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The Traveling Canucks!

By on August 20, 2010 in General

Looking for a double black diamond, light your hair on fire couple adventure blog?  Look no further!   Round the world trip?  Done.  Hit 6 continents?  Done.  Trekking in Nepal?  Done.  These guys are really the been there done that adventure couple!

“Traveling Canucks is a site dedicated to travel, adventure and world discovery. Tune in for travel stories, travel tips and ideas, photographs and video of two Canadians exploring our world!”  –From http://travelingcanucks.com/

We asked the Canucks a few questions:

1) How many countries visited between the two of you? 49

2) If you had to travel with someone else besides your travel partner, who would it be? (this person can be living, historical or mythical?.)

He Said: Chistopher Columbus, the master explorer

She Said: President Obama, so we can travel in style wherever we go

3)What has been your favorite destination in your wanderings?
He said: Jordan (Petra and Wadi Rum specifically)
She said: Easter Island

4) If you had to eat one last meal, what/ where would you eat?
He said: Yakitori and sushi in Kyoto, Japan
She said: real Italian pasta on a vineyard in Northern Italy, homemade gelato for desert

5)How do you pick the places you visit? Spontaneous vs. planned?
He said: Plan the country and destination, but always leave a few extra days for serendipity
She said: Same

6) If you could solve one problem in the world what would it be?
He said: Stop global warming
She said: Fix world hunger, ensure that everyone has food to eat, everyday

7)You knew it was coming….What has been your greatest travel fight/disagreement?
She said: Every time Cam’s driving and Nicole’s navigating – it never ends well!
He said: Whenever Nicole has the map, whether it’s driving or walking, there is a good chance we’re getting lost, resulting in heated ‘discussions’.

7 Questions with Our Momentary Lapse of Reason

By on August 15, 2010 in General, Slideshowable

Our Momentary Lapse of Reason

From their site:  ”Beginning in June of 2008 we (Tracy & Jason) left our families, friends, house & jobs in Denver to follow our dream of traveling the world. This website is a chronicle of our 2 year journey.”

When we started asking our fellow couple travelers to awnser our 7 questions, our hope was to really capture a glimpse into how and why they travel.  What makes them unique.  Our latest couple gives us that reflection.

Tracy is truely a fine photographer.  Her pics of India with their use of color and story telling are truely not to be missed.  We are also very impressed with their fighting skills!  Please enjoy.

1) How many countries visited between the two of you?Over 50

2) If you had to travel with someone else besides your travel partner, who would it be? (this person can be living, historical or mythical?.)

He Said:  I like Anthony Bourdain.  If I could have traveled in the 60′s-70′s, Tony Wheeler (LP author) would be a good companion as well.  Both are insightful and a little edgy.

She Said: Hmmm, I like Jason’s choice!  Imagine a personally escorted food tour by an international celebrity.  I could wrap my mind around that pretty quickly.

3)What has been your favorite destination in your wanderings?

He said: I have to answer this in groups:  The Galapagos Islands have to be my favorite wildlife spot.  Angkor Wat has to be the most under appreciated ancient site but the place that keeps calling for more exploration is India.  It has to be the craziest place on earth and there were moments where I hated it with a passion but the more I have time to reflect, the more I miss it.

She said: That’s such a difficult question to answer.  We always tell people that we enjoy different places for different reasons.  SE Asia is our favorite region and within that region we love Indonesia (though we still have much to explore there), Burma & Laos.  Aside from SE Asia, we love eating in Thailand, Italy & Argentina :-)  The wildlife viewing in the Galapagos is amazing & diving Sipadan is a real highlight.  For natural beauty it’s hard to top Patagonia but we haven’t been to New Zealand yet (the USA is no slouch either of course!).  I could go on and on…I agree with Jason that India is high on our list to return to.

4) If you had to eat one last meal, what/ where would you eat?

He said:  WOW, so many choices on this.  I have to go with what first pops in my head – Steak and wine in the breathtaking mountains of Patagonia, Argentina.

