to love and wander

The Natural Beauty of Mauritius

Humans suck. I should amend that. Humans often suck. Through our many travels we’ve been fortunate enough to bask in natural wonders of our destinations along with the often, tragic histories that they include. In the Galapagos, the entire archipelago is a national park, which naturalist guides, heavy regulation and strict environmental policies in place…

The Land of the Rising Rhum

The modern Mauritian economy is built on two pillars: tourism, which we are actively and enthusiastically contributing to by the mere act of visiting and sugar cane cultivation, which among its infinite uses is primarily used in making rum (spelt, rhum locally. Having checked the first pillar off our to do list, it made the…

Living in the Jungle

In total, we slept for a good 14 hours before waking up with the sun, around 6:30 or so. Surprisingly the nap we took the previous day wasn’t enough make up for the three day sleep debt we had. With a full night’s sleep and any jet lag risk behind us, we were really to…

A Weekend of Travel

In retrospect, I should have known better but to be fair, there isn’t much art nor science to picking international flights. It’s more or less a crap shoot that gets slightly more in your favor if the airline isn’t a jerk and decides not to track your searches. If one were to take the fastest…

Back to Paradise

Another year comes another ambitious, long awaited vacation to another remote spot on the globe. Since we last talked, plenty of new things have happened. I started a new position at CVS, Lauren and I moved from Texas to South Dakota and after enduring our first South Dakota winter, have been over the moon in…

Munich: Oktoberfest

The next morning marked the beginning of the marquee event of our trip – Oktoberfest. The morning began on a dreary note, with drizzle and a cool breeze greeting us as we headed out for the day. Our tent reservation was scheduled for ten that morning, but since I was one step away from death…

Schwangau

Looking back on it, it was inevitable. Every other time I’ve traveled to Europe I’ve gotten sick with some invasive malady and this trip isn’t an exception. I had been recovering from a bad flu leading up to our departure from the states and feeling like I was on the mend, but the day we…

Innsbruck

When we were planning the logistics of this trip, we had booked train tickets for key sections as we wanted flexibility of when we would move on to the next town. What we didn’t anticipate was that train tickets would double in price booking them within a day of actual travel, which is what happened…

Salzburg

The secret of combating jet lag is to immediately take on your target destinations’s time zone without question (but with plenty of grumbling). After losing nearly half a day to time zone differences, Lauren and I managed to stay up until 7:30 the previous night and woke up shortly after seven this morning. With our…

Europe is calling…

Eight years, three states and one wedding. Big milestones that have a since past marking the lapse of time since Lauren and I were in Europe. My faithful and most dedicated readers (who are also super attractive and smart…you know who you are) will recall the last time we entered the continent was for our…