. Jaipur is interesting in that it is known as the “Pink City” and is the capital of the state Read more…
We flew from Guwahati to Delhi on the eve of Holi, the holiday in India also known as the Festival of Color where people throw colored powder at each other, rub it into each other’s faces and hair, and generally have a spirited, joyful party. We planned to be in Read more…
The mental image most people have of India – and that we shared prior to this trip – is that the country is very large and diamond-shaped. Few people seem to realize that, from the northeast portion of the diamond, there is a thin strip of land that juts out Read more…