She said:  Lets see, it would have to include an incredible red wine, perhaps a goat cheese souffle appetizer followed by a blue cheese & tomato salad then a rare steak with crab legs.  For dessert, I love ice cream!  Thanks for making me hungry with that question :-)

5)How do you pick the places you visit? Spontaneous vs. planned?

He said: “SO, where are we going tomorrow?”  She picks the places, I plan the logistics of how to get there.  Of course, we both daydream all the time about our next adventures.

She said: I”m the A-type person in our world so usually I like to have a plan but I”m totally ok with changing it as we go (which we almost always do).

6) If you could solve one problem in the world what would it be?

He said: Lack of Tolerance.  If everyone just showed a little more tolerance for people of other backgrounds/religions/countries etc. the would would be a nicer place.

She said:  Wow, that’s a pretty difficult question.  When we were traveling around India it apparent that the lack of available fresh & clean water was a huge problem.  If I could solve one problem, I think I would bring the world plenty of clean water for consumption & agriculture.

7)You knew it was coming….What has been your greatest travel fight/disagreement?

She said: We took a Transatlantic cruise from Harwich to Boston to round out our Middle East & Europe segment of our trip and one day we stopped in Cherbourg off the coast of France.  Having read a lot about the amazing war & peace museum in Caen we decided to before hand to visit it despite the fact that it was 90 minutes away by train and our ship was only docked for 8 hours.  The ship was an hour late docking and on our way out we stopped and asked the information desk about trains to Caen.  We were told there was one leaving in 30 minutes and the train station was 25 minutes away with a return trip that would get us back into Cherbourg with a few minutes to spare!  We raced off, determined to make that train.  By that time I was thinking that it wasn’t such a great idea to head all the way to Caen (90 minutes away by train) and as we were racing to the train station I told Jason that I thought we should stay in Cherbourg for the day, after all, spending 3+ hours in transport just to see a museum when we only had 7 hours didn’t really seem worth it.  We thought we would have more time and I thought there was enough to do in Cherbourg.  Well, Jason’s the type of person that has a one track mind and while I was talking I could practically hear him thinking “Train, train, must get to the train.  Can’t miss that train.”.  He told me in no uncertain terms that we already decided to go to Caen and it was too late to change our mind…and so we went to Caen.  We arrived at the museum and enjoyed 2 hours there (which was probably less than half the amount of time we really needed as it was probably one of the best museums we had been to).  After racing around the museum trying to take it all in we raced back to the train station to buy our return tickets to Cherbourg.  DOH!  The train we planned on taking back was a summer train that expired on Sept. 1st and it was Sept. 5th…the next train was an hour later and would have gotten us back to Cherbourg AFTER our ship sailed.  We hightailed it to the bus station where they politely told us to take the train.  We thought about renting a car but we never would have made it.  Our last resort was a taxi…at a princely price.  As we raced down the highway watching the Euros add all the way up to 191.20 E (all the while converting it into dollars at 1 Euro = $1.50 USD) I muttered, “wow, that was a nice museum.”    It was certainly the most expensive!

He said: I don’t think many people realize how hard it is to travel…not vacation/holiday…but long term travel.  I can’t really remember a knock-down-drag-out fight but three weeks in, we were walking down a street in Malaysia about ready to call the whole thing off.  We both calmed down however and it all worked out in the end.

For more visit:  Our Momentary Lapse of Reason

Top 10 reasons to travel as a couple.

By on August 12, 2010 in General

#1  It is very difficult to ride a tandem bike alone.

#2  You need someone that can tactfully tell you that, “no, that ‘I heart Detroit’ shirt is not a good idea.”

#3  Your Japanese is a bit rusty, making it difficult to ask someone else to snap photos.

#4  When you need someone to stamp a spider at 2am.

#5  Single men would never make it back from vacations as they will never ask for directions.

#6  Someone needs to tell her that she doesn’t look fat in that tourniquet…I mean bikini.

#7  Peruvian Sunsets are more breathtaking when viewed with your sweetheart:)

#8  Fighting and yelling alone in a Punto might get you fitted with a straight jacket.

