The adventure is not quite over, but we landed at LAX on October 22nd and finally completed our circle around the globe. We left from this same airport on January 13th of this year to start a journey that took us through 29 countries, and all seven continents. Phil and Meredith were nice enough to make the trip to LA and welcome us back to the west coast. Fish tacos and craft beer rounded out our evening as we got caught with up the San Diegans. Now that we are …

We have met many Dutch travelers over the past year, and after hearing their stories we were happy to discover that the cheapest way back to America is through Holland. A little wrinkle is that we will land in Toronto, not the US, but close enough.
We spent our last overseas weekend hanging out in a beautiful city. Between the tree lined canals, countless old churches, row houses, cafes, and the start of the fall foliage it was impossible not to be charmed by the city. We went on the …

Another visitor arrives! Lori, our fourth, and probably final visitor, met us in Madrid and we spent a few short days in Spain and Gibraltar. Even though we were only in the country for about three days, we did our best to see a few things as we passed through and still had time for tapas and three pitchers of sangria.
In Madrid, we walked around the city center area. Puerto del Sol, the Grand Via, Plaza Mayor, and the royal palace were all great to see. The royal palace was …

After a marathon of ferries, we still had trips on a train and city bus to reach our final destination. We found a farmhouse outside the city of Perugia that is now a hostel. The place is super nice and has great views of the rolling hills. They have decided to maintain a little of the farm atmosphere, complete with a few horses, geese, ducks, chickens, a dog, and of course you can’t keep the farm cats away. These cats were huge, we wondered if one of them was half …

For the last five days, we got to catch up with a friend who volunteered for the Peace Corps and was placed in Albania. The high speed ferry from Corfu only takes thirty minutes and Lesley met us on the other side for lunch. The town where we landed, Sarande, is quite touristy, including a promenade along the water. After lunch and a 40 minute bus ride (20 kilometers) to Ksamil, we settled into her apartment and walked around town shopping for dinner. We were excited that we could cook …

Two days before our second visitor arrived we landed in Amman. Luck would have it that we actually knew someone who lives there. Janelle, who graciously provided four college kids a free place to stay in Manhattan for New Years Eve ten years ago, invited us to stay in her upstairs studio apartment for as long as we could make use of it in Amman too! Janelle and Mark and their two cute kids, Alexandra and Paul were very helpful giving us the ins and outs of the city and …

An old capital of Egypt, the ancient city of Thebes is our next stop. These days the city is known by its Arabic name, Luxor, but it still holds some amazing ancient ruins. The 300 mile journey from Cairo gave us another chance to take an overnight train. This time we even had a dining car, but the outrageously priced cup of Nescafe kept us from getting too excited. The train arrived early in the morning, we found a hotel, and set out to see some temples right away.
The …

Only four months behind Mike, Heather can check off her seventh continent. We had to track down a cold beer to celebrate the occasion. Being in a predominantly Muslim country, we didn’t have a lot of choices. We found an “Irish Pub” located inside the Hilton. Heather actually had wine and Mike tried a Luxor beer.
Our first day out we took it slow and meandered around the Egyptian Museum. The place is huge, more like a warehouse than a museum. The impression we got was that the first archaeologists to …

An inspiring article in an in-flight magazine a few months back convinced us to add Shanghai to our list of places to visit this summer. It turns out that the World’s Fair is being held this year, and an event that gave us the ice cream cone and the Eiffel Tower is surely not to be missed. Mike was a little disappointed to learn that the event is not actually called the World’s Fair anymore. Now it is just known as “the Expo”, which sounds a lot less spectacular. Even …

Bali wasn’t on our original list of stops on the tour, this is one the travel agent talked us into. We did a little more research than usual and bought a Lonely Planet Encounter guide. We’d never seen these little guys and figured we give it a try to see if we liked the abbreviated version. From the book, we picked out the little island of Nusa Lembongan and the mountainous region next to the dormant volcano as our main destinations.
Nusa Lembongan is a short ferry ride away, but still …