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….
Eating in Bucerias
It is often difficult to find the best places to eat when traveling. Google Reviews are often inaccurate and point you to restaurants that you weren’t really looking for. We have been in Bucerias for over a month, for the past 4 years, and have tried many of the restaurants. Bucerias has a lot of…
Galapagos on a Budget
I wasn’t sure that we could make the Galapagos work without breaking the bank. Most foreign tourists are seeing the islands on small “liveaboard” cruise ships. But those cruises are running about $1000 per day per couple for the 4-8 night cruises. The Ecuador political crisis this year caused a lot of people to cancel…
My Favorite Towns in the World
We have returned again to Bucerias, Mexico for a 5 week stay. This will be the 4th year in a row that we will have spent at least a month in Bucerias. Last fall I wrote a post about how we didn’t know how to answer the question- Where is your favorite place? I have…
Panama City, Panama
This is going to be a short post because we only spent 3 nights here. It felt even shorter than that because we were wiped out from 3 travel days in a row (ferry from Isabella Island to Santa Cruz Island on one day, flight from Galapagos to Guayaquil the next day, and flight from…
Isabela Island, Galapagos, Ecuador
We were on Isabela Island for our 2nd week on the Galapagos. Isabella is just a bit bigger than the big island of Hawaii but only 3000 people live there and they almost all live in the village of Puerto Villamil (also called Isabela). We took a 2 hour boat to get there from the…
Santa Cruz Island, Galapagos, Ecuador
Our first stop in the Galapagos is the most populated island Santa Cruz and we stayed in the biggest town Puerto Ayora. Santa Cruz is bigger than the island of Maui but it still only has 20,000 fulltime inhabitants. Many people that visit the Galapagos do it on a liveaboard small cruise ship (usually about…
Curacao
Yes, we had a Dushi time during our 2 weeks in Curacao. Dushi is kind of a catch all “good” word that people us for a variety of uses similar to “Aloha” in Hawaii or “Lekker” in South Africa. People used “Dushi” describing good food, weather or a fantastic beach, as well as meaning lovely….