#9 Who would you blame for taking the metro the wrong direction?

And finally:

#10- Who is going to stop you from getting that tattoo of the Chinese characters  for “supermarket”?

Traveling with a Mate

By on August 11, 2010 in General

Traveling with a Mate

In our unending effort to prove that we are somewhat normal (no laughing).  We have approached a number of fellow couple travelers to answer our “7 Questions”.  Today’s lucky couple is Matt and Deborah.  They run a very helpful site entitled:  “Traveling with a Mate“.  More than a mere collection of personal travel tales, their blog invites the traveling community to share and share alike.

Enjoy!

1) How many countries visited between the two of you?

Over 40

2) If you had to travel with someone else besides your travel partner, who would it be?  (this person can be living, historical or mythical?.)

He Said: I’m torn between David Attenborough and Michael Palin. Both are travelling heros of mine. The anecdotes they could tell on long journeys would be fantastic.

She Said: A Philosopher I think.  Maybe Socrates, I would love to have his point of view on the whole travel experience.

3)What has been your favorite destination in your wanderings?

He said: It has to be Japan. I’ve been to some amazing places but nothing quite like Japan. The people, the culture, the history, even the language. I’d love to go back there and explore a lot more.

She said: With Matt it has to be Cambodia and the Temples of Angkor Wat, gives me tingles just thinking about our time there.  Before I met Matt I spent 6 months in South America and fell in love with all of it but The Galapogos stole the show.

4)  If you had to eat one last meal, what/ where would you eat?

He said: Sushi! I’m obsessed with it and could happily eat it every day. Granted my last meal would be the same as all the days before but I’d still love it!

She said: I would choose Ceviche on a west facing beach, sun setting and Matt by my side

5)How do you pick the places you visit?  Spontaneous vs. planned?

He said: We get so excited about a new adventure that it’s hard to ignore looking at all the places we could go, things we could see. The problem is you can never fit it all in and we like to cram in as much as we can. To do that you really need to plan an itinerary. You always need breaks from it though and many countries are never as efficient as you think they will be so you need flexibility to cover all the unexpected events.

She said: I guess most of our trips have been fairly well planned, although we do like some flexibility to change things as we go along depending on whether or not we like where we are.  We start with a rough itinerary where we both pick our “must sees” and go from there.

6) If you could solve one problem in the world what would it be?

He said: It would have to be war. There are no heroes, only victims. It destroys not only lives but cultures, education, world views of places, tourism industries and the economy of countries too. The legacy of wars continues long after the battle is over.

She said: Ah so many which to choose.  I think I’d have to go for green fuels so that all Carbon emissions were eliminated overnight.  If only!

7)You knew it was coming….What has been your greatest travel fight/disagreement?

She said: We really don’t fight whilst travelling.  Small tiffs usually when we are running late to catch a train or bus as I get a bit angsty then.  On the whole we are very lucky as we want to see and do the same things at the same time.

He said: I too can’t remember any memorable fights while travelling. Part of the reason why we travel so much is because are able to do it so harmoniously. I believe common goals make a relationship stronger and travel is one of the best common goals you can have. Sorry to disappoint! :)

A hearty thanks to Matt and Deborah for kindly sharing their insights.  Candidly- we are a little disappointed in their “fighting” skills, but give them time:)

Put it in Context

By on August 1, 2010 in General

We must put a clear disclaimer on this post, there is one thing that we both hate more than a layover in anywhere that begins with Den and ends with a Ver: it is tour guides.  WE DESPISE THEM!  In so many places we have seen the gaggle of tourists led by someone that is supplying very simplistic remarks.  To identify them simply look for the person holding the metal stick with a yellow flag on top- sporting the clipboard.  You might hear them say, “There is a fine example of Greek statue….ok moving right a long.”  This in front of the Venus de Milo!  Or the most egregious example was a tour guide who said in front of the Celcius Library, “This is the library; imagine it,” and walked off. End of disclaimer.  Ok one more disclaimer…(We are never, ever paid/compensated for anything that we review or comment on.)  This is really the end of disclaimers.

