We have friends that often ask us how we are comfortable to be traveling internationally and doing all the planning by ourselves. We never use travel agents and generally don’t like group planned tours. M has done a couple of Rick Steves tours and she liked the social aspect of traveling with different people but…
Author: Beacon Bill
Semi-Nomadic Travelers
Why did we retire to the city?
M and I grew up in the suburbs and lived most of our adult lives in suburbs. We thought that was the thing to do. Raise kids in the suburbs was the expectation. Good schools, playing in the neighborhood, sports, scouts, and all the kids activities seemed like it was the way to go. But…
Home Free or Homeless
I haven’t written much lately because it feels like that we haven’t done much lately… but that isn’t true. We have done a lot. Maybe because we haven’t done anything cool or significant lately… but that isn’t true either. Looking through my phone I found a lot of cool pics so I can share those…
Ride down the Coast in May?
I have been wanting to try bike touring for years and we had a few open weeks this month so decided to give it a shot. I have done Seattle to Portland, and Seattle to Vancouver but both of those were just 2 day trips. M had no interest in being on a bike that…
Yelapa- The Isolated Mexican Beach Town
The last stop on our 2022 Mexico tour was 4 nights in the small beach town of Yelapa. We had been going full bore tourist mode during our few days in Mexico City so we wanted a few days to do nothing before we went home to Beacon Hill – Seattle. Yelapa does not have…
Mexico City needs a long visit
The 2nd biggest city in the America’s (after San Paolo) is huge. We have been to Mexico many times and never took the time to visit it’s most important city. We stayed 5 nights but needed a bit more. Tons of great museums, art and things to do. There are over 150 museums. It might…
Guanajuato and San Miguel De Allende
Most of our experiences in visiting Mexico over the last 30 years has been beaches. That is probably the case with most Gringos. We gringos stay for a week in Cancun, Mazatlan, Ixtapa, Cabo or Puerta Vallarta and don’t see much of the real Mexico except for going to a taco stand on the “other”…
Slow Travel through Mexico?
Well that was the plan… we want to LIVE on the road. But… we also want to see everything. We did find that on the beach in Bucerias which now feels like a second home. But we only had 4 days in Guadalajara. That means we have to go go go to see everything. 1…
Back to Bucerias but now RETIRED
Our first couple of weeks of being retired was spent getting ready for a 5 week trip to Mexico. Now we are here again in Bucerias (just North of Puerta Vallarta) for a couple of weeks. We were here last year (see post) for a month and it is making an easy transition for us…
Changes coming to Howbillrolls.com because of changes coming to Bill
The past 10 years or so I have ridden 2500-4000 miles per year and learned a lot about bike infrastructure around Seattle. This blog was a place for me to write about bike routes, trail construction and also a place to share my rides. I have commuted to work by bike for years and that…
Caye Caulker Belize
I haven’t been blogging lately but that is mostly because I haven’t been riding. But I just spent 10 days in Belize and had a great time escaping from the Seattle cold and biking a bit. I hope to be riding and blogging a bit more from Beacon Hill soon but it will be a…
Biking News
I stopped biking to work for the winter so I haven’t had as much to write about. I still ride once in a while but the rain and cold limits me a bit. This week there has been a fair bit of Seattle biking news. The big announcement this week is the that there a…
Biking in San Diego
Last month we spent a week in San Diego and I was able to get out and bike for about 4 of the days. I rented from Top Jolt bike rentals in the Ocean Beach neighborhood which is in the back of the Himalaya boutique clothes shop. I can’t remember how much it was but…
Oceanside, California
In September 2021, I spent 3 days in Oceanside, CA and stayed at an AirBnb that provides some 1 speed bicycles. Unfortunately, my seat was all the way down and the host did not have an Allen wrench to adjust it. After I bought a wrench set at Wallmart I was able to have 3…
5 Worst Missing Links in South Seattle
When you talk about the missing link in Seattle, the bike community knows you are talking about the missing link on the Burke Gilman trail between Fremont and Ballard. The fight to connect the trail to Ballard has been going on for decades and it doesn’t look like the lawsuits are going to end any…