During the past year, our travels haven’t slowed, but our destination has become more consistent.
After eight years of blissful annual treks to the One&Only Palmilla in Los Cabos, Mexico, to celebrate Valentine’s Day, we took our love and commitment to this sunny destination up a notch. We are now the happy owners of a home in Cabo.
St. Petersburg is a charmer from first sight. Pastel-painted 18th and 19th century buildings are like jewelry boxes begging to be opened.
Thankfully, we had five days and six nights to explore Russia’s second largest city of 5 million.
Founded in 1703 by Peter the Great, this once swampy, flood-prone land with access to the Baltic Sea became the emperor’s Naval headquarters and his grand experiment in building the city of his European travel dreams. Just stroll the streets and you'll see that he succeeded, thrusting Russia onto the cultural world stage.
Here's my snapshot of trip bests, eats and treats.
Southeast Asia has been on my travel wish list for years.
I’m no 20-something looking for price-conscious adventure. Admittedly, that’s how I envisioned the stereotypical tourist visiting Southeast Asia.
Instead, the region’s reputation for incredible food, enchanting temples and friendly people drew me here. Not to mention, every person who has visited the area raves about it.
Southeast Asia is what I’d call restrained exotic. It’s different enough to stimulate all of your senses, but sprinkles in plenty of smiles to make you feel comfortable.
If you love rain-soaked, lush locales, you’ll find them on Hawaii’s Big Island. If you prefer sunny, black-sand beaches and lava fields, they’re here, too.
As we drove from Hilo up the east coast and wound around to the Kona area, it felt as if we had entered some kind of time warp to experience both climates and terrains within minutes of one another. One moment we were flipping on our windshield wipers and the next we were slipping on our sunglasses.
Beauty in Quito is more than street deep. We stumbled across this courtyard off of one of its busy streets in Old Town.
We were just passing through on our way to the Galápagos Islands. We had booked two nights in Quito, Ecuador, to avoid any chance of missing our ship in case of plane delays.
What a mistake it would have been to not have given this city its due touring time. If you’re heading to Galápagos, intentionally pass through Quito and plan to spend a few nights there.