When someone who rarely takes pictures on his phone brings his trusted advanced-level camera to a place that is not exactly known for sightseeing, the obvious outcome is very limited photographic material. St-Martin is a lovely island that offers a broad range of beach and water-based activities. Plenty of amazing…
Even in a place as relatively small as Aruba, no one could plausibly claim to have seen every single thing. However, spend a full week on the island and you may be able to say that you have seen practically everything of note. I certainly believe that I have. This…
Spending whole days at the beach is never something we plan to do, and our time on Aruba was structured to alternate beach-going activities with other diversions. That included several animal-centric attractