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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Final
Transition Day Today is Saturday the 19th, and the whole ship is in transition. About 95% of the passengers have disembarked as they only booked a seven-day cruise ending in Civaateccia. Right now, the whole ship feels very empty as there are only ten cabins,…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 4
It’s been six days since I last wrote anything about our trip, which is unusual for a three-week vacation. I always bring my laptop with me, and I try to write a little every day, especially in the early morning when Barb is still asleep.…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 3
Sick It’s not unheard of for any of us to get sick while traveling. It doesn’t happen on every trip and when it has occurred in the past it’s more or less just been an inconvenience and recovery is often very quick. This isn’t one…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 2
The Island Our flights from Vancouver to Santorini were uneventful, but it’s always tiring to travel so far, and fully getting over jet lag will take some time. It’s a 9-hour time difference from Vancouver, and it always takes a toll and a day or…
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Our Excellent Return to the Sea – Part 1
Barb and I were reminiscing how it’s been 30 years since we first visited Santorini. It was in 1994 when we traveled to the Greek Islands and the Mediterranean on our honeymoon, seeing the world for the first time with fresh eyes and jumpstarting our…
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Our California Adventure – Final
Down South On Sunday morning, our fourth day in California, we were packing up our suitcases and preparing for the 250 Km drive south to our next destination which would be the town of Carmel, officially known as Carmel-by-the-Sea. We recalled that we had both…
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Our California Adventure – Part 2
Airport Mishaps For all of the places we have travelled to over the years, very rarely have we had any mishaps in an airport. At most, have one of our luggage gone missing one or two times over 30 years and we’ve occasionally missed connecting…
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Our California Adventure – Part 1
Road Trip There’s something very appealing about a road trip. Going from place to place on your own time. Stopping when you want and exploring new sights and towns along the way. For ten days, Barb and I will be on our road trip through…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Final
Back to the Start On Tuesday, we left Lagos in the south of Portugal and prepared for the 300 Km drive back to the Lisbon airport where we dropped off our rental car. We had the car for 10 days but it was no longer…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 3
Down to the Coast Approaching the halfway point of our Portugal trip, it was time to leave Evora and head south to our next destination. We spent four nights in Evora and felt it was the right amount of time for a town of its…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 2
The Short Connection In all of the years that we’ve travelled, the number of times our flights have gone wrong has been pretty small. Lost luggage or missed connections have been so few and far between that it’s hardly ever mentioned. When we were planning…
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Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 1
Choosing Portugal We often get asked how we end up determining what destination we plan on going to next. I think this happens more often when we’re choosing a destination that isn’t quite on the beaten track as France or Italy for example. It definitely…
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Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Final
Final Days We’ve now arrived at the final destination of our Costa Rican Adventure, now located very close to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica. From our balcony, we have a nice view of the ocean and we’d also…
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Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 3
Over Land and Water After our four-night stay at the Lost Iguana Resort, it was time to pack up again as we would be picked up by our driver to be taken to our next destination. Our journey would take us a short drive to…
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Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 2
Getting Here I mentioned in my previous post that we had a very early start leaving Vancouver yesterday morning. We arrived at our hotel late last night, around 10 PM so it was a pretty full day of travel and we were pretty tired, but…
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Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 1
Getting Ready Over the years, our routine of getting ready to travel has evolved. Quite a while ago, I started making a list using some software and that list has ballooned to almost 70 items. I know this sounds extreme but it includes many mundane…
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Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Final
Sidebar I was originally planning on writing 4 installments for this Return to France adventure but for a number of factors this will be the final one. I’ll be covering a lot of ground, almost a 8 days worth. Missing the Crowds It’s now Sunday…
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Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Part 2
Getting Here It’s 4AM here in the Paris apartment we’re staying at where I’m writing this next installment of our Return to France Adventure. A bit more on that in a minute. Wednesday was our travel day getting to Paris from Vancouver and had its…
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Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Part 1
We needed to check our notes because we couldn’t believe that it’s been 12 years since our last trip to France. Of course, it’s been three years since we’ve been anywhere outside of North America, this Return to France trip is significant for us in…
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Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Final
Leaving the Beach As I had mentioned in my previous posting, Wildwood, New Jersey is a resort destination known for its boardwalk and beaches. In the three days we stayed in Wildwood, although we walked kilometres of the beach, we only scratched the surface as…
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Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 3
Driving to Distraction One of the reasons why I like being in larger cities when travelling is that we’re usually exploring on foot and the kilometres of extra walking per day serves to offset the calorie-rich foods we’re often eating each day. It’s unavoidable, as…
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Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 2
Sidebar: I neglected to send some of you the first installment of this Excellent Adventure. I had to rebuild the mailing list from memory as I’ve stopped using the Gmail account I was using back in 2019 for this purpose. My apologies. Travelling “Light” I’ve…
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Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 1
Getting Back Online Again We were in Sri Lanka when I last wrote an update on my travel blog. Regular readers know that I’ve been fairly diligent at posting updates here at least twice a year for the last 18 years. Of course, none of…
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Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Final
The Food Anywhere that we’ve travelled to in the world, the food is often one of the main differentiators that give you a real sense of the local culture. While it’s possible to get hamburgers and pizza pretty much anywhere, we always want to try…
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Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Part 3
Elephants It’s been five days since I last posted an update and we’ve done quite a bit since then. I had mentioned in my previous post that we were staying in the town of Dambulla and it was our base for two days while we…
