Fakarava, French Polynesia

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Fakarava, French Polynesia

After a quick day in Rangiroa, we headed north to another atoll called Fakarava.  There isn't much to see on land here, as its just a narrow ring of sand and palm trees surrounding a huge lagoon, but the diving was incredible.  We booked two dives and everything we read said that the diving here would be very similar to the diving in Rangiroa.  Other than the unbelievably clear, 80 degree water, we found it to be a completely different experience. 

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Kauai & Oahu, Hawaii

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Kauai & Oahu, Hawaii

After a very full 30 days in Vietnam, Samantha and I were very much looking forward to our next stop.  Our friends Greg and Kathy live in Honolulu and we felt like a visit with some friends was in order.  We planned to spend two weeks in total in Hawaii, and split that time evenly between one week on Kauai followed by a week with them on Oahu.  

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Gili Meno - Indonesia

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Gili Meno - Indonesia

We left Cairns heading north to Indonesia for a two weeks on a tiny little island called Gili Meno.  We were looking for a little beach time after what was a fairly fast paced month and half beginning in New Zealand, and Gili Meno proved to be exactly what we needed. 

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Kangaroo Island - Australia

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Kangaroo Island - Australia

After about a week in Sydney, Sam and I headed south to Kangaroo Island by way of Adelaide, in Southern Australia.  We both knew we really wanted to spend some time in the outback but hadn't really counted on exactly how hot the Australian outback gets in the summer time.  Kangaroo Island was the perfect solution because it is home to all of the wildlife that we wanted to see and was a pleasant 70-80 degrees each day.

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South Island - New Zealand

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South Island - New Zealand

After our weekend in Kaikoura, we had a few days to relax and take in Christchurch.  Both Sam and I really loved the city, though it is a bit small and definitely a bit sleepy.  Everyone we spoke to told us that before the big earthquake several years ago the city was a bit more bustling, and you could definitely see how that would be true.  Though they have come a long way in rebuilding, the signs of the damage are all around in the central business district (where we were staying).

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Kaikoura - New Zealand

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Kaikoura - New Zealand

After lots of time away from family in unfamiliar cultures, we were very excited to travel to New Zealand to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Tania Peterson, for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. After a few very long flights, arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand felt a little like coming home with clear-cut rules, clean restrooms, and native English-speakers everywhere. Our first weekend in New Zealand the four of us traveled north from Christchurch to Kaikoura, a tiny beach town on the South island with a lot of tourist activities. 

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Phnom Penh & Koh Rong - Cambodia

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Phnom Penh & Koh Rong - Cambodia

The main place to visit in Phnom Penh is the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, which is actually a collection of sites where about 2 million out of the total population of about 8 million people were killed in the 1970s by the Khmer Rouge regime. In order to save ammunition, the Khmer Rouge executed this genocide by using all manner of horrific tools to try to kill as many people as quickly as possible. That included children, whose heads were bashed against the trunks of trees before they were tossed in mass graves next to their parents. 

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77 Favorite Photos from 6 Months of Travel

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77 Favorite Photos from 6 Months of Travel

As of a few days ago, we’ve been traveling for six months! We looked back over our photos and our travels so far, and decided to post the top photos from every country we have visited so far. We’ve taken 4,059 photos, visited 18 countries, and stayed in 63 different hotels / AirBnbs. These are our favorite 77 photos.

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The Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Capri, and Sicily

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The Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Capri, and Sicily

The first day Chuck fired up our crappy rental car to drive up the Amalfi coast. It felt much like the Cinque Terre—steep, rocky cliffsides tumbling down into the crisp, clear sea below. Lemon, olive, and grape crops clung to the walls on terraces and hung over the roads. The houses stack up the sides of the coast in any place that seems even slightly horizontal (and many places that are not) with roads crammed in between them barely big enough for a single car to pass.

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The Cinque Terre, Rural Italy, and Pisa

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The Cinque Terre, Rural Italy, and Pisa

After the mountain-town vibes of Ortisei, Chuck and I decided it was time to relax on the beach for a few days. We headed south towards the Italian Cinque Terre, a string of centuries-old seaside villages known for the hand-built terraces marching up the steep slopes from the sea. It's another UNESCO world heritage site.

We decided to stay in Manarola, and were lucky enough to be upgraded to an ocean-view apartment. You can see our view below, but we didn't really take too many pictures. Instead, we spent two full days laying on the beaches in nearby Monterosso, consuming books and beer.

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Pula & Rovinj, Croatia to Verona, Italy

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Pula & Rovinj, Croatia to Verona, Italy

One of the first items on our agenda once we got to Rovinj (pronounced "row-VIN") was to relax and have a beach day. We drove down to a national park called Kamenjak, pausing at a supermarket and a roadside fruit stand to buy cherries and sandwich fixings. Instead of butter, we bought a jar of something red with pesto-like consistency, mainly because we couldn't figure out what it was. I'm still not sure, but it was delicious!

The beaches in Croatia are all rocky, so we spread our towels on the hot black rocks between pine trees and the sea.

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

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Dubrovnik, Croatia

We are still working on some of the finer points of travelling.  For example, we spent about 8 hours getting from Kalambaka back to Athens for a flight that we had booked to meet up with my Dad and Cindy in Dubrovnik.  If I had done a little more digging, I would have seen that there are flights from Thessaloniki, which would have taken only an hour or so by train.  Regardless, we arrived in Croatia.

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Athens, Greece & the Island of Hydra

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Athens, Greece & the Island of Hydra

After an incredible stay in Istanbul, Samantha and I headed west a bit to Athens.  We figured this would make a great stop before meeting my Dad and Cindy in Croatia at the end of the month,  and we were right.  I had never been to Greece before, while Sam had but only for one rainy day back in college so it really felt like we were both exploring it for our first time.  Athens is a really beautiful city so full of history and culture, which made for days full of museums and walking tours through the ancient city.

We stayed in a great little apartment right below the Acropolis...

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