Knowing that I would be turning 40 while in India, I had great plans for celebrating my birthday. But India had other plans for me. The day before my birthday, on a six hour car ride from Udaipur to Jodhpur, I began to have a headache, fatigue, and fever. Tyler and Kara had just gotten […]
We spent three days in Udaipur, a city that is labeled as India’s most romantic city and one of its least hectic cities to visit. One of Udaipur’s claims to fame is that it was featured in the James Bond movie “Octopussy.” Hotel Boheda Palace We stayed at Hotel Boheda Palace, a great hotel with […]
As a grand finale in Mumbai, we took a street food tour, and it was by far our favorite thing we did while staying in this city. Using Reality Tours again, who we used for the tour through Dharavi, we spent four hours on our last evening in town trying foods prepared in food stands […]
Mumbai, our second stop in India, is a city that exceeded my expectations. After our tour through Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India, we were all ready for another big city. Mumbai, known as Bombay until 1996, is one of the world’s largest cities by population. This city is the fifth largest in the world and […]
Mumbai, known as Bombay until 1996, was the first major city we visited while in India. Mumbai is known for its film industry, being home to Bollywood, and its slums, made famous by the movie “Slum Dog Millionaire.” Sixty percent of the Mumbai population lives in slums. While in Mumbai, toured the Dharavi slum, Mumbai’s […]
The four of us have finally arrived in India. This is a country that we have both been looking forward to and fearing, if that makes any sense. We know that India is filled with amazing sights and some of the world’s best food, but also has hazards by the handful. When we tell other […]
Pokhara, a small city located about 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Kathmandu, is a popular tourist destination in Nepal. This city is located on Phewa Lake at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains and is the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit, another very popular trek in Nepal. Pokhara is known as the adventure capital […]
Kathmandu, Nepal…how best to describe this crazy city? Chaotic, dirty, loud…but Kathmandu is also exotic, beautiful, and captivating. The streets are dusty and dirty. Even though you want to look up at the thousands of signs over your head and in the windows of the shops, you must always be looking down to avoid […]
Trekking to Everest Base Camp (EBC), a bucket list item for many travelers, is not just an adventure for twenty or thirty year olds. It is possible to trek to Everest Base Camp with kids, as we proved in October 2014. Tyler and Kara were 10 and 11 years old when we trekked to Everest Base Camp. Kara […]
Trekking to Everest Base Camp in Nepal was one of the highlights of our trip around the world. In fact, this trek was so important to us that we planned the entire year around this two week adventure. Trekking to base camp was more challenging than we anticipated, both physically and mentally, but was absolutely […]
Our visit to the United Arab Emirates was very brief, really just a layover between South Africa and Nepal on our trip around the world. The UAE is a country that Tim has always dream of visiting, these cities born from oil and paved with gold. We had three days of luxury before heading to […]
The Garden Route, a stretch of coastline along the southern coast of South Africa from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, is home to a huge number of game reserves and animal sanctuaries. These animal sanctuaries, similar to zoos, offer opportunities to get up close with their animals. Our animal encounters with the elephants, lemurs, ostriches, and […]
The hike around Robberg Peninsula is rated as one of the top things to do in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. It is a 9 km hike around a peninsula jutting out into the Indian Ocean. On this hike we climbed up and down the rocky coastline, hiked past a colony of seals, and wandered on […]
The Drakensberg Mountains, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, cut through the eastern portion of South Africa. The mountain range starts at Blyde River Canyon, located just west of Kruger National Park, and heads southward, through the smaller country of Swaziland, and ending near Lesotho. For four nights we stayed at the Umzimkulu River Lodge in […]
For some more adventure and a chance to visit another country, our family of four went for a drive over the Sani Pass into Lesotho. This mountain pass, not very well known by most in the US, is a big tourism draw for South Africa. The Sani Pass is a winding dirt road that takes […]
iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Africa, is located just north of St. Lucia, South Africa. We spent several days in St. Lucia, using one of these days to tour the park. This was a huge change in scenery from where we have been, as we were now staying on the […]
Kruger National Park, the largest national park in South Africa, and one of the largest parks in the world, is South Africa’s premiere safari destination. Spanning 200 km from north to south and 50 km from east to west, Kruger is home to the Big Five (elephant, rhinoceros, leopard, lion, and buffalo) as well as […]
The Kingdom of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland) is a very small country located entirely within South Africa. Eswatini is a monarchy, ruled by King Mswati III. Sadly, this country has the highest HIV infection rate in the world, with 27% of adults infected with HIV. It is a poor country, with many people living […]