Winter on Cape Cod: Bundle Up for a Bike Ride
Winter on Cape Cod Cape Cod is famous as a summer playground for the northeast of the United States. Many have a summer home here, or a cottage that they winterize and leave just after Labor Day. Tamara often tells the story of waving farewell and holding signs from the highway overpass on Labor Day weekend […]
Paradise Island Close to Home: The Bahamas
What better way to beat the winter doldrums than a spur of the moment beach getaway? When an unexpected opportunity arose to travel to the Bahamas, we grabbed it. We’d be staying in the timeshare section of the famous mega-resort Atlantis on Paradise Island. To be quite honest, we were not looking forward to that […]
Surf and Blooms: Morning on Manhattan Beach
When we’re working, we usually end up at least once each year in Southern California. When we do, our go-to hotel is the Marriott TownePlace Suites in Hawthorne. It’s reasonably priced, in a great location, and having come here for almost a decade now, we often see familiar faces. Just a few miles from Manhattan […]
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 […]
Aruba Intro: One Happy Island
With its white-sand beaches, constant, cooling trade winds and warm, friendly people, Aruba lives up to its name: One Happy Island. Since it’s far enough south to be blow the hurricaine belt, Aruba has more stable weather than most of the rest of the Caribbean. It’s landscape is quite different as well, with a desert-like […]
St. John, USVI
A day trip from St. Thomas to the nearby island of St. John is usually undertaken from Red Hook, the main ferry terminal for inter-island trips. Red Hook is located on the East End of St. Thomas. Parking is available at the dock or across the street for $10 a day. The ferry runs […]
St. Thomas Activites
The busiest of the US Virgin Islands, St. Thomas has lots of activities to keep visitors busy. Most of these are focused on picture-perfect beaches and clear blue water. Sportfishing enthusiasts, divers, snorkelers and sailors are all drawn here to enjoy the sparkling sea and white sand. On shore there’s a rich history to explore […]
Intro to St. Thomas
While not our typical mode of travel, every once in a while it feels great to escape on a more traditional vacation. Since we’re still planning (hoping?) to earn some income this year, we decided on a short hop, and exchanged a timeshare week for a stay at Bluebeard’s Beach Club in St. Thomas, one […]
Gili Islands: Air is Water
Indonesia is said to have over 17000 islands, only 6000 or so of them inhabited. After traveling a couple of hours northeast on Bali to the beach-town of Padangbai, we took a boat to the Gili Islands vía Lombok. This is the western beginning of Nusa Tenggara, a chain of islands that extends past Timor […]
Indonesia Intro
Crossing the equator for the first time this trip, we arrived in Bali, Indonesia, escaping the end of rainy season in Thailand. It was time to redeem a few more Marriott points, which made total relaxation simple. We spent a few days on the Tanjung Benoa peninsula in Nusa Dua, the more luxurious tourist area […]