Mexico hasn’t had passenger trains for a long time. Even worse than the US, trains began to die out with the rise of cars and freight trucking. Passenger train infrastructure is expensive and needs to be backed by a government that understands the importance of good transportation. It was not a priority for past Mexican…
Author: Beacon Bill
Semi-Nomadic Travelers
Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico
We made it to our 14th Mexican state – Chiapas! I have re-united with my wife M who spent the last week back in Seattle, and I am very happy to be back to our normal “couple traveling” instead of solo traveling. I really prefer being able to share everything again with her. This includes…
Solo Traveling is not for me
M has returned to Seattle for a memorial service this week, so I have been traveling alone in Mexico. I have had two separate 3 night stops to try out “Solo Traveling”. I did a few work trips alone during my career, but that doesn’t really count because I am busy with work things and…
Surprise stay in Ermioni, Greece and Athens
We had planned to spend our last week in Greece, and our last week in Europe, on the island of Andros. But… sometimes things don’t go to plans and we need to find a quick flex. There was a ferry strike which delayed our arrival date by at least two days, and we were concerned…
Nafplio, Greece with Friends
We have been in Europe for almost 2 months and have not seen a familiar face since we left Seattle. We like traveling with each other but sometimes it gets a little old just talking only to your spouse. That changed in Nafplio, Greece when we had 2 sets of visitors. We love to meet…
Stoupa, Greece – Our new favorite European beach town
If you saw my post last week about Sardinia, I was complaining that we didn’t quite match with the beach town of Olbia. It wasn’t what we were looking for in a relaxing beach week. I felt a little bad for complaining so much, so now I need to write a blog post praising a…
UNESCO World Heritage Sites
We often seek out the UNESCO World Heritage Sites while we are traveling and we are rarely disappointed. If you aren’t aware, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) has a list of over 1200 sites in the world that are exceptional natural wonders or they are examples of important cultural or historic places…
Sardinia- not as planned
We have been in France for over a month, and our feet haven’t set foot in a swimming pool or on a beach. We knew would be ready for a beach week and set aside 5 days in Olbia, Sardinia for some beach relaxation time. We took a ferry from Corsica and found a bus…
Corsica, France – Bastia and Bonifacio
Yep, we are island hopping in Europe. First stop – Corsica. It is technically part of France but it really isn’t that near to France. We took an overnight ferry from Toulon (near Marseilles), from 6:30pm to 7:00am the next morning. We are not “cruisers” so this was kinda new for us. We rented a…
Strasbourg, Beaune, and Dijon
After our hikes, we really should have put in a week or two of downtime to rest up and slowly get back into our regular tourist mode. Instead we spent 3 nights in Strasbourg and then 4 nights in Beaune. In Beaune, we actually spent 1 day renting a car to look for some family…
Searching for the lost Chateau in Burgandy
My Great-Grandma Tonsie told stories about how her grandparents were the gardeners/caretakers of a mansion in France in the 1860’s. We are traveling through Burgundy so we had to try and find it! Before I tell you about our searching, I have a LOT of interesting background story info that might be more interesting than…
Do we like “thru-hiking” in Europe?
We just finished our trial thru-hikes to see if are ready for doing a Camino de Santiago. I’m sure everyone is on the edge of their seat to see what we are now thinking :>) First, we need to try to define the terms. In America, I have done a lot of “backpacking” in Washington…
Hiking the Alsace Wine Route
Yep, another long hike… but this time on the other side of France in the Alsatian region. Alsace is a very German part of France because this area has been part of Germany in the past. Many people still speak German and the regional food also is a bit similar with a lot of pretzels,…
Hiking Cancale to Mont Saint Michel, Days 3 and 4
After eating enough oysters in Cancale to cure our sickness, we were ready to go and finish our hike. If you haven’t read about Day 1 and 2 of our hike you should probably do that first. We were now feeling fresh and determined to walk the rest of the way to our final destination…
Hiking Saint Malo to Cancale- Day 1 and 2
Our first step in the morning was to find a taxi to take our bags ahead to our final destination 5 days from now. We were able to negotiate a fair price with a driver who was willing to take our carry-on rolly bags to our Airbnb in Mont Saint Michel. Our Airbnb had agreed…