The Winner of Travel Photo Roulette Round 64 Is . . .
When selecting the theme, “Dance” for this round of Travel Photo Roulette, we wanted to celebrate how the human body in motion has the power to both express and evoke emotion. We spent a lot of time looking at each photo entry from different perspectives, mulling over the stories and reacting to how each one […]
Travel Photo Roulette Round 64: Dance
We are thrilled and honored to have been selected as the winner of Travel Photo Roulette’s Round 63! Last week’s winner, Passports and Pamplemousse, presented the excellent theme “Hands at Work.” Our interpretation was this photo of a young deckhand working the lines on a boat about to set out on the journey from Siem […]
Literacy Program in Laos: Big Brother Mouse
Big Brother Mouse Literacy Program A highlight of our visit to Luang Prabang was volunteering at The Big Brother Mouse literacy program headquarters. The project, which began in 2006, is Lao-owned and operated, and based in Luang Prabang. Big Brother Mouse publishes books in the Lao language (as well as in Lao/English), an important contribution, as there […]
Packing Tips for Extended Travels
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” —Susan Heller So you’re getting ready to travel the world! What should you bring? Everyone has packing tips. Hundreds of posts have been written on the topic. Everyone has ideas, and most of […]
Intro to Geocaching
Enjoy the outdoors? Hiking? Nature? A good puzzle or game of Hide-and-Seek? You might want to try your hand at Geocaching. We started in 2006 and have made it a part of our travels, both at home and abroad. Our first find was near Pt. Defiance in Tacoma, Washington and we’ve been hooked on “caching” […]
Getting Sick: Rural Cambodia vs. Bangkok
Getting Sick on the Road For most of us, getting sick while traveling is pretty high on the list of fears. It’s no fun to be ill no matter where you are, but being away from home in an unfamiliar setting and in many cases without access to services in your native language can be […]
Don’t Skip: Qingdao, China
Intro to Qingdao We visited Qingdao quite unintentionally, but it turned out to be a great stop. Located at the southern tip of the Shandong peninsula, this charming port city has a different feel than any other place we visited in China. From 1897 to 1914, Germany administered Qingdao as a concession, and made a […]
Galveston Island Day Trip
Galveston Island Located about an hour south of Houston on the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Island is a barrier island that has been hit hard by powerful hurricanes and storms. In 1900, Galveston was a wealthy seaport with 38,000 residents, many of whom had prospered from the cotton trade. In fact, Galveston was the first city in Texas […]
Longsheng Rice Terraces
Longsheng Rice Terraces Hands-down, our favorite part of our visit to Guilin was a day-trip several hours away to the Longsheng Rice Terraces. We shared transportation with four others from the hostel: a recent high-school grad from Peru studying in China, whose father is Chinese, a guy from Slovakia, and a couple from Holland, the […]
Surviving the Overnight Hard Seat: Xi’an to Pingyao
Xi’an to Pingyao Vowing to never again settle for a “hard seat” on an overnight train (especially the lowest grade, like the one we experienced), we arrived in Pingyao from Xi’an. We had said to ourselves, “How bad could it be?” The reality was pretty terrible. We had seat numbers, which was a good start, […]