One Giant Step

We flew to the coast this past weekend. As we descended through the cloud cover our first glimpse of the ocean was through a rainbow. A good sign…no? Where I come from the beaches are rocky. Smooth and round up the beach; rough and barnacled near the water. Turn one over and you’re likely to see [...]

Oh! Could we go to Barcelona? Pleeezzeee!! It’s been on ‘the list’ for a while. I think it would be the perfect playground with its Gaudi architecture, tapas culture and public art and it would be a great chance for us to work on our (very) rusty Spanish. And that’s exactly how we would spend [...]

It’s just about a year ago that we packed up all of our stuff and headed east over the Rocky Mountains to Calgary. We’re really enjoying it there; taking advantage of living so close to the mountains and exploring the surrounding prairie, but this weekend we flew back to the coast to visit family and [...]

One of my favourite things to do in Hanoi is to find a Bia Hoi (or fresh beer) shop, sit, and watch the world go by. It’s a popular pastime; there are over 3000 Bia Hoi shops in Hanoi. We visited this one regularly during our time there. This is the owner. He would come down the [...]

Photo Credit: ccharmon I know that Dublin has tons to offer. History, culture, architecture, park space, castles and seaside. But if I were to go to Dublin it would be all about the beer! Knowing my love of beer it might be hard to believe that I’ve actually never had a Guinness! You see, I come [...]

Some of the fondest memories of our RTW trip are the five days we spent in an apartment in Berlin. I was already head-over-heels in love with Germany – its cleanliness and orderliness, its undeniable history and steadfast resolve to overcome it, its attention to detail, and its beer….oh, the beer!! Staying in an apartment, [...]

Bali is infused with beauty and grace. Temples abound, rice paddies fill the valleys, and the volcano Mt Agung — acting as the spiritual center of the island — dominates the skyline. There is balance is everything the Balinese do. Offerings for the gods, and the demons. Taking care of the water, and the earth. [...]

Photo Credit: RefractedMoments We struggled with this question when we were planning our RTW trip in 2009. Back then we were able to look at other traveler’s budget sheets, research costs in each country, figure out air fares and figure out how big the chunk of money would have to be in order to travel [...]

The Galata Bridge in the heart of Istanbul is a gathering place for both locals and tourists. Locals set themselves up for hours at a time fishing off the upper deck or tucking themselves away in the lower decks cafes and restaurants. Tourists stop off at the boats selling fish sandwiches on one side and stroll [...]

We headed to the mountains again last weekend. We had visited Johnstone Canyon in the summer but, this time, we brought along spikes for our shoes… And spent a couple of hours wandering the ice covered walkways. Can you see them?      

We had seen elephants at the elephant camp near Chiang Mai but I really wanted to see them in the wild. We headed out to Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand specifically for the hike through the jungle and grasslands where a pack of elephants were known to live. The hike was beautiful but oh-how-it-rained! [...]