The women instructed us to hold out our hands and stick our thumb out, upside down. She then took her own hand and squeezed our thumbs; first with her forefinger and thumb, and then the remaining fingers in descending order. This was her way of simulating how to extract the milk from the goats and […]
Sipping Bordeaux in Bordeaux
After a chill week in Vias, we hopped on a very hot train, without AC, to head north to Bordeaux for a few nights. This is the first place that we used AirBnB to book a private room. Choosing the private room instead of renting the entire apartment helped us save a few bucks, but […]
Southern (France) Hospitality
Good friends. Good food. Great weather. That pretty much sums up our time in Vias, France. We stayed for five days in this small town, near Montpellier, at the family vacation home of one of Christina’s friends, Sebastian. Christina and Seb met during her time living in France after college. Seb’s siblings came along for […]
Gaudí’s Barcelona: Our 3rd UNESCO site
It’s hard to think of any other place where a single architect is so widely praised and represented throughout an entire city than in Barcelona. When we were researching things to do and see during our visit, the name “Gaudí” just kept on popping up. After a few days of walking down Passeig de Gràcia […]
Barcelona: The First Stop
After our first long travel day (18 hours to be exact) we made it to Barcelona! We wasted no time getting into the travel groove and navigating the Barcelona public transportation system to get us to our hostel. It had been 6+ years since the last time either of us had stayed in a hostel, […]
A Million Things To Do
In order to get ready for an extended period of travel, we put together an extensive to-do list based on our research. Maybe there weren’t a million items on this list, but we had A LOT to do to get us into a position where we finally feel somewhat prepared. This list included: HEALTH/MEDICAL: • […]
Fitting Our Lives into Two Backpacks
Packing. It’s hard enough to plan ahead and pack for a weekend trip away, but when we started thinking about what to bring on our year-long trip, it was pretty overwhelming. Whenever we tell people that we are only bringing one backpack each, usually their eyes get big in disbelief and then the questions start […]
Ready, Set, Save: How We Budgeted for th...
After we started discussing our desire to travel the world, the next question that immediately came up was “How can we afford it?” Was it realistic to think we could do something like this? It took a lot of research, a conscious effort to cut back on our spending and ramp up our saving, and […]
How We Are Flying to Barcelona for $18
We get asked all the time, “How can you afford to take a year off to travel?” Since there isn’t a simple, straight-forward answer to that question, we usually end up stumbling through a brief response with statements like “Well, we’ve been saving for a while…” or “We’re traveling on a tight budget…” In reality, […]
More Than Two Weeks: Why We are Taking T...
It was a few years ago that we really started to consider the possibility of taking an extended trip. We were in the middle our 12-day vacation to Hawaii in 2013, having an incredible time relaxing, exploring, and eating our way across multiple islands when the conversation came up – Where should we head next? […]