Category ‘2010’

I know, I know, we’ve been quiet lately. Returning home from our year of traveling has been a bit of an adjustment. While it was exciting to return home to our things and see our friends and family, putting the trip behind me and returning to work was harder than I expected. But after 4 weeks on the job I’m starting to get the hang of it, and feeling pretty good about life again! Meanwhile, Ben and I have had a great summer… here’s a few highlights.
 

Mountain Biking

The first bunch of photos is from our annual camping trip to Stanley, Idaho with our HP biking group. The rest are (more…)

After returning from Europe last November, I created some photo collages from our trip using Ben’s awesome home-made program. With another 9,000 photos taken on our Round-the-World trip, I created a few more. Here’s three that turned out well…
 

Sphinx – Giza, Egypt

 

Elephant – Kruger National Park, South Africa

 

Opera House – Sydney, Australia

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Let’s say you’re thinking about taking some time off and traveling the world like we recently did.

It’s a given that you won’t come back from a world-wide walkabout as exactly same person.  Some people write books about their life-changing experiences, but for most travelers, the changes are small. To friends and family, the only immediately noticeable difference will be an annoying tendency to share world travel related anecdotes. “This reminds me of the time I was grilling kangaroo meat in Australia….”

But even if you have an “ordinary” world travel experience, here are some of the ways that world travel might affect you: (more…)

Sometimes photos can’t quite capture the moment the way a short video clip can. Here’s a few fun videos that we took while traveling around the world. Warning – these were taken with the low-quality of our point & shoot cameras, and the poor videomanship of moi. I hope you find them entertaining anyway!
 

Big Ice

Remember when we hiked around on a glacier in Argentina? Well here’s what ice crunching under your cramp-ons sounds like.
 

 

Sounds of Islam

Our introduction to the Islamic call to prayer was in Istanbul, where the eerily beautiful chants provided occasional background music to our sightseeing. At our next stop in Cairo, Egypt (more…)

Curious how much we spent this past year on traveling, but too shy to ask? Well don’t be, because we’re not shy to talk about it. In fact, I’ll just lay it all out for you. Analyzing the cost of something like this is really interesting to me – it seems like so much money,

but it all comes down to your priorities in life, and what you want to spend your time and money doing. We chose to spend a good chunk of both on traveling around the world. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
 

The Costs

Total Travel Costs

Item	Time	Cost
Europe Travel	3 months	$15,600
Europe Plane Tickets (Airline Miles)	-	$130
RTW Travel	5 months	$18,580
RTW Plane Tickets	-	$9,530
Total	(8 months)	$43,710

Travel Costs by Country (more…)

We’re home! Ben and I have been back in Boise for almost a week now, and we’re happy to be home. Of course, there are some mixed feelings ending a trip like this. On the road, every day brings something new and exciting, whereas back home we have quickly fallen into a daily routine in a familiar setting. Looking back at the incredible things we’ve seen and done this past year, it’s a little sad to see it come to an end – especially when I know there’s a lot more out in the world that I’d like to see! But, on top of the fact that we’ve depleted most of our savings and have no choice but to return to work, it feels great to be home.
 

Re-Discovering our House

Something I never anticipated was how nice it would be to return to our house and belongings after living out of a backpack and in hostels for 5 months. In some ways it’s liberating to have only a few sets of clothes and just the essentials with you at all times. While backpacking, you can’t help but wonder why you need that house full of “stuff” anyway – you’re doing fine with just these 30lbs. But, you forget about all the little things that make life so much easier and more comfortable. No – I didn’t miss the lawnmower or vacuum cleaner – but I was surprised to remember that I love wearing high heels and jewelry, and I now have the choice between at least 5 pairs of jeans and hundreds of tops. In addition to clothing, we have a kitchen full of nice dishes and appliances. We cooked a lot while traveling to save money, but the kitchens in hostels are nothing like your own kitchen back home. Dull knives, missing utensils, tiny fridges packed full of people’s food, and no cupboard with of your favorite spices and cooking supplies. Like I said, it’s really nice to be home.
 

What’s Next?

Now that we’re back, you might be curious about our plans for the future. We are too! We don’t have any solid plans yet, but I promise I’ll let you know when we do.

As for the blog – it will live on! We still have a lot to say about our past year of traveling, and we’ll continue to share photos of any interesting adventures that come our way. Some topics in the works include the cost of our trip, things we’ve learned, and more photo collages. Is there anything you’d like to know about? Please leave a comment and we’ll try to address it.

Thank you for following us on this incredible journey!

Ben and I wrapped up our RTW trip with a stopover in Hawaii. We spent a week on the island of Oahu, part of the time with a friend, and the rest in a lovely condo on the North Shore. The weather and scenery were gorgeous. We honeymooned on the island of Kauai, but Oahu is pretty different. The southern part of the island is dominated by the modern city of Honolulu and surrounding residential areas, but the northern coast is much more mellow and undeveloped. Between relaxing and eating fresh pineapple (a million times better than mainland pineapple), we found time to hike, boogie board, swim, jump off a cliff (see photos), and visit the Dole Plantation and Pearl Harbor. It was a fabulous vacation-within-a-vacation, and a great ending to our adventure.  To top things off, we upgraded to First Class for the flight home.  This is the life
 

Hiking Kuliouou Ridge

We found an awesome hike up a ridge on the Southeast part of Oahu.  It was pretty steep but took us all the way to the top of the mountain range with 360 views.  Here’s a couple photos of the views:

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The Blue Mountains are a 2 hour train ride from Sydney and full of great scenery and hiking. We spent a few days in the small town of Katoomba to enjoy the area. I had thought that “Blue Mountains” was just a name, but looking out over the valley the mountains really are a misty blue color.

One of the days we hiked to Wentworth Falls, one of the more interesting waterfalls I’ve ever seen. We hiked across the top of the waterfall, then down really steep stairs to a middle level, and then across the valley on a path along the cliff. It was very cool.

Another day (more…)

Ben and I took a snorkeling tour of the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.  This was by far the best snorkeling I’ve ever done, the fish and coral are straight out of a National Geographic special.  There are tons of fish in all sizes, shapes and colors.  And the coral is beautiful  – I didn’t realize it could be so varied and colorful – purple, blue, red, orange, etc.

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Who knew that part of Australia is a tropical climate with beautiful sandy beaches and rainforests? Ben and I spent 10 very relaxing days in the northeast part of Queensland, where the Great Barrier Reef is just off the coast. We stayed in a small town called Palm Cove in a cute little apartment near the beach. Here’s a few photos from the area… (more…)