Cities & Culture

Our visit to Thailand (Koh Lanta, specifically) happened to coincide with the celebration of Songkran, the Thai New Year. Traditionally, its observance has aligned with the Buddhist solar calendar, though it’s now celebrated each year from April 13–15. Songkran is … Read More

Okay, so some of you have asked things like, “Is everything really as wonderful as you depict? Has there been anything you haven’t enjoyed?” Until now, the questions to those answers (from our experiences in Australia and New Zealand) easily … Read More

Because we are gluttons for punishment, we decided after spending a couple days in Brisbane that we could indeed make a beeline south to briefly see Canberra and do our much-anticipated hike in Kosciuszko National Park. What’s an extra 12 … Read More

After spending nearly a month and a half in Australia, it was hard to believe we still hadn’t really seen Sydney, save for one day back in the middle of February (between visiting the Great Barrier Reef and Lord Howe … Read More

With less than one-third the population of Sydney or Melbourne, Adelaide’s city center is a much more compact hub of activity. Staying in the southern suburb of Seacliff, we were about a 25-minute drive from the popular downtown district. Our … Read More

Between our journey over to Tasmania and the start of our Great Ocean Road drive, we spent some time tootling around our hub of Melbourne. A lovely coastal city in southern Victoria, Melbourne reminded us a bit of Boston (with … Read More

On our second morning of safari, we stopped for a couple of hours at Olduvai Gorge as we headed northwest for the Serengeti. Olduvai Gorge is a ravine roughly 30 miles long and 300 feet deep within the Ngorongoro Conservation … Read More

On our way back to the U.S. from Cusco, we decided to spend a day and night poking around Lima. We wished we had more time to spend, as Lima and the surrounding areas seemed really interesting, but so it … Read More

After a 7-day trek across 46 miles (74 km) of jaw-dropping Andean landscape, we arrived at the Sun Gate and descended about 1,000 feet to the ancient citadel of Machu Picchu. As we wound around the hillside, our vantage point … Read More

OLLANTAYTAMBO We spent one day of our journey exploring some of the sights of the Sacred Valley, about 1.5 hours driving from Cusco. We descended the high city via winding roads that led us to the small town of Ollantaytambo, … Read More