The “W” is one of the most popular and scenic multi-day hiking trails in Patagonia.  It was a must do for me on my trip to Chile and the rest of my trip revolved around it.  While I met friends later, I hiked it on my own and had a fantastic experience. There are many ways to hike the “W”:  You can do it realitively inexpensively if you bring your own gear and food.  I did not do this.  While I frequently do multi-day hikes, the “W” was only 5 days out of a 30-day trip.  I did not want to be carrying around my stuff for the rest of my trip.  I also had no int ..read more

I expected to love Santiago but it didn’t get under my skin.  It is so large and spread out I just couldn’t get a feel for it.  I was there 3 days but could have easily cut it to two days (or even one). Here are some of my thoughts and recommendations.    We stayed at Matilida which is a lovely old mansion.  The rooms were beautiful and the breakfast was ok. There was absolutely nothing wrong but if returning I’d probably look for somewhere else to stay. The changing of the guards was my favorite activity in Santiago.  This is a big ceremony that lasts about 40 m ..read more

I recently read a FB question about how people with jobs have enough time to visit all 193 countries.  But I think the real heart of the question is one I hear frequently; how do you find time to travel?? While my finances definitely are not unconstrained, time is a bigger concern for me.  Like many of my readers, I work a full-time job and don’t have nearly as much time off as I would like.  Here are some of my tips and tricks to maximize my time off and travel.  Before going any further I of course want to acknowledge that I am extremely blessed and these “hacks” come fro ..read more

Spoiler Alert:  So very cool!  Definitely worth the hassle and extra time. Getting to Easter Island was baffling.  I started planning four months out – and I’m still not sure if that wasn’t enough time or too far out.  Finding flights was insane.  Under the best circumstances, LATAM’s website is not user friendly.  There is no calendar to compare seat availability and prices.  And sites like Google flights and Skyscanner don’t always reflect the most current information for LATAM.  Prices vary widely depending on when you look, dates flying and if you us ..read more

Like many other large professional cities filled with “type-A” people, happy hour in DC is a THING.  It is both a social and professional ritual.  Everyone from twenty-something broke interns to serious professional political operatives at the top of their game can be seen out in DCs bars and restaurants – often even at the same place. I am now living in DC for the second time as an adult.  DC is the melting pot for my job and there is always someone to catch up with over a drink.    This list represents my favorite spots based on 5 years of “research”. DC Political Ha ..read more

While there was a gradual evolution of the cell phone since the 1980’s, the idea of combining phones and a personal computing device with outside apps did not hit the market until the mid-2000’s and was not mainstream until the early 2010’s.  While it is hard to believe, that means until just 10-15 years ago, most of us traveled without a smart phone.  And while obviously it is tremendously convenient, I think we’ve lost some of the thrill, challenge, exploration, and joy of travel by relying on them too heavily. I am not advocating for you to leave your phone at home on your next tr ..read more

Here are some beautiful photos of Easter Island from Spokenlight photography. In a few weeks I’ll post how to get here and what to do once there ..read more

As you learned a few weeks ago, I count Colombia as my 100th “country”.  For this first trip, I stuck to the cities – Bogota, Medellin and Cartagena.  And this was a great lesson on keeping an open mind, you never know what you will like.  If asked before the trip, I expected to like Cartagena, Medellin, and Bogota (in that order).  I only went to Bogota because it is the Capitol and frankly we had to transfer through anyway from Santiago Chile.  I actually enjoyed Bogota the most and Cartagena the least.  And I was pretty sick while in Bogota, so I can’t imagine ..read more

I had a block of 3 weeks and wanted to spend the time in a single country.  But I had no flexibility on the time of year – it was November or nothing.  My short list was Southern India, Chile and Tasmania.  I settled on Chile!  I had 19 days total – it’s not enough time to do everything (there is never enough time to do and see everything) but I am happy with what I was able to squeeze in.  And in a perfect world, I could have probably cut my trip by 3-4 days* and still had the same experience.  (I built in some extra days at Easter Island and pure travel days to ..read more

It was a long road to the decision to visit Grand Cayman.  The original idea was to charter a small live-a-board for a week.  But there were only four of us, and so that got expensive.  And our window of when we could travel got shorter and more specific – mid-Oct.  Unfortunately, this is right in the middle of hurricane season.  And I got a little squeamish about multiple nights on a boat (I’ve never done that). And so, we switched to land based but water focused …  But it is still Oct… And we wanted somewhere with enough to do for 5 nights, but not so much that ..read more