Hello Everyone, We didn’t have any trouble in Fes with people trying to cheat us, until the day we left. We waved down a taxi at the main square for a ride to the train station, only 1.5 miles away and he said he would use the meter. After the taxi driver found out we […]
2 ~ Hello From Rabat & Tangier, Morocco Read More »
Hello Everyone, The VaughanTown language school worked out really well. It was nearly the same as the program we attended 8 years in Belmonte Spain. I wrote more extensively about it then, so I’ll just review a few details about the current program now. There were around 12 volunteers and 15 students housed at a
1 ~ Hello From Fes, Morocco Read More »
Hello Everyone, Friday afternoon, Carol and I will be “Back On The Road Again.” This time our adventure will take us to Morocco. We’ll start in Fes, probably the most inviting city there, for 4 days. Then, on to Rabat, the capital city, for a couple more days and then ending in Tangier. We haven’t
0 ~ “On the Road Again” to Spain & Morocco Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our final destination on this trip, Trabzon, is a small city in northeastern Turkey, on the Black Sea coast, near the border to Georgia. The geology is what I would call “wildly” mountainous, because there are peaks and valleys everywhere, but not much flat land between them. Everywhere you go, in from the seacoast, you
3 ~ Hello From Trabzon, Turkey Read More »
Hello Everyone, Istanbul – We have traveled to Turkey several times in the past and I have written a lot about Istanbul. However, there are few new things to report as an update. Our last visit was back before the pandemic. It had always been easy just to stop by Istanbul for a few days and “hang out.” The
2 ~ Hello from Istanbul & Safranbolu, Turkey Read More »
Hello Everyone, Romania is still a poor country, but things are steadily improving. They have joined the European Union to help their economy & standard of living, and have also joined NATO to help assure their independence from Russia. However, their national airline, Tarom, leaves a bit to be desired. We flew to Bucharest, from Amsterdam
1 ~ Hello from Bucharest, the Capital of Romania Read More »
Hello Everyone, This week Carol and I are headed to Turkey’s Black Sea region. After a few nights in Bucharest, Romania, we’ll fly to Istanbul and eventually settle in at Safranbolu and Trabzon, before returning home. Seventeen years ago we traveled to Romania to see its wonders. Bucharest was not on our agenda then,
0 ~ Thursday We’re “On The Road Again”, This time to Turkey’s Black Sea Region Read More »
Hello Everyone, A Nightmare With A Problem Vietnam Visa…. The day we left Cambodia, for Hanoi, we got to the airport early and had plenty of time before our flight. However, when we got there we discovered that the airline desk didn’t open until two and a half hours before the flight. So, we had
3 ~ Hello from Hanoi, Vietnam Read More »
Hello Everyone, About a three hour drive [94 miles] southwest of Phnom Penh is the small city of Kampot. Over the years it has become a destination for the more budget conscious traveler. It’s a bit of a noisy city with lots of construction and hoards of motorbikes and cars clogging the streets. We hired a driver, with
2 ~ Hello From Kampot, Cambodia Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our 23 hour journey to Phnom Penh was “mostly” uneventful, 13 hours to a short layover in Seoul, South Korea and then 6 more hours in the air to Phnon Penh. While waiting for our flight in Seoul we had lunch at the Priority Pass lounge. That day’s feature presentation was “American Corn Dogs.” Figuring
1 ~ Hello From Phnom Penh, Cambodia Read More »
Hello Everyone, We are “Back on the Road Again.” This time to Cambodia and Vietnam. After almost 20 years, we are headed back to Cambodia. We last visited there in late 2004 with a group called “Global Exchange.” They sponsor “Reality Tours”, exposing their participants to local culture and socioeconomic issues, as well as the typical tourist sights. At
0 ~ We’re “On the Road Again” to Cambodia and Vietnam Read More »
Originally we had planned to spend a night at Petra and Wadi Rum, but, due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to visit these places in a day trip from Amman instead. It’s a 3 hour drive from Amman to Petra, so this shortened the amount of time we could spend at each place.
2 ~ Hello From Petra, Wadi Rum and Dead Sea, Jordan Read More »
On the way to Jorden we stopped in London for 4 nights to see what’s new since the pandemic. One good thing of note is that you can now use “touchless pay” for anything, with a “tap” from a credit card, smartphone or watch, including the fares for all modes of transportation. In fact, many places now
1 ~ Hello From Amman, Jordan Read More »
Hello Fellow REAL and ARMCHAIR Travelers, Later today, Carol and I will finally getting back into the swing of traveling again, now, since the Pandemic has been easing up a bit. Until now, we have traveled to some “easy” locations like Italy and Spain. This time we are venturing a bit farther and more unusual.
