ADVENTURE ON A BUDGET | TRAVEL BLOG
From Porto, we jubilantly traded in our three words of Portuguese for Spanish as we boarded a 6-hour BlaBla car ride south to Sevilla with a pair of sultry-looking Spaniards, Daniel and Carlos. It cost a whopping $109, but whacked the bus time in half for the same price, which made it well worth it. It also meant we would…
In Summary... This was our second time to this Portuguese gem of a city…this time in much different circumstances. The first in May 2022 was a brief four days, warm, already congested and crowded, and I (Mandy) was on excruciatingly limiting crutches. The second, due to a 2.5 week housesit, was cool and rainy, easy to bypass any crowds, and I…
To Porto (from Baku, Azerbaijan) Our 38-hour westward odyssey from Baku to Porto...consisted of a series of unsatisfying siestas in stupendously contorted positions…three budget airplanes featuring a zero degree pitch on their seat back tilt…a hate/hate, literal on/off relationship with my now compulsory compression socks …and our saving grace thanks to our Venture X credit card, a stream of Shangri-La-ounges…
In Summary... Baku, Azerbaijan was an unexpected destination for 2025 on our way back to Europe from Central Asia, but it didn’t take long for us to become utterly enchanted by this underrated and under touristed destination. In fact, it’s a place we undeniably see ourselves returning to again, and though we needed downtime this visit, we’re also very eager to…
Arriving to Baku After a troubled ten days in Tashkent thanks to hotel registration issues, we were 100% elated to get out of Uzbekistan and onto our next destination of Baku, where we would be for coming 2.5 weeks. 2.5 weeks?! You might say….? True…it’s not long enough according to our new one-month plan, but we’ve got a VIC (very…
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,…