We left Cairns heading north to Indonesia for a two weeks on a tiny little island called Gili Meno. We were looking for a little beach time after what was a fairly fast paced month and half beginning in New Zealand, and Gili Meno proved to be exactly what we needed.
Read MoreDiving the Great Barrier Reef has always been on my bucket list. Charles and I booked a liveaboard dive trip, which basically means you live on the boat and dive as often as possible. From Kangaroo Island we took a ferry and a couple of flights to get up to Cairns, where our boat would embark from.
Read MoreAfter about a week in Sydney, Sam and I headed south to Kangaroo Island by way of Adelaide, in Southern Australia. We both knew we really wanted to spend some time in the outback but hadn't really counted on exactly how hot the Australian outback gets in the summer time. Kangaroo Island was the perfect solution because it is home to all of the wildlife that we wanted to see and was a pleasant 70-80 degrees each day.
Read MoreAfter lots of time away from family in unfamiliar cultures, we were very excited to travel to New Zealand to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Tania Peterson, for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. After a few very long flights, arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand felt a little like coming home with clear-cut rules, clean restrooms, and native English-speakers everywhere. Our first weekend in New Zealand the four of us traveled north from Christchurch to Kaikoura, a tiny beach town on the South island with a lot of tourist activities.
Read MoreRecharged, we traveled by bus 3 hours north to the remote Khao Sok National Park, complete with an ancient rainforest, limestone cliffs, waterfalls and rare flora and fauna. The massive national park is half lake, half jungle, and we wanted to experience both.
Our first two nights Charles really wanted to stay in a treehouse in the jungle! It was totally awesome!
Read MoreWe flew to Kochi in the Indian state of Kerala for the next stage of our trip. Kerala is on the southwest coast of the country, and stands in stark contrast to the Northern part of the country. Kerala has a tropical climate, and we could feel the humidity the moment we stepped off the plane.
Read MoreWe arrived in Jaipur in the evening, still super excited about our fantastic luck with the tigers. Because we wanted to fit a lot of India into the time we had before being back in Delhi, our itinerary didn't leave much time for relaxing. We woke up in the morning and began our sightseeing tour of Jaipur, a very remarkable city. It is commonly referred to as the Pink city, due to still-on-the-books laws that require the old city to be painted in the same shade of pink. This is due to the pink sandstone that was originally used on many of the forts and palaces in the region.
Read MoreWe arrived in Ranthambore in the evening, unsure of what to expect for the following days. Anil, upon seeing our initial itinerary which had only one drive, told us we absolutely needed to add at least one, but preferably two additional drives to increase our chances of seeing a tiger. Even with these two more drives, he made sure to let us know we shouldn't expect to see anything, as tiger sightings are incredibly rare.
Read MoreAs we mentioned in a prior blog post, we spent four days diving in the Red Sea in Egypt! We were scuba certified before the trip and did our Open Water course dives in freezing water in South Africa, so this was our first "real" diving experience.
We loved it! We went with a great company called Aqua Nabq, and had excellent lunches and wonderful, sunny days exploring a bunch of different dive sites. We used our GoPro to take video and pictures. Here's the video, and a few favorite snaps!
Read MoreAs of a few days ago, we’ve been traveling for six months! We looked back over our photos and our travels so far, and decided to post the top photos from every country we have visited so far. We’ve taken 4,059 photos, visited 18 countries, and stayed in 63 different hotels / AirBnbs. These are our favorite 77 photos.
Read MoreSpending a few nights at Sable Sands was one of the most special parts of our trip so far. While we really enjoyed our time in Victoria Falls, it was a bit touristy for my taste. We wanted to get out into the bush and away from the people, and Sable Sands provided just that.
Sable Sands is a safari lodge that is comfortable but rustic. Each hut has it's own wood-burning stove outside to serve as a water heater, white mosquito netting draped over the bed, a thatched roof, and a gorgeous view over the watering hole in the wide-open valley. As we arrived, monkeys were tramping around the edge of the hole having a drink before moving on to let the next parade of animals have their turn.
Read MoreOne day of our trip in Victoria Falls was spent crossing the border into Botswana to go to Chobe National Park. The first half of the day was spent in an open-air truck (think: typical safari vehicle) and the second half was a water safari in a boat.
We got very lucky and saw lions up close! Almost too close for comfort! Check it out!
Read MoreWe left Cape Town on Saturday, May 6th to fly to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, where we decided to do a safari. The Zimbabwe infrastructure isn’t great (for example, ATMs are almost always out of cash), so we elected to go with a pre-built package with all of the cool stuff scheduled in and paid for so we didn’t have to worry or plan as much.
Read MoreSorry for being so behind on this blog, Samantha and I have been super busy these past few weeks, and were mostly out of internet range. Yesterday we arrived in Istanbul after a long day of travelling, and are really looking forward to this next chapter in the trip. That being said i wanted to recap our last weeks in Africa.
Read MoreI'm not really sure what I expected shark cage diving to be like when Chuck booked our excursion in Gansbaai. I wasn't afraid, though my hair stylist in Port Elizabeth spoke at length about how I should be. I suppose I thought it would be a similar experience to the wildlife viewing we'd done so far--sort of a drive by, take a few pictures and leave, kind of thing.
Not exactly.
Read MoreThe day after Addo Elephant Park, we took another recommendation of our wonderful AirBnB hostess and went to Kragga Kamma Game Reserve, just outside of Port Elizabeth. The reserve had a self-drive option that went around the park, with a stop in the middle of the drive at a cafe overlooking the cheetah enclosure. Unlike Addo, predators in this park are kept separate from their prey.
Read MoreOne of the absolute coolest things to do in Port Elizabeth is to go to Addo Elephant Park.
Addo is the third biggest national park in South Africa, and was our first chance to see wildlife in a more natural setting. Unlike game reserves, the animals at Addo aren't separated into cages to keep, say, the lions from eating the elephants. Tours were available, but we opted to do a self-drive. At the advice of our AirBnB hosts, we packed a picnic lunch and snacked all day while we drove around for about six hours.
Read MoreSamantha and Charles Parsons went a little overboard when planning their honeymoon. Instead of a few short weeks of travel, they opted for a year-long adventure around the world! Follow along as they leave their home in Denver, Colorado in the United States to travel the globe.
After two really increadible days of diving in French Polynesia our cruise continued east. We visited two more islands, Nuku Hiva and Pitcairn Island, however we didn't go ashore. In total we spent eight days sailing from Fakarava to Easter Island. It was pretty crazy looking at where we were on a map, with no land in any direction for about a thousand miles.
After a quick day in Rangiroa, we headed north to another atoll called Fakarava. There isn't much to see on land here, as its just a narrow ring of sand and palm trees surrounding a huge lagoon, but the diving was incredible. We booked two dives and everything we read said that the diving here would be very similar to the diving in Rangiroa. Other than the unbelievably clear, 80 degree water, we found it to be a completely different experience.
After visiting our friends in Hawaii, we flew south to Tahiti to board a cruise that would end our final three weeks of our year of travel. The cruise crossed the South Pacific Ocean, starting in Tahiti and ending in Valparaiso, Chile.
After a very full 30 days in Vietnam, Samantha and I were very much looking forward to our next stop. Our friends Greg and Kathy live in Honolulu and we felt like a visit with some friends was in order. We planned to spend two weeks in total in Hawaii, and split that time evenly between one week on Kauai followed by a week with them on Oahu.
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Charles & Samantha Parsons
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It’s been over a year since Charlie and I returned from our trip around the world. In May, we did a quick extended weekend in Moab, Utah to spend time in Canyonlands National Park and Arches National Park. For the first time since we returned, I had an urge to take some photos of our adventures and post them to the blog!