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…
Author: Beacon Bill
Semi-Nomadic Travelers
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…
Back to France and Finding Roots
We had a great time in Fall 2023 traveling through Southern France and we really wanted to see some more of this country so we planned to return for the month of September 2024. Our flight came into Paris on September 2nd and we planned a couple of days here to get over jetlag. We…
How we play the Credit Card Game
We have been getting more involved in the travel credit card miles and points game since we have retired and started traveling. It is a really easy way to get free flights and hotel rooms just by signing up for the right cards and putting all of our spending on them. I wish we would…
Airbnb or Hotel?
I have written before about travelers guilt, especially when we are exposed to countries with a lot of poverty. When we are in lower cost of living countries, it is important to us that we spend our money with the locals. We try to eat at local restaurants and avoid any big international chains. We…
Oaxaca- the Foodie town of Mexico
We have been looking forward to this town for a long time. We have heard so much about Oaxacan Mole and all the other great Oaxacan foods that we really mapped our trip to end up in Oaxaca. We had fantastic food in Puebla but Oaxaca just had so many more places making fantastic meals….
Are we the only Gringos in Orizaba, Mexico?
We like to get off the beaten path when traveling and relish those times that we feel like we are the “only” tourists (we know this is never really true). We like being in restaurants with mostly locals or the only Caucasians on a local bus, because it feels like a more real experience. But…
Puebla, Mexico
We really needed to get back to the real Mexico and Puebla was our perfect next destination. We spent several weeks in Bucerias, (near Puerto Vallarta), in a neighborhood filled with other gringos avoiding the rainy spring in Canada and the Northern US. It was Mexico… but we didn’t have to speak Spanish in most…
What do you do all day?
In my working career, I went to a LOT of retirement parties. I never liked them much because I was always jealous, but I was interested in the questions that usually got asked of the new retiree. What are you going to do all day? I like hearing about other people’s hobbies, and where they…
FAQ for Retired Nomads… and no answers
We keep keep getting the same questions from people when they hear that we are retired and traveling fulltime. People are usually very interested, and curious about how it can be done. The same questions come up in our nomad online communities, from our friends and family, or when we meet new people in person….