New Zealand’s South Island
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 80
- Shutter Speed: 1/1000 s
- Focal Length: 5.2mm
- Camera: Canon PowerShot S100
Along our journey this year, we have met several travelers who highly recommended that we visit New Zealand due to its natural beauty and breathtaking landscapes. Until we started planning this leg of our trip, we never realized how isolated New Zealand really was; luckily we were flying there from Australia which is only a few…
The Great Barrier Reef
- Aperture: f/3.5
- ISO: 100
- Shutter Speed: 1/250 s
- Focal Length: 10.7mm
- Camera: COOLPIX P7100
We decided our final adventure in Australia would be to experience the world’s largest living structure – The Great Barrier Reef. The reef stretches over 1,400 miles (2,300 km) and can even be seen from outer space. The reef and other marine life we saw was spectacular. Because the Great Barrier Reef is the…
Sunshine Coast, Queensland
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 160
- Shutter Speed: 1/100 s
- Focal Length: 5.2mm
- Camera: Canon PowerShot S100
We spent the holiday season in lovely Coolum Beach, located in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Queensland is one of Australia’s six states and is three times the size of Texas! Although Australia’s Gold Coast is much more of a popular vacation destination for tourists, we selected the Sunshine Coast because we had read about…
Sparkling Sydney
- Aperture: f/2.8
- ISO: 100
- Shutter Speed: 1/30 s
- Focal Length: 5.2mm
- Camera: Canon PowerShot S100
Part of my dream of visiting Australia has to do with the feeling I get while watching New Year’s celebrations from around the world and being amazed by the beautiful Sydney Opera House lit up by sparkling fireworks in the background. I got that same feeling when we first set eyes on the famous performing arts…
The Land Down Under – Victoria, Australia
- Aperture: f/4
- ISO: 160
- Shutter Speed: 1/60 s
- Focal Length: 5.2mm
- Camera: Canon PowerShot S100
Melbourne, Victoria For over 10 years, visiting the continent and country of Australia has been on my bucket list and merely a dream. That dream has come true. After a long 30 hours of travel from Paris to Melbourne via Shanghai, we arrived in the “land down under”. What shocked us the most was landing…
Paris, the City of Lights
Leaving Europe and ending this leg of our journey was bittersweet. We had officially eaten ourselves through Europe, with little exercise besides walking from monument to restaurant or bakery, and we were ready to have our healthy lifestyles back. Nonetheless, we embraced the true Parisian experience and enjoyed ourselves to the fullest (no pun intended)….
J’aime la France
If you know me well, you know I love France. This romantic and gorgeous country was the final destination on our European journey. We began this trip by quickly stopping in San Sebastián to pick up half of our luggage load which we’d left a few weeks prior in order to comfortably manage our excursions to…
Magical Morocco
Happy New Year! We’re a bit behind on the blogs posts, but we’re catching up now. Hope everyone had a nice holiday season! Our trip to Morocco for Thanksgiving week came at a spontaneous whim. We had a week to fill in our European journey and we decided to fly down to Marrakech, Morocco from…
Happy Christmas from your Friends Down Under
Merry Christmas or “Happy Christmas” as they say in Australia! Wishing you peace and happiness this Christmas and throughout the New Year! We’re enjoying a warm summer Christmas here in the Sunshine Coast. We are a little behind with the blog updates – stay tuned as we recap our adventures in Morocco, France, Melbourne and…
Returning Home to Madrid
On September 1, 2001, I moved to Madrid to study abroad with other students from my college in California. During four short months, I caught the travel bug and haven’t looked back. Madrid was the city where I “grew up” and started seeing the world differently. During this study abroad program, I lived with a…
Gaudí’s Barcelona
Packing up and leaving our beautiful apartment in San Sebastián was hard, but were looking forward to heading east to Barcelona! The Mediterranean, cool Gaudi architecture and delicious paella were the main things I remember from my trip to Barcelona twelve years ago. We hopped on a train from San Sebastián and upon arrival we…
A Culinary Expedition: Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain
San Sebastián is known to be the culinary mecca of Spain, and we enjoyed every moment of our time here. Only 12 miles from the French border, San Sebastián (or Donastia, as it is known in the local Basque dialect) was the perfect place to spend a month surfing and eating. We never had a shortage…
Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage by Car (not by foot)
After a long cruise from England, we arrived in Santander, Cantabria, Spain. We enjoyed a good night’s sleep at a local hotel and then headed out towards Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, in the northwest corner of Spain. This beautiful coastal drive took us about five hours. We soon realized that we were driving along the…
United Kingdom or: Driving from Ireland to Spain
All aboard – Ireland to Wales Who would have thought that traveling throughout Europe with surfboards would be nearly impossible? When we started on our journey, we assumed that we could be able to bring the boards onto any airplane. We were wrong. Our next destination would be San Sebastian, Spain – with no easy…
Anniversary Trip to Galway
While in Ireland, we celebrated our 2-year wedding anniversary and decided to drive south to Galway to explore a different region of the country. Galway is an artsy and bohemian city filled with great food and live music. Galway is home to the Irish Claddagh rings, Aran sweaters and some of Ireland’s oldest “trad session”…
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