Jeremy

Jeremy founded Living the Dream in 2008 to chronicle his long-term trip around Asia. Since then he has been on two long-term trips, visited 69 countries, and is just getting started. He is now on a Lifestyle Design quest to build businesses to pursue a life of travel.

Should You Visit Denali or Take an Alaskan Cruise?

Alaska is the largest state in the USA and is roughly 2 1/2 times larger than the second largest state, Texas.

With it size comes a vast area for visitors to explore, and over the years two parts of the state have become the most frequently visited- southeastern Alaska (explored via a cruise) and central Alaska in Denali National Park (explored via packaged tours or DIY).

We recently visited both on a combination trip, and while we were there a thought occurred to us: not everyone can make it on both a cruise and to Denali.

After thinking about it for quite some time and experiencing both parts of the state on our journey, we realized that if we were poised to only do one of the two major trips we would have had a hard time picking one over the other.

In this guide, we want to highlight the differences between the two in case you find yourself in the position of only being able to do one!

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Shibuya Crossing – The Masses Are Amazing!

My favorite spot in all of Tokyo is not one that you would normally think of.  No, it is not a large shrine like at the Nikko Temple or one of the dozen of multistory electronic shopping centers; although the Sony store is quite amazing in its own right.  While it is considered a tourist attraction, the place is also practical for tens of thousands of people every day.  That is the world famous Shibuya scramble crossing, one of the world’s largest cross walks.

The district of Shibuya is one of Tokyo’s more famous regions, with the popular Meiji Shrine nearby as well as neon signs in just about every place imaginable.  With one of the busiest subway lines in Japan, the mass entrance and exit of people produce the biggest crossing I have ever, and probably will ever see.  Estimates for how many people cross during each exchange is disputed, but I would not be surprised if it broke 1,000 every crossing (~500/minute average).

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Contiki Tours Review – Sparking a Love For Travel

Ten years ago, several months before this blog even existed, I went on my first trip overseas. With absolutely zero stamps in my brand new passport and having never traveled solo before in my life, you could say that international travel was a new experience for me.

Looking back now, after having traveled for many years in 70+ countries, filling my passport a few times over in the process, I can say that I’ve grown a lot as a traveler.

But for that very first trip, I was clueless and a little bit terrified. With limited time and a modest budget, I decided to go for it all and book a guided tour. One that would end up changing the course of my life forever.

It was with Contiki tours. Europe was in my sights.

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How Much Was Our Our Two Week Spain Honeymoon?

After returning from our Spain honeymoon, we had one question more than all others: just how much did it cost? 

Well, we are not afraid to let the world know that we spent just about $5,885 for our 15-day luxury honeymoon in Spain, or about $392/day.

While that number is high, as Spain is known for being relatively inexpensive for the budget traveler, keep in mind the fact that we went all out in nearly every aspect of the honeymoon with little regard to prices. 

Spain was actually our chosen destination for this very reason as we’d much rather spend more money in a cheaper destination doing everything we wanted to rather than skimping in a more expensive destination just to get by within a manageable budget.

But like all things on this site, we kept a record of our spending. Yes, even on our honeymoon we still worked to log every penny spent to give you a complete idea on what it would be like to travel the way we do.

Of course, as this trip was our honeymoon and is the opposite of what most people consider for budget or long-term travel, we’ll do our best to highlight the reasons why our number was significantly higher than what should be required.

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