From barren steppe and deserts, to slicing canyons, to turquoise lakes encompassed by carpets of evergreens, traversing the terrain in southeast Kazakhstan can feel like rolling from the American Southwest to the Pacific Northwest in a matter of moments. Yes, there is SO much to do in and around Almaty for nature lovers. However, since we’re limited on time, we…
From Istanbul to Kazakhstan We Go In 2022, this trip was on the books. But we reluctantly canceled at last minute due to…well, a “foot” problem…Regardless, it happened for a reason, not only because of everything I learned during six months of healing that year, but because we got to explore Türkiye during a very economically beneficial time….which is definitely not…
From Bulgaria to Istanbul...not as simple as it seems! Oh wow! After three months in three different Bulgarian cities, slapping on our backpacks and going full throttle with a 15-hour travel day suddenly felt like….well….travel again! Naturally… it was not supposed to be a 15-hour day relocating from the southeast city of Sliven to Istanbul, but thanks to Bulgarian trains…followed…
It was with sadness we had to depart from Bulgaria in late July. Although the rose-colored glasses lifted a bit, on our third and longest jaunt to Bulgaria so far, it enamored us with its serenity and allure. It affirmed itself as a place we undoubtedly could settle down in, one day, and also as a place in our top…
Those who are regular followers of our Facebook page may have noticed that our posts came to an abrupt slow down in mid-July 2025. This is because I, Mandy, the writer of this blog, had been on yet another “chronic pain discovery journey,” and was utterly immersed in trying to heal the hip pain that had been overtaking my body,…
From Sliven, we decided to take a half day trip up to the “architecturally significant” village of Kotel, (our personally branded “cute” towns), which is folded into yet another of Bulgaria’s mountain ranges…the Eastern Balkans. Kotel is one of the many villages the red hiking trail meanders which offers the opportunity to traverse Bulgaria’s entire length, offering clean mountain air,…
The Far Southwest: Greek and North Macedonian Border Villages Our first day trip from Sandanski took us around an hour southwest of the city where we would collide with Greece and North Macedonia, weave in and out of more than a dozen modest villages, bear witness to dazzling carpets of ruby red poppies, and climb to a significant medieval stronghold…
The Extraordinary Village of Melnik To celebrate Greg’s 47th birthday, we chose to have an overnight escape to the seductive teacup-of-a-town called Melnik, which we first visited on a whirlwind hour-long dash and drink in 2019, thanks to the inconvenient buses we had to catch from Blagoevgrad. This time, catching a direct bus from Sandanski, we were thrilled to spend more…
