Too often travel stories begin with something like, “It just isn’t the same as it used to be. It has become too over developed. Now they just catered to tourists. It just has none of the culture that I thought it would have.” Well, the tiny Caribbean island of Caye Caulker, off the coast of Belize, was everything I imagined a laid back island could ever be. This was a place you could walk everywhere, locals would say hi to you on their way to work, nobody was in a rush to go anywhere, and the favorite forms of transportation, …
Category: World Travels
Moorea… The Better Island than Tahiti
The Island of Moorea, truly one of the most visually stunning places I’ve seen, let alone been to in person. Eight massive, jungle covered peaks extend out of the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Coral reefs wrap around the entire island, creating turquoise blue lagoons that surround the beaches on this paradise. Sharks and turtles navigate in and out of the lagoons, across their homes within healthy coral reefs. And if it wasn’t already amazing enough, you could stay in a bungalow on the water, for $100 a night! Too good to be true? As much as it seems like …
Morro Bay | Ideal Beach Town Frozen in Time
Morro Bay, located along the central coast of California, between Los Angeles and San Francisco, just north of San Luis Obispo, has become our new favorite beach town in California. Better than Huntington Beach, better than Ocean Beach, and definitely better than the LA beaches. Morro Bay, with it’s mild weather as we head into winter and the California sun strong as ever. The sounds of waves crashing can be hurd throughout town, as well as the smell of saltwater that accompanies it. You can throw a rock from the town’s main strip into the harbor it’s so close, or …
Dream Trip to the Islands of Tahiti & Moorea | VIDEO
This year, my wife and I escaped the historic winter in Utah to French Polynesia to the islands of Tahiti and Moorea. We were shocked to see how much different this island chain was compared to Hawaii. This place is drastically more beautiful and far less developed. The diving with Black-tip Reef Sharks were unbelievable, the food with its French influence was amazing, and of course, this place looks (and is) truly a paradise! Throughout the week, we stayed in small little cottages just a stones throw, or sometimes even on, the water. Every day, we went snorkeling, hung out …
Phuket Thailand | Dream Trip
Rounding out our wild trip in Thailand on our honeymoon, we spent the last week of the trip on the Peninsula of Phuket in southern Thailand. After spending a chaotic few days in Bangkok, followed by an unforgettable time on a liveaboard scuba diving boat, we wanted the last part of our trip to be relaxing at the pristine beaches of Phuket. We didn’t know much about Phuket prior to planning our trip there, other than the turquoise water surrounded by wild jungles and mountains. And this place far exceeded all our wildest dreams. The Phuket peninsula is technically an …
Thailand SCUBA Liveaboard Experience: Days 2 & 3
Wake up, dive #1, eat breakfast, dive #2, eat lunch dive #3, snack, dive #4, dinner and beers, go to sleep, and repeat. This pretty much sums up the average day on a liveaboard dive boat. As you can imagine, the purpose of liveaboard is to dive as much as possible from sun-up to sun-down, and even sometimes at night! We chose to go through Similan 7 Seas Diving Shop (No Troubles Just Bubbles), aboard the MV Lapat, which offered a 3 day 2 night liveaboard trip that would take us from Lamu Pier, near Khaolak, to the Similan Islands …
Trip to the Island of Tahiti Trip (Part 2)
If you’re just reading this post, you’ll want to know a few things. My wife and I chose Tahiti for our big trip this year, not for the over-the-water bungalows (because we can’t afford them), but because of it’s tropical beauty that we’d seen in so many photos. And, the flight to this middle-of-nowhere island was going to be as expensive and long as flying to the Caribbean for us flying out of Utah. Easiest decision ever! The plan for this trip was to spend a few days on the island of Tahiti, then spend the remaining week of our …
Trip to the Island of Tahiti (Part 1)
When you close your eyes (after you’re done reading this description, of course), and you picture a tropics paradise in the middle of the ocean, with palm trees dipping their roots into the the ocean. An ocean that is so clear and blue, that you can see hundreds of fish swimming around pristine, vibrant coral reefs. And on that island, are thousand-foot mountain peaks covered with a dense green, jungle with waterfalls spilling over the edge. Can you picture it? Now, could you imagine a place like that existing, or is it just a figment of your imagination? Well, lucky …
Essay: My Fascination with Flying
Flying, in my opinion, is truly one of the most fascinating experiences. There hasn’t been a single flight, dating back to my first trip on an airplane when I was in the 4th grade, to my countless work trips, that I didn’t get a childish excitement at takeoff. Despite spending my entire career in the aerospace industry, making components that currently fly in commercial and military planes, the physical act of flying still amazes me. But why? Why, after all these years, has this joy not faded? Commercial flight is the closest that humans will ever get to teleportation. What …
Floating Markets, Orchid Farms, and Exploring Bangkok | Thailand Trip
After exploring the city of Bangkok for an entire day and night by ourselves, the following day we planned to do a few tours. This AirBnB Experience was of a floating market and an orchid farm just outside of the city. This was our chance to experience local foods and fruits brought to market by farmers, and a guide to experience everything we wanted to try and eat. Not only for the food, but we were excited to finally get to see and ride on the traditional Thai Longtail Boats that are inexorably tied to the way Thai people, still …