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.

Kerala Backwaters – Don’t Miss the Kayak Tour!

Kayaking on the backwaters of KeralaWhen exploring the backwaters of Kerala, India, renting a house boat is often the preferred activity.  These large floating boats can include every amenity you’d expect from home, and unfortunately come with the price tag to match.

We knew going into our backwater tour of Alleppey that the house boats would be far outside our budget.  Instead, we looked towards the more intimate tours on smaller boats that get into the narrow channels these floating houses could never dream of reaching.

Our mode of transportation for this journey? Kayaks. 

Armed with our paddles and a trusty guide, we began to explore the backwaters to see what life is truly like in this part of the world in a way not many visitors get to experience.

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Don’t Miss the Kolukkumalai Tea Plantation in Munnar

The Kolukkumalai Tea Estate outside of Munnar, India is the highest organic tea plantation in the world. 

With plants growing at elevations of over 8,000 feet, it should be no surprise when we say it is not the easiest of places to visit.

After a rather lackluster government run tour in Munnar the day before, we decided to hire a private Jeep to take us to this incredibly remote facility as the views were supposed to be some of the best. 

Even with the poorly run tour, we already knew that the region topped the Boh Tea Plantation in the Cameron Highlands, and going even higher for more beauty was something we couldn’t begin to comprehend.

With blue skies above and none of Munnar’s famous view-impeding mists in sight, our journey put us on the path to vistas we never thought possible.

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Loving Geometric Indian Patterns – A Massive Photo Collection

Geometric Indian PatternsOne of my favorite things about visiting the forts, palaces, and temples in India is discovering the geometric patterns that are found in every corner.   No matter where you go, these patterns appear and are a beautiful reminder of an age long since past.

The best part about these geometric patterns?  They all seem to be different!   It has been an exciting journey discovering these gems, and we went on a quest to take photos of some of the best.  Since we have dozens of these, we cannot help but share a large collection of our favorites here!

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…and Then PNC Changed the Foreign ATM Withdrawal Rules

The issues that go along with spending upwards of $75,000 on a vacation is not something most travelers ever have to consider.  But for our 18 month trip around the world, we were faced with some new challenges for this same reason. 

While the argument for how much a journey like this should cost is best served for other articles, one of the biggest struggles long-term travelers have to face are the bank fees that are associated with such a large amount of spending.

After many years of paying comically high fees without any other recourse, banks are finally starting to understand the fact that people do not want to pay foreign transaction fees to access their money. We thought we found a great policy with our bank, PNC, but the honeymoon was soon over just 6 months into our journey as the terms were recently changed back to the archaic fee structure we were trying to get away from. 

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