As I have mentioned MANY times on this blog, I wear my planner’s cap with pride and love to research the heck out of destinations and draft up overly ambitious itineraries so as to maximize our time and get the most out of any place we should find ourselves. While I would love to say […]
“Why did it take us so long to visit Utah?” It’s a question Tony & I asked one another repeatedly and incredulously during our four days roadtripping and national park hopping through the state. Each time one of us asked it, the other would shrug and guiltily mumble the word “Mormons” before hastily pointing to […]
I am pretty sure that taking Spanish lessons is a rite of passage (akin to a freshman hazing) that every long-term traveler in Latin America goes through. It seems like every blogger I know who has spent any chunk of time in this part of the world has wound up heading back to school in […]
If you’re looking for authentic Mexican food at authentic Mexican prices, La Peñita is the place for you. For a coastal town, it’s very affordable and, near as we could tell, the food really hasn’t been gussied up or altered for gringo palates… largely because most tourists tend to base themselves elsewhere. During our month […]
Iyanla Vanzant famously said that if you want to hear God laugh, then you only need to tell Him your plans. Within hours of announcing that we would be leaving Minnesota for Mexico at the end of the week, foreboding weather forecasts inundated the local tv stations, heralding a winter apocalypse that would be sweeping […]
This week marked two big milestones for us: We celebrated the eight year anniversary of the day we met, and we also happened to do it while marking one full month of location independence in Mexico. As we quaffed icy cold beers and watched the sky bleed from cotton candy pink into a glowing fuschia, […]
One of my favorite things about traveling is when we find ourselves somewhere that defies all attempts to describe it. Often these places are impossibly beautiful, but they also tend to be incredibly foreign and unabashedly unique as well. I always hold a special place in my heart for these places, the ones that are […]
My obsession began within seconds of seeing the “Welcome to Colorado” sign. “So, we’re definitely going to see some mountains today, right?” I asked. “Yup. Just wait,” Tony replied. “OK,” I said, squirming around in my seat as I craned my neck to and fro, hoping a little extra height would allow me to catch […]
Fans of Arrested Development know the moment I’m talking about, but even if you’ve (wrongly) never watched the show, I’m betting you’re still familiar with what I mean. It’s that moment that comes after you’ve made a big decision or change, that moment when you feel like everything you’ve been working towards is crumbling and […]
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? In my mind, I’ve written this post a hundred times. In reality, I’ve written it four times, trying to figure out where to begin, what to say to fill the space that has elapsed since I last wrote. It was never my intention to let the blog float silently […]
Metaphorically speaking, it was our guts that lead us to Madrid instead of Barcelona. That worked out pretty well for us, so it is only fitting that once there, we continued to let our stomachs guide us, and in doing so, did our level best to eat our way through the city. We knew next […]
Upon announcing that we would be visiting Madrid instead of Barcelona when heading to Spain, we were warned many times over that we were making a huge mistake: It had no sights or attractions of any real interest and was boring; the people were unfriendly; the food wasn’t great; it was more of a “living” […]
*Caveat: Italy is a very large country and costs can fluctuate dramatically based on where you go. Thus, although we saw more than just its capital city, it feels a bit disingenuous to claim that this is a comprehensive budget guide to all of Italy. Really, it’s more an overview of traveling in Tuscany, Rome, […]
Looking back, Tony & I did an embarrassing number of things wrong with regards to the European portion of our trip. For the most part, we moved too fast, were too tightly scheduled, and pinched our pennies too hard—we managed to stay under budget in a lot of places, but often at the expense of […]
If you read our desultory food interview, Chewing the Fat, Italy is by far the most popular answer when we ask people to name their favorite food country from their travels. It’s a carb-lovers paradise—the home of pizza and pasta!—and we intended to eat very well during our two weeks in the country; I probably […]