A $75,000 Vacation Around the World Over 465 Days

We took a trip around the world for a grand total of 465 days in 2013-2014, visiting 40+ countries on five continents. 

We were neither luxury travelers nor budget backpackers on this trip, and used points to pay for a number of our long-haul flights.

The total cost of this trip? $75,000 – or $80 per person, per day for the duration of the trip.

In this one we dive down into the numbers to show just where all that money went per country and per major spending category.

Read more

Which is More Ethical – Captive Dolphin Experiences or Wild Tours?

Wild dolphins up close and personal in MauritiusThere has been a blow-up in the travel blogging community over the recent inclusion of captive dolphin experiences at a bloggers' conference in Cancun, Mexico.  Those against the idea of captive dolphin experiences started a boycott, published a lot of posts with “facts” taken from documentaries like Blackfish and The Cove, and overall made me shudder at the poor form with which the argument was presented.  I could go into the dozens of reasons as to why this was a horrible choice for our industry, but to sum it up in one statement, my biggest point of contention was that bloggers were fighting to restrict their own access to research a hotly contested topic- one we were personally invited to come and see firsthand.

Rather than take part in this debate once the conversation degraded past the point of being civil (so, about 5 minutes in), we decided to take matters in our own hand.  We had to find out the facts for ourselves. 

We had already done a wild dolphin encounter in Mauritius earlier this year, but to be able to adequately talk about the captive alternative, we made it our quest to take in a private dolphin experience during our conference stay in Mexico.  We were signed up for the provided tour with the conference, but unfortunately the boycott got the event to be cancelled (or at least, we think it did. We never received an official notification from our sponsor, which makes the industry-declared “cancellation” seem very suspicious).

Luckily, a representative from Dolphin Discovery invited us to check out their dolphinarium during our stay, outside of the official conference itinerary, to experience their dolphin encounter for ourselves.

What we found was a bit shocking.

Read more

Chichen Itza – Why Not Visit The Ruins of Uxmal Instead?

When the media talks about the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan, it is all Chichen Itza, Chichen Itza, Chichen Itza.  You can hardly read a report about Mexico without this famous site coming up time and time again.

We understand why the hype for these ruins is the way that it is- the ruins of Chichen Itza are large and incredibly well preserved.  But when such rapid-fire promotion comes out to the world, the crowds are sure to follow. 

If you are one of those people who just cannot stand the sight of 50+ tour groups in one day, I'm sorry to say that Chichen Itza may not be for you.

Luckily, the ruins of Uxmal just a few hours away offer a wonderful alternative that we think all visitors to the Yucatan should check out.   (Okay, maybe not all visitors since that would defeat the purpose, but definitely the amazing readers of our blog).

Read more

A Yellow Fever Issue Traveling from Colombia to Costa Rica

For those who know us well, you've come to expect that we plan every little detail far more than most other travelers.  We research a lot, and only very rarely have unexpected surprises pop up on us.

I say this as the intro to this article so you can imagine our shock when we tried checking in to our flight from Cartagena, Colombia, to San Jose, Costa Rica and were told we had to show our Yellow Fever vaccination records in order to fly.

You know, the ones that were lost when we were robbed in Peru.

Hello panic mode, my name is Jeremy.  I never thought I'd be seeing you this day.

Read more