I feel as if I’m probably in the minority here, but I love noticing interesting geology in the places I travel. Knowing a little about how an area has formed helps me to put its current appearance into perspective and allows me to better appreciate the uniqueness of every place I travel.
Iceland is packed with wonderful natural features not seen in most other places in the world and especially not found right next to each other. Check it out!
Read MoreDue to the aligning of certain factors, Waterford ended up uniquely preserved with many homes and buildings from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Read MoreMost photographers have a that-time-my-memory-card-crapped-out-on-me story. This is mine. Did I learn a lesson here? Yes. When your 6-year old non-professional grade memory card displays some weird warnings on the screen, and you also have several back-up cards at the ready, use them.
Read MoreSkaneateles (literally pronounced “skinny atlas”) is an absolutely adorable little town, right on the north tip of Skaneateles Lake in the New York Finger Lakes region.
Read MoreThe eleven days of our trip were spent with a perfect variety of activities - hiking along the coast and picnicking on the beach at sunset, touring Napa and Sonoma valley wineries, exploring several Spanish Missions, visiting the Monterey Aquarium, and more. The best part was that feeling of familiarity that you only get in a place that reminds you of where you grew up - where the visage of the rocky coast and the smell and cushioned forest floor of pine needles on hikes just feel right.
Read MoreThe California coast (Pacific Coast Highway, Route 1) is one of the prettiest drives, no matter what part of the state you’re in (I’ve done the entire route in various pieces over the years). It isn’t fast, but it isn’t meant to be. This route is about the journey, not the destination. Catching it on a clear day is a must, as the coast is also given to fog frequently. Given the mountain ranges, fog is often present in the morning and evenings and burns off during the day, though not always. Luckily, after morning fog, our northward drive was fog-free!
Read MoreWe had arrived in time for sunset and wandered the short distance to the Mendocino Headlands at the end of the town. We watched as the sun set, the mirroring and, finally, blending of colors along the horizon where the ocean and sky meet for the briefest of moments before the sun disappears and the ocean transforms into a nighttime attire of opaque black.
Read MoreHaving imbibed enough for the day - the amount of alcohol consumed during tastings adds up! - we decided to enjoy the outdoors with a hike at the Bothe-Napa State Park and hiked the Redwood Trail. Fun fact: this park is home to the most inland coastal redwood trees. The trail is 3.3 miles out-and-back and was pretty sparsely populated since of course the wineries are the prime attraction for the area. After an exhausting day, we decided to return to our B&B and eat our leftover pizza poolside.
Read MoreWe spent a couple of days in and around Monterey. We visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which we arrived at early in the day before the crowds. It is one of my favorite aquariums I have been to. As is also the case outside the confines of the aquarium, the coastal area has a lot of seals, sea otters, and sea lions. We grabbed lunch at the cafe at the aquarium and were able to get a window seat to watch sea lions doing what they do best, which appears to be superbly lounging with occasional dips in the water.
Read MoreIt’s an interesting thing how seals can be laying en masse along the beach and yet be so still that you can nearly walk up to them. Oops! We were probably much closer than we should have been before we even saw them. On a sad note, a little ways down the beach was also a dead seal pup with waves washing up and over him.
Read MoreIn our California honeymoon blog series, we described visiting three missions: San Francisco Solano, San Juan Bautista, and Carmel. This blog explains a bit of the history that led to the building of the missions in California and what their impact was on the native and newly arrived communities there.
Read MoreTo celebrate both Thanksgiving and a milestone birthday for my dad, a group of our family headed to the Island of North Captiva, Florida. This tropical getaway was a great respite from the stress of daily life. Click to read more!
Read MoreAsheville is a mountain town in two senses of the word: its downtown is hilly and the city is tucked closely against the larger surrounding mountains. Due to this location, there are gorgeous vistas in every direction. Whether it was unique to our visit or seasonal/geographical due to the mountains, each morning started out with low clouds that took several hours to burn off and each evening, low clouds began moving back in and stirring up a bit of a cool breeze.
Read MoreTo understand Biltmore, you must first understand the breadth of the estate and the size of the house. The house was completed in 1895 and is the largest home in America even today with a whopping square footage of over 178,000 sq feet split into 250 rooms, including 43 bathrooms in an era where any indoor bathrooms were uncommon. The estate includes the home, gardens, a shopping village with winery, and more.
Read MoreWant to make the most of your Biltmore experience? Here are some of our tips!
Read MoreAs always it is important to do your homework when traveling to ensure that you are not inadvertently contributing to practices that negatively impact the planet. Then you can make informed decisions. In Iceland some of the items to be aware of include shark, whale, and to a lesser extent Puffin. Below we explain more about each of these animals. For our general blog on food + drink in Iceland, check out more here.
Read MoreTen days in Iceland is just enough to make it around the country’s famous Ring Road. This overview goes over the basics of our trip.
Read MoreWe booked our flight on Icelandair in September 2017, about 9 months before our June-July 2018 trip. We planned to arrive a little before midnight and spend two nights in Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik. But, as we’ve experienced before, the risk of booking a flight so far in advance is that the airlines may shift their schedules. A few months before our trip, we learned that our flight had shifted to being a red-eye, getting us in the following morning at 6:30am local time. We contacted our Airbnb hosts, who had no problem with the delayed check-in.
Read MoreFrom Reykjavik we headed toward our first destination of the day, Þingvellir National Park. The most densely packed tourist spots on our trip were during this day. While we didn’t complete the so-called Golden Circle just outside of Reykjavik (ours was more of a Golden Half-Circle), the stops along the way are very popular for individuals and tour buses taking day trips from Reykjavik. Getting photos without inadvertent photo bombers was ranged from quite tricky to entirely impossible.
Read MoreAfter a quick run to Hvolsvöllur for some basic groceries at Krónan grocery store, we headed to the shore to catch a ferry from Landeyjahöfn to Heimaey, the only inhabited island of Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).
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