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Travel Plans

Musings, Tidbits About Us, Travel Plans

On Slipping into June: “When Wanderers Cease to Roam”

June 8, 2013

It’s a warm Saturday afternoon here in Portland, Oregon.

Earlier today, Rose Festival traffic slowed my drive south to my sister-in-law’s baby shower, and now that I’m home, I’m slowly sinking farther into couch cushions and this post-RTW reality…

“I’m worried that I broke my iPad,” my mom tells me at last night’s family get together. “I keep visiting your blog, but the newest post I see is the one about Baby Peach.”

Sigh. I know.

The pace of travel and writing and writing and travel suited me so well. Camera in hand, or at least on shoulder strap, keyboard daily beneath my dancing fingers. Post after post of people and places, of meals and memories and life-altering lessons.

Time, endless time…

Here I am now, searching for new equilibrium while this growing belly sways my backbone and calls for re-prioritizing nearly every single aspect of existence.

A rug. New shoes. A hardcover book. Wood floors in a home with a mailbox…yes, that’s right, a permanent mailing address for these two RTW wanderers. Continue Reading…

Destinations, Musings, New Zealand, Tidbits About Us, Travel Plans

The Night Before Christmas: At the Auckland Airport

December 24, 2012

It’s been a kiwi Christmastime. This November and December, we’ve traversed the North and South Islands of New Zealand, and I’ve been soaking up the spunk and joy in the little things, like this Christmas video from my favorite shop in Auckland.

A Night before Christmas from Pauanesia | Filmed & Edited: Tama Jarman
Music: ‘Walk in the Park‘ by the Wellington Ukulele Orchestra

Tonight, the spunk and joy is accompanied by a bit of melancholy and a large dose of gratefulness.

I’m so close to winging my way home.

It’s Christmas Eve: a few hours before midnight on the 24th of December (a day that sounded so, so far away when we first departed Portland on January 5th). We’re sitting in a hotel room just down the road from Auckland International Airport. Continue Reading…

Cambodia, Destinations, Musings, Travel Plans

Weekend Update: Death of a King in Cambodia

October 21, 2012

Hello, friends!

A little real-time note for you on this October Sunday.

This past week in Phnom Penh: Cambodians mourning the death of Former-King Sihanouk

Ted and I are in the middle of our five week circuit in Southeast Asia, and I’ve been fumbling around behind the scenes with the tail end of South Africa posts and the next stretch of updates from Zanzibar, Thailand, Laos, and now Cambodia. Continue Reading…

Money Matters, Travel Plans

Choose Your Own Adventure, Eastern European Style

July 8, 2012

Dilemma: We’re in Croatia. We need to get to Lebanon.

Do we A) pay for fast plane tickets or B) take the same money and divvy it up between bus rides, accommodations, food, and a cheaper, shorter flight from northeastern Greece and gain visits to Montenegro, Macedonia, and Greece (interspersed with brief stops in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Cyprus) in exchange for roughing-it on a few more bumpy roads?

For Choice A, turn to page 37. For Choice B, turn to page 73. (Kidding, kidding…but if there was a page 73, that’s where we’d be!)

Our decision: Overland through Eastern Europe. For nearly the same cost as two tickets, we gained a ten day visit to new-to-us corners of the world.

Continue Reading…

Destinations, Emilia Romagna Tourism Board, Featured Partners, Italy, Musings, Travel Plans

Surprise: We’re Moving to Italy!

April 29, 2012

Time to jump ship. Since January, we’ve blogged our way through South America and most recently left the last tale quite near the docks in Rio.

More than a few stories wait to be told from our final days in the southern hemisphere: a mid-March visit to Roberto Burle Marx’s estate, time spent with an 81 year old fellow working at a 106 year old organization serving the disenfranchised in Rio de Janeiro, Ted’s fishing escapades on Brazil’s Northeast Coast, crossing the Atlantic Ocean for sixteen nights and watching that red equator line slip past the boat’s bow, early-April Easter arrival in Spain, and a 1,500 mile road trip from Barcelona to Cadiz with Mike and Tracy.

For now, tidbits live in the Daily Travel Journal, and the fully-fleshed-out-and-photoed posts will make their appearance at some date in the future.

