Lord Howe – Completely Amazeballs

(Location: Lord Howe Island, Australia) For our 15th anniversary, we splurged on a weekend in Lord Howe Island. Located an hour and a half flight east of Sydney, it is just 10km long, 2-3km wide, and completely unspoiled. There are a few roads, and a few cars, but most of the “traffic” is on foot […]

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Kangaroo Island – Raw Beauty and Many Wild Marsupials

(Location: Kangaroo Island, South Australia) In January of 2014 I had a work trip to Adelaide, so we decided to make a long weekend out of it and tick Kangaroo Island off the list. Our flight from Melbourne landed late afternoon, so we arranged to spend the first night in McLaren Vale. After a light […]

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The Definitely Great Ocean Road

Location: Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia In January of 2014, my mom came to visit so I was able to tick off many local sightseeing opportunities, one of which was a day trip to the Great Ocean Road. From Wikipedia: The Great Ocean Road is an Australian National Heritage listed 243 kilometres (151 mi) stretch of road along the south-eastern […]

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Wine and Penguins – Why Not?

(Location: Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia) After returning from sailing in The Whitsundays, we had a few days to kill before returning to work so we made an impromptu road trip to the Mornington Peninsula and Phillip Island. By “quick trip to the Mornington Peninsula” I mean that we drove through there on the way to […]

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Bareboat Sailing in the Whitsundays

(Location: The Whitsundays, Queensland, Australia) For Christmas 2013, we chartered a sailboat in The Whitsundays (only a three hour flight away!). We picked up the Catalina 35 from Whitsunday Escape in Airlie Beach. The boat was no more than a year old and in pristine condition. Though smaller than what we’ve chartered in the past, […]

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28 Hours in Rio

(Location: Rio, Brazil) “You probably want to go away for a few days.” That is what our realtor recommended. We were selling our house, and the market was hot, so she expected back to back showings for a few days straight. Logical people would go to Galveston. We decided to go to Brazil. Our destination […]

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Bareboating (and lobster-eating) in the Grenadines

(Location: St Vincent & the Grenadines, Caribbean) We’d heard the Grenadines was “like the BVI was 20 years ago.” The BVI had become pretty developed, so were intrigued. We’d also heard that “the BVI is where you go if you want to drive your boat from bar to bar, the Grenadines is where you go […]

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The last time I saw my toenail

(Location: Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica) Getting to the Osa Peninsula isn’t easy. It was a very bumpy flight, in a very small plane, from San Jose to Puerto Jiminez. There was a bit of confusion at the airplane landing place (not really an airport, per se) – the lodge had arranged transportation but none of […]

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Swimming with Whalesharks in Holbox, Mexico

In August of 2010, we headed to Holbox, Mexico to (hopefully) swim with whalesharks. Holbox, pronounced OL-bosh, is a small island off the coast of the North coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The island is about 40k (26 miles) long, 1.5 kilometres (under a mile) wide, and has no paved roads. Holbox is about a […]

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