0 ~ We’re On The Road Again……. This Time to JORDAN, in the Middle East Read More »
Hi Everyone, After leaving Porto, we headed to our next stop, Bilbao, Spain. This transit involved an airplane trip into Spain, because there were foreboding mountains in the way, hindering easy train travel. Unfortunately, there were no direct flights on the day we wanted to travel. So, it was necessary to take a train to Lisbon, to get
2 ~ Hello From Bilbao, Spain Read More »
Hello There, As air travel has regressed into these days, our trip to Porto began with a 3 hour flight delay at SeaTac airport. Fortunately for us, we had a 5 hour layover before out connecting flight in Amsterdam. So, our plan was safe so far. We took the Seattle light rail to the airport. It usually involves
1 ~ Hello From Porto, Portugal Read More »
Hi Everyone, Tomorrow, Sunday, Carol and I are heading to SE Europe for another travel adventure. After a great experience with “Post-Pandemic?” travel last Spring [in NW Italy], we decided to do it again this Fall in SW Europe. While the Pandemic is not really behind us yet, and the future of it is still
0 ~ On the Road again – Southwestern Europe Read More »
Hello Everyone, Taking a walking tour of a new city is always a great idea, to get a quick idea of what there is to see and get our bearings before heading out by ourselves. We can usually find a free or inexpensive tour through a local hostel or tourist agency. It’s usually a small
3 ~ Hello From Turin [Torino], Italy Read More »
Hello Everyone, On our way from Lucca to Genoa, we stopped for two nights at a cute little town called Chiavari, that was recommended by a friend. It’s a costal city a little way north of the Cinque Terra. It poured down rain the entire time we were there, but it was the perfect place to
2 ~ Hello From Genoa, Italy Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our flight to Italy this time was one of the best ever. For the first time, we upgraded to a premium seat that was wider than normal and offered us our own row of two seats left of the aisle, instead of three. It was not “first class”, but the wider seats and private
1 ~ Hello From Lucca, Italy Read More »
Hello Everyone, Hello Everyone, We’re Back “On The Road Again…..” Yes, it’s been a long 3 years and 2 major international trips canceled, at the last minute [Ukraine and Iceland]. But, with a little luck, I think we’re going to be using our passports once again, this month. To ease back into international travel, Carol
0 ~ Off On Our First Post-Pandemic Adventure – To NW Italy Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our last stop in Egypt was Aswan, about 140 miles south, up the Nile, by private car. It was a delightful drive through irrigated farmland growing lots of bananas and mangos (among other things) and numerous small towns. It took almost 6 hours of driving to travel that distance because we had to
4 ~ Hello From Aswan, Egypt Read More »
Hi Everyone, Well, the 11 hour train ride to Luxor turned out to be a fun and rewarding experience for us. Most tourists would have taken a “cruise” up the Nile or a flight from Cairo to Luxor, but we wanted to rub elbows with the locals, not other tourists, so the train ride worked
3 ~ Hello from Luxor, Egypt Read More »
Hi Everyone, To get to Cairo from Rome we had previously purchased a one way ticket on Egypt-Air, because they had the best flight times. However, as often happens while traveling these days, shortly after arriving at the airport we learned that our flight would be delayed more than 3 hours, arriving after midnight the
2 ~ Hello From Cairo, Egypt Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our trip to Egypt started out with three days in Rome where we got over the initial jet-lag while re-visiting “The Eternal City” for the n-th time. We walked a lot there, one day exceeding 10 miles. Carol had read about a Roman suburb, called Testaccio, that is being gentrified, so we thought
1 ~ Hello From Rome [on the way to Egypt] Read More »
Hello Everyone, Tomorrow afternoon, March 19th, Carol and I are heading off on another travel adventure, this time Egypt. You may have already read Carol’s first blog entry about how she planned our trip. We had intended to visit Egypt many years ago, but one thing or another stood in the way. Finally, we got
0 ~ Destination Egypt……. March, 2019 Read More »
Hello Everyone, We spent our last few days in Peru’s capital city, Lima. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this city of 8.5 million people, but it turned out to be a delightful place. It is a fairly young city, as capital cities go, founded by the Spaniard, Francisco Pizzaro, in 1535, in a
4 ~ Hello From Lima, Peru Read More »
Hello Everyone, Machu Picchu was built high in the mountains, but at a lower elevation (8,000 ft) than the other cities we visited. To get there we took a train to a small town, Aguas Calientes, where we boarded a bus that zig-zagged back and forth up a mountain side 1500 feet above us. They
3 ~ Hello from Machu Picchu & Cusco, Peru Read More »
Hello Everyone, Ollantaytambo is a delightful small city in the Andean mountains of Peru. It was our favorite of all the places we visited here. Though it is touristed a bit, it also has a large indigenous population of farmers and local workers that live here. It’s a good place to actually mix with the
2 ~ Hello From Ollantaytambo, Peru Read More »
Hello Everyone, As I mentioned earlier, our adventure to Peru began via train to Vancouver, Canada, where we spent the afternoon visiting a casino, an outlet mall and cool stuff at the airport, for Carol’s story about “how to have fun in Vancouver for the day while saving big bucks on your international airline ticket.”
