European summers are well known for wine festivals and partaking in local parties is one of the joys of travel. Winter (at least up until Christmas) is the time for Christmas Markets. This is especially true in Germany, though they are extending across Europe. For those that have not had the chance, here is a […]
Ragging on the German language is hip. Though it has been hip for several hundred years (looking at you Mark Twain). It is not lyrical or even friendly in its tone and can come off very harsh almost rude. Many of the linguistic constructs seem to make little to no sense, especially to English speakers. […]
“You are a goof,” Ali tells me 100 times on average a day. Ok, maybe I am. I like strange things and sometimes find reality a bit too drab and constraining. So what the heck does this have to do with traveling? I love Calvin and Hobbes comics. There is a wonderful way that Calvin […]
Some people don’t seem to understand my desire for travel, especially the extended trips and slowly moving around a place. They see it as a vacation or a short break from “normal life” and don’t quite get when I say that I want the travel to be the “normal life”. I offer the following metaphor […]
One of the most common questions about our Beyond Vacation trip was “which place did you like the best?” Minori on the Amalfi coast is my answer. Of everything we did and saw, the week of doing nearly nothing in this small Italian town was the best of the trip. Being there helped us tune […]
Tourists change places. When a city becomes a tourist destination, it seems to change. The more tourists that want to come through, the more pronounced that change seems to be. We had been spending most of the week in tiny Minori on the Amalfi Coast, which while touristed was not a major destination. We knew […]
Location plays a big part of travel. “Umm.. yeah of course it does, I am traveling to see other locations, right? Right!?” Yes, of course, but that aspect of location is not what I mean at the moment. One of the things we learned on our Summer of Beyond Vacation was that the specific location […]
A part of Beyond Vacation involved traveling slower, which for us has meant staying in a place more than a week at a time. We have found that staying in apartments is the best way to do this. We had some good luck and some bad luck with our apartments this summer. We learned that […]