Today…we’ve found ourselves in the middle of a plan that was never part of the plan:

We’ve moved to northern Italy. Continue Reading…

Chile, Destinations, Patagonia, Travel Plans

Paying Respects to Torres del Paine: Planning A Visit After the Fire

March 8, 2012

We were dressed in high-tech mourning clothes, attending a funeral for the landscape, all but a few square inches of our bodies covered in black rain-proof, wind-proof, sun-proof zippers and Velcro, laces and glasses. The acrid smell of disaster burned our nostrils, a reminder of the recent tragedy that swept its fiery way across Chilean Patagonia…

We’re sharing our Torres del Paine tales this coming week, but first, a flashback to set the stage: Continue Reading…

Musings, RTWdinnerparty, Tidbits About Us, Travel Plans

RTWdinnerparty Leap Day Edition: Summer Salads in Buenos Aires

February 29, 2012

Welcome, friends, to our corner of the web! On this Leap Day, we’re hosting our second {digital} dinner party as a way to take a pause and enjoy an exchange with fellow travelers we’ve met through Twitter. For the backstory, see #RTWdinnerparty: Friends, foods, and table talk from travels around the world.

Pull a chair to the table and enjoy! When you’re done here, head on over progressive-dinner-style to our friends’ #RTWdinnerparty dishes and stories. Link roundup at the bottom of the post.

{Meet and Mingle} Bethany and Ted, here. Welcome to our dinner party. We’re just eight weeks into our journey around the globe; this hot on the heels (ha!) of eight years of dreams and schemes and plans.

As landscape architect and social worker, we’re taking time during travel to experience and share observations about the world through the lens of compassionate care for the planet and its people. At each destination, Ted puts new friends at ease, investing in conversations and teasing out details; Bethany heads up writing and photography to wrestle with tensions, catalog milestones, and share with readers an honest look at life across cultures.

Beautiful Buenos Aires, Argentina is temporarily home base.

We arrived on Valentine’s Day, via a harrowing airplane ride from southern Patagonia (see Daily Travel Journal Day #41). We’ve paused for a bit and set up house in a cozy little apartment, complete with seafoam green glass shower tiles, cement kitchen countertops, and a solitary steak knife. (Details forthcoming on the cutlery.)

{Dinner Specialty} Summer Salads

We could <insert salad photo> right here and be through, but, well, you’ve seen Portlandia, right? It’s not all a joke. You’re going to hear the story of the food before it’s served. Continue Reading…

Musings, Travel Plans

Our New Traveling Companion: The Opinel

December 31, 2011

The craziness of packing is upon us! As we pare down to the final core of life essentials and prepare to stuff it all in a bag, we’re gratefully thinking of all the family and friends who are behind our plans with 110% of their cheer and prayers.

Departure: O-dark-hundred AM on Thursday morning.

We received the sweetest farewell gift  this past week from Jane: an Opinel Knife meant to keep us company on our travels and serve as butler during many a fine picnic of bread, apples, salami, and cheese…

“Originally sold as a simple working man’s knife, the Opinel has since become an iconic symbol of French culture and lifestyle. Pablo Picasso used an Opinel to carve his sculptures, while Roger Frison-Roche, the Savoyard alpine guide and mountaineer, never made an ascent without carrying an Opinel along. Éric Tabarly, the long-distance solo sailor and yachtsman, swore by the Opinel, which he always carried aboard his sailing yacht, the Pen Duick.”

If I do say so, I was charmed to learn that “In 1985 the Victoria and Albert Museum in London selected the Opinel as part of an exhibit celebrating the ‘100 most beautiful products in the world,’ featuring the Opinel alongside the Porsche 911 sports car and the Rolex watch.”

Jane: thank you for keeping us classy on the road! No matter the grime of tangles in our hair or days without laundry, we’ll be able to whip this out and feel quite sophisticated.

However, I think this seals the deal about not always going carry-on. (wink)

For those of you in the area, Ted’s parents are hosting a farewell from 2-4pm this Sunday afternoon. Come find us on Facebook for details.

Much love and joy to you in the New Year!

Inspirations, Musings, Travel Plans

Free Travel Education + Inspiration

December 13, 2011

It’s really no secret that I’m a library junkie.

Benefit: this addiction comes in handy when saving money for travel.

The internet teems with free blog posts and paid-for subscriptions that, at the end of the day, leave me wishing for more depth and/or less fees.

So I instead turn to my local library and its ridiculously vast collection of paper-in-the-hands resources with tables-of-contents, indexes and glossaries, coffee table books with rich photos, DVDs featuring footage and histories of far off lands, and, yes, user-friendly how-to guides to accompany me on my let’s-make-friends mission with the camera.

And let us not forget the other beautiful thing about the library: free wi-fi sans coffee purchase. I’ve found this perfect perch, next to the spinning globe at my little Belmont Branch of the Multnomah County Library. While Ted has been finishing up his last few weeks of work and we’ve been commuting back into Portland from my family’s home in the country, I’ve been carpooling with him and finding digital work spaces to use during the day.

Must remember this library hack when we’re abroad. (Also, it turns out the National Library in Buenos Aires provides guided tours in Spanish and English. Who knew? Maybe I can score a card and stash it alongside the one I received at the Library of Congress in D.C.?)

If I seem a little over the top about libraries, it’s because I am. Continue Reading…