Our 2016 travel plans We have excitedly been pulling our 2016 travel plans together over the last couple months. Admittedly Blonde already went to Panama and Iceland this year but those were trips with friends not "official" blog business. When planning this year's travel we mainly selected places we have never been before. To the extent that we have any other common theme … [Read more...]
No need for a Zika Freaka(out)
What is Zika? Per the Centers for Disease Control: "Zika is a disease caused by the Zika virus spread to people primarily through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito. The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week." That does not sound like … [Read more...]
5 ways to experience luxury travel without breaking the bank
We are unrepentant lovers of luxury travel, especially when someone else pays for it. But we have occasionally opened up our own wallets for some. It can be a smallish splurge in the grand scheme of the vacation's total cost but have an outsize value in terms of making us feel as pampered as we somehow got the (mistaken) idea we deserve. Here are a few splurges to consider … [Read more...]
Home Exchange – How do I get started?
Fear of home exchange Blonde is planning to exchange her home in Florida for one somewhere that isn't Florida. Ideally she will be able to spend a month or so on another continent in 2016 and not incur any expenses for her lodging. And no, the plan is not to meet people in bars or bus stations and just sleep around. (Why do we have to talk about the 70s anyway?) However, … [Read more...]
Porto with (and without) Viking River Cruises
Porto Porto was where we first boarded the Viking Torgil to begin our cruise of the Douro “River of Gold” in Portugal. It’s also where the cruise ended. This post is a combination of places Viking River took us and a few we found bumbling around on our own when we stayed for an extra day after the cruise ended. Porto is an ideal location to begin a Douro River cruise … [Read more...]
José Fuster – Cuban Artist and Good Neighbor!
Cuba has had more than its share of hard times over the last 50 years but José Fuster has proven that one man can make a perceptible difference by using his (considerable) talents to be a good neighbor. Born in Havana in 1946 Fuster chooses to live in the poor neighborhood of Jaimanitas on the northwestern edge of Havana. Poverty has a tendency to be drab but Fuster has … [Read more...]
3 free fun things to do in Barcelona
Barcelona is the favorite city of both Blonde and Brunette and one reason is that, although there's no shortage of interesting places with high admission fees, there is also a good selection of free (and legal) things to do. The nightly music and light shows at The Magic Fountains top our list of attractions. On our last visit to Barcelona we stayed in the Sants-Montjuïc … [Read more...]
The odd beauty (and odd guide) of Khor Al-Adaid
When Qatar Airways graciously gave us two business class tickets to the Maldives we chose to spend a few days in Doha to break up our trip and experience somewhere new. But as Brunette, the trusted researcher, began to look for activities in Doha she found little that sounded intriguing beyond the Museum of Islamic Art. Our attention span for museums is similar to a 6 year old … [Read more...]
Do you care about a resort’s character?
What's a resort's character and who are we to judge it? Neither is entirely clear to us but we'll take a crack at the first part of that question. Earlier this year we were in Abu Dhabi and then in the Maldives. When planning our trip we were thrilled to discover that between us we had enough Starwood points to stay at the St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort for … [Read more...]
The Bhutanese people and animals
Just as you can tell a lot about a person in terms of how they treat people they may view as being "inferior" to them, whether a waitress, a member of the U.S. Congress or the grocery check-out clerk, you can also tell a great deal about people by how they treat animals. In Bhutan people do not kill animals (unless they have to for sustenance, but that … [Read more...]