1 ~ Hello from the Backroads of Peru Read More »
Hello Everyone, Carol and I are heading off on another travel journey tomorrow morning (Monday, September 17th, 2018). This time we’re going South, for 2 weeks, all the way to Peru. It’ll be our first trip to South America since 1999. The main attraction will be the historic Inca ruins at Machu Picchu. We’re traveling
0 ~ On the Road Again………. Sept, 2018 – This Time Peru Read More »
Hello from Baku and Abu Dhabi, A three hour flight across the Caspian Sea brought us to Baku, the capitol of Azerbaijan. We have wanted to visit Baku ever since we traveled to Georgia and Armenia a few years ago. I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I got here. Baku is where the
5 ~ Hello from Baku and Abu Dhabi Read More »
Hello from The Nuratau Mountains, From Bukhara, we booked a two night excursion through the Nuratau Mountains, on the way to Samarkand, our final Uzbek destination. Unfortunately, on the day we left it was pouring rain, and it rained throughout the day until we got to our first stop, a Yurt camp in the desert,
4 ~ Hello from The Nuratau Mountains, Uzbekistan Read More »
Hello from Bukhara, along the “Silk Road”, A comfortable 4 hour high speed train ride from Tashkent, we arrived around noon in Bukhara, an ancient city oasis and major stop along the old “Silk Route” between China and Europe. It’s a pleasant city full of 600+ year old mosques, madrasas, and ancient ruins. The largest
3 ~ Hello From Bukhara, Uzbekistan Read More »
Hello from Tashkent, Arriving at the Seoul airport we noticed dozens of people in line to check in for our flight. They were pushing overloaded carts of huge tapped up boxes to ship as luggage. In the past we would have waited an hour in line to get our boarding passes. Thank goodness for the
2 ~ Hello From Tashkent, Uzbekistan Read More »
Hello from Seoul, Eleven hours, several movies and a billion podcasts after we took off from Seattle, we arrived in Seoul. The Delta airplane we flew in was an old Boeing 767, that had its interior refreshed a bit, but an old entertainment system. Half way into my first movie, the flight attendant came on
1 ~ Hello From Seoul, South Korea Read More »
Hello Everyone, Carol and I will be off on another travel adventure, tomorrow (Monday) morning. This time we’re heading west, continuously, for 4 weeks, until we’re back in Seattle again. It’ll be our first trip all the way around the world. We’re starting off in Seoul South Korea, for about a week. Carol has a
0 ~ Our Central Asia Travel Adventure April, 2018 Read More »
Hello Everyone, After the language school week in Belmonte, we made two quick stops, three days each, in Valencia and Barcelona, before heading home. The terrorists attacked Manchester while we were in Valencia, and England went to “critical” alert status. That trips all kinds enhanced security precautions for air travel in Europe, so we decided
4 ~ Hello from Valencia & Barcelona, Spain Read More »
Hello Everyone, The middle week of our Spain adventure was dedicated to the VaughnTown language school, in a small town, called Belmonte, southwest of Madrid, at about 2500 ft elevation. Belmonte is on a hill in the middle of a very large, very flat, agricultural area, growing grapes, wheat and olives. At the top of
3 ~ Hello From Belmonte, Spain Read More »
Hello Everyone, Seville is where Carol is doing her story for Virtuoso Life magazine. It’s where we had to stay in the 5 star hotel for three nights. Hotel Alfonso XIII was very nice, but at only €250 per night, it didn’t quite match our previous 5 star standards. Oh well, we managed anyway. 😉
2 ~ Hello from Seville, Spain Read More »
Hello Everyone, Our flight to Spain was mostly uneventful. We had seats in the front row, right near the big exit door (the one containing the floating slide folded up in it), with infinite leg room. The leg room is great until people start to line up for the restroom. Then it’s “watch out for
1 ~ Hello from Cordoba, Spain Read More »
Hello Everyone, “The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly on the Plain.” At least that’s what they say. We’ll try to find out if it’s true. We’re flying off to spend three weeks in Spain this month. Landing in Madrid we’ll hop right on a train to the small town of Cordoba for a few days before heading to
0 ~ We’re Off On Another Foreign Adventure, This Time To Spain Read More »
Leaving Bagan, our plans called for us to take another one of those luxury buses over the mountains to Inle Lake. However, we were too late in making the reservations and they were sold out. We had to book a standard 15 person van instead. It took 9 hours to make the trip. The van
5 ~ Hello from Inle Lake, Myanmar Read More »
We left Mandalay early in the morning, before sunrise, on a small modern boat, for a 10 hour ride down the Irrawaddy River. Shortly after departing the sun rose over the river in a brilliant display of colors, mostly from dust, smoke and other pollution in the air, but none the less beautiful. The river
4 ~ Hello From Bagan, Myanmar Read More »
Mandalay is a relatively new city as compared to other historical cities in Myanmar. Though there have been settlements in the region for around 500 years, a devastating earthquake destroyed most of what was there in 1839. The city of Mandalay was actually founded at the foot of Mandalay Hill in 1857 as the Konbaung
3 ~ Hello from Mandalay, in northern Myanmar Read More »
When I last wrote, we were finishing up in Dubai, but I hadn’t mentioned where we were going. Well, we headed out into the desert to spend our last night at an eco-resort…… sort of a “Dude Ranch” for wealthy environmentalists. The Al Maha Desert Resort is situated in the middle of a huge animal
2 ~ Hello from Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma) Read More »
For a long time we had wanted to see Dubai, just for a short time, to experience what it is. It’s reputation for “everything over the top” was a bit enticing, in a curious sort of way. We had planned to just stop-over there for a day or two on the way to somewhere else.
1 ~ Hello from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, ………..the city that oil built Read More »
Hello Everyone, After a year of “Travelog Silence”, while we took some relatives to Italy and traveled around a bit in the good old US of A, we’re back on the road again to more exotic international destinations. This time we head first to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on a 14 hour direct flight from
0 ~ On The Road Again…….. to Dubai and Myanmar Read More »
Hello from Taipei, Taiwan, Flying from HCMC to Taipei normally would take about 2 and a half hours, if we had flown direct. However, due to the odd departure times and expense of the direct flights, we ended up flying backwards an hour and a half to Kuala Lumpur and then, after a 2 hour
2 ~ Hello From Taipei, Taiwan Read More »
Hello from Ho Chi Minh City (formerly called Saigon), After traveling 22 hours from our home in Seattle, we finally arrived, late at night, in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s often referred to as Saigon, it’s former name before north and south Vietnam were united and the capital was moved north to Hanoi. Since it’s
1 ~ Hello From Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) Read More »
Hello Everyone, Carol and I are headed out on another new adventure on Tuesday. This time we’ll be heading back to Asia to visit Ho Chi Minh City (old Saigon) in Vietnam and Taipei on the island of Taiwan (formerly Formosa). We have not been to either of these cities, so we’re looking for some
0 ~ On the Road Again……. Saigon & Taipei Read More »
May 4, 2015 Hello From Tallinn, Estonia, We headed for Tallinn, Estonia on the 10:00 a.m. LUX Bus, a premium bus company with a free hot drink machine, toilet and very comfortable seats. This was a big improvement over what we experienced last year between Georgia and Armenia. We sat in the front seats with a good
4 ~ Hello From Tallin, Estonia Read More »
May 2, 2015 Hello From Riga, Latvia, Up until the day we left from Rome, our entire trip was showered with sunshine and cool temperatures. It was glorious. Just as we got on a bus for the Rome airport it started to rain, heavy rain, which continued as our airplane departed. But, leave it to
3 ~ Hello From Riga, Latvia Read More »
April 26, 2015 Hello From The Amalfi Coast of Italy, As I mentioned previously, Carol is writing a story for Virtuoso Life magazine, which caters to the “rich and famous.” So, while researching here on the Amalfi coast, they put us up in five star hotels that are part of the Virtuoso network. As luxurious
2 ~ The Amalfi Coast of Italy Read More »
April 22, 2015 Hello From Positano, Italy, on the Amalfi Coast, This trip started out with a long, 26 hour journey to our first destination, Naples, Italy. Carol found a fabulous deal on airline tickets that saved over $600 per ticket, but we had to leave from Vancouver, Canada. And so, it was, that our
1 ~ Hello From Naples and Positano, Italy Read More »
April 14, 2015 Hello Everyone, Carol and I will be heading out on our Spring travel adventure Wednesday. This time we are headed for the Amalfi Coast of Italy, before heading north to the Baltics……. Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia. Carol got a nice travel writing assignment, from a high end travel magazine she has
0 ~ Off On Another Travel Adventure, in the Baltics & Italy Read More »
