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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

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 …

Continue Reading

Exploring Bangkok’s Chinatown | Video

After 26 hours of traveling to Thailand, we finally reached our hotel in Bangkok! After wandering around Chinatown and Bangkok for the day, all that travel was completely worth it! We explored the tremendously busy weekend markets, wandered through critter-filled parks, and capped off our day walking up and down the streets of Chinatown to experience the world famous street food scene. We tried as many foods as we possibly could, but we only scratched the surface of what Bangkok has to offer. The city itself was so busy and chaotic, we’d experienced nothing like it in America or anywhere else. But for how hectic the Bangkok was, it was shockingly friendly and easily accessible! Here is a video from just our first day in Bangkok on our 14 day trip! Later in the trip we made it down to the beaches of Phuket and even experienced life on a liveaboard dive boat for a few days! Thailand was unforgettable.

Continue Reading