We found a truly unique and frankly awesome service, Context Travel.  This is not your run of the mill tour guide.  You are paired in small groups never more than 6 people, with a true expert in the field.   When we say expert, we mean….someone that has devoted a lifetime to study in a given field.  Imagine having an architecture tour of Rome with someone with a Doctorate in Roman Architecture!  Or a tour of Topkapi Palace in Istanbul with someone that wrote a book about the palace!  Or even an incredible tour of Wall Street with a former bond trader!  With Context Travel you get just that. Ok…must be expensive right?  It really is affordable.  Tours are much more specific in their breadth, but much, much more profound in their depth.Our guide Claire in Istanbul. She speaks seven languages and literally wrote the book on Topaki Palace. We spent four hours with her and it was a highlight of our trip!

Most of our tours with Context have been just Mike and I.  They are not in every city. They don’t cover every topic.  They don’t even offer tours to some of your typically touristy spots.  But what they lack in quantity, they certainly make up in quality.

We have taken the following tours with context:

Imperial Rome: Architecture and History of the Archaeological Center

HISTORY AND CONTINUITY IN ISTANBUL

Tasting the Immigrant Experience

HISTORY OF FINANCE

Many of the tour descriptions sound more like a college syllabus than a promo for a tour. Don’t be scared away.  The beauty of Context is the questions you are able to ask.  Forget the trite quicky response (quicky’s are good just not on a tour).  You are always going to be surprised and enlightened.  (In-depth info really makes you sound cool at cocktail parties.)

We have only had one bad experience with Context.  Our foodie tour of NY.  But he really ruined it for himself.  He speaks fluent Chinese, so in Chinatown he kinda didn’t pay attention to guide.

We have recommended Context to many friends and now our blog-followers! A friend recently went to Rome with her two teenage daughters. They used Context to see the Vatican and the Vatican Museum. My friend said her daughters even thought the guide was cool! Context really puts things in, well, “context.”

We HIGHLY recommend:

Context Travel

Scholar-led Walks of the World’s Greatest Cities

Context is an in-depth alternative to traditional tours. We are a network of architects, historians, art historians, and specialists who organize over 300 different walks in 12 cities around the world.


What distinguishes us:

Vancouver, BC

By on July 17, 2010 in General

 

Day Two of Couples trip to the North

Vancouver is one of the most touristic cities in Canada with a lot of unique attractions, hotels for all budgets and an amazing food culture. We decided to eat at a great place in MetroTown. Earls. Urban Chic. The patio dining area is really nice sans the amount of traffic moving out front. Service is really fast and the menu is interesting. Make sure to save room for dessert. Our favorite was the delicious Smores!

Earl's (West Vancouver) on Urbanspoon

On tap for today-Seakayaking.

Any recommendations for dinner?

The Souvenir Dilemma

By on April 20, 2010 in General

Dong Xi’s, Choch-Keys, junk, Dust collectors, trophies…whatever you call them… they are the items that you bring home as little mementos of your travels. The tradition is as old as time: Romans picked up Egyptian Obelisks…Greeks a golden fleece…hundreds of US midwesterns….I heart (insert town). Souvenierring is a time honored tradition. One of my favorites is exhibited above. My prized Whirling Dervish! My wife keeps hiding it as he continues to show up on various “highly visible”-her words not mine– places. I cherish my dervish. It really spins! I remember the tiny shop in the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul where I discover this treasure. Tucked way back in vast dark passageways, was this little family selling metal wares. I tried a little Turkish, they a lot better English, and the result was an emigrating Dervish (and a lighter wallet).

Why do we do it? Why must we bring a piece of our travels home? Do we worry that we will forget the sights sounds and smells of _________? I really think so. I think that in our soul, we hope that one day when time creates a great chasm between the now and then, we will find the Dervish and it will bring a smile and a rush of memories to mind.

Sometimes these items represent a victorious negotiation. Perhaps a memorable shopkeeper or locale? Not sure some items will qualify…my I heart NY t-shirt never really spans the distance like my Dervish.

What is your favorite item? What reminds you of your adventure?