Egypt was originally on our list of destinations but at the time we were purchasing tickets the state department and others were advising strongly against traveling there. Over the nine months of travel before we decided to add it to the list, Egypt had become somewhat calmer and other places we...
Diving and Exploring Bali and Thailand
Our time in Bali included a magical few days at Villa Bukit Segara a private residence that has been converted into a 4 room hotel. The staff are wonderful as is the hotel and grounds. As you will see in the video, the boys spent most of the time in the...
Turkey: Hot Air Ballons, Underground Cities, and Adventures
We were welcomed with warmth and hospitality during our time in Turkey. At the time of our travels, the Russians were engaged in a war of words with the Turkish government over the downing of a Russian fighter in Syria/Turkish airspace and terrorist attacks had recently hit Ankara and Istanbul. We weighed...
Adventures in Jordan
Our time in Jordan was too short. The exceptional sense of history and natural environment was only trumped by the warmth and hospitality of the people. We stayed in a Bedouin encampment, we approached Petra from the North overland by camel and a dramatic hike through the mountains, floated in the...
Diving The Great Barrier Reef, Sydney New Years, and New Zealand
When the boys were young we had a cassette tape (remember those) of Australian kid songs. One of their favorites was “Christmas in Australia” that listed the joys of having Christmas in the middle of summer with typical Australian humor. As we set our plans to travel the world it...
South Africa: Cities, Coastline, Safaris, and Soweto
It is hard to capture several weeks in South Africa in three minutes. We traversed several wildlife parks including Thula Thula, the park established by Lawrence Anthony the author of The Elephant Whisperer. In Pilanesberg (a self-driving park) armed with water, snacks, and our camera we spent the day maneuvering our...
New Zealand and “Stan the Van”
After months of youth hostels and cheap hotels we stepped up the quality of our lodging with a move into an RV in New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland late in the evening from Melbourne and spent the night in the equivalent of a Motel 6 motor lodge near the airport before...
Laos in Under Three Minutes
So far on our trip Laos was the most unexpected. We added it to our list intentionally as it was the least traveled of the countries we considered and the one about which we knew the least. It also has a long and admittedly painful relationship with the United States. We...
Video of Our Time in China
China was an amazing experience, as I have written before. In addition to shooting quite a few photos I shot video on our Sony SLR camera. Thanks to the work of Guillem Mateo, an amazing video editor based in Barcelona, my footage yielded this short video of our time there.
Shark Dive in the Bahamas
Back in August we did a dive specifically with sharks among the many dives we did where we ran across sharks and other creatures. In the shark dive they gather you on the bottom and then a diver, clad in a chain mail suit, descends with a box of snacks for...