Montañita is blanketed with cocktails ….and twenty-somethings…peacocking. This Ecuadorian beachside village is described by Lonely Planet as a party place with a surfing problem, which is probably a pretty accurate assessment. Fortunately we didn’t see party mode in full throttle, but I’m sure it’s somewhere we would have appreciated twenty years ago. The main town included heaps of tourist infrastructure…
Although we found some charm, most people don’t swoon over Guayaquil, which is Ecuador’s second largest city of 2.7 million people and the commercial heart of the country. Instead, it’s more functional with an international airport which often serves as the jumping off point for tourists heading to the Galapagos Islands. The city, which is perched on the edge of…
It was so amazing to share this exceptional place called the Azuero Peninsula with our good friends, Kristin and Ondra, who we met while living in Prague in 2008. And...since we were not catering to an attention-demanding wild cat baby this time, it also seemed like a great opportunity to strap on our Panamanian sea legs and take a fishing boat…
After a night in Panama City due to circumstance not desire, our friend Carol picked us up (in a car!) from our hotel to whisk us to our next destination of Valle de Antón, two hours away. The “Valley” is a pueblo tucked inside the heart of an ancient crater and surrounded by mountains and lush cloud forest. Because of…
We landed in DC for a few reasons… 1) Greg, believe it or not, had never been and January seemed like an ideal time to hole up in the plethora of free museums and sites, 2) it was easy to get a centrally located housesit for a couple of weeks so we didn’t have to pay for accommodation, 3) it…
Using only 20,300 Chase Sapphire points (equivalent to $253) for both of us, we jetted across the pond from Paris to Montreal. And, as we landed, we knew it was safe to say we were going to get out snow fix in Montreal. After all, for about 100 days a year, Montréal has at least a centimeter of snow on…
A simple fact about our relationship is that Greg had about a 10-year jump start in the international travel department, so Mandy is always seeking the opportunity to scoot a bit closer to her competitive conspirator. But, once she knocked one off for Belgium, she realized that was not sufficient. Thus, along came a six-hour, flu-inducing solo ride to one…
From Brussels, we hopped a 1.5 hour eastbound train to the Dutch border city of Antwerp and were elated to find that the railways were offering 50% off on all round trip tickets in Belgium so it was 17€ for both of us! Whoohoo! The name Antwerp literally means “at the wharf.” It is home to one of the most immaculate…
