April 11, 2018

Fakarava, French Polynesia

April 11, 2018/ Charlie Parsons

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.

April 08, 2018

Rangiroa, French Polynesia & Cruising the South Pacific

April 08, 2018/ Samantha Parsons

After visiting our friends in Hawaii, we flew south to Tahiti to board a cruise that would end our final three weeks of our year of travel. The cruise crossed the South Pacific Ocean, starting in Tahiti and ending in Valparaiso, Chile.

March 25, 2018

Kauai & Oahu, Hawaii

March 25, 2018/ Charlie Parsons

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.

February 10, 2018

Gili Meno - Indonesia

February 10, 2018/ Charlie Parsons

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.

February 05, 2018

Great Barrier Reef - Australia

February 05, 2018/ Samantha Parsons

Diving the Great Barrier Reef has always been on my bucket list. Charles and I booked a liveaboard dive trip, which basically means you live on the boat and dive as often as possible. From Kangaroo Island we took a ferry and a couple of flights to get up to Cairns, where our boat would embark from.

December 27, 2017

Kaikoura - New Zealand

December 27, 2017/ Samantha Parsons

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.

October 21, 2017

Diving in the Red Sea, Egypt

October 21, 2017/ Samantha Parsons

As we mentioned in a prior blog post, we spent four days diving in the Red Sea in Egypt! We were scuba certified before the trip and did our Open Water course dives in freezing water in South Africa, so this was our first "real" diving experience.

We loved it! We went with a great company called Aqua Nabq, and had excellent lunches and wonderful, sunny days exploring a bunch of different dive sites. We used our GoPro to take video and pictures. Here's the video, and a few favorite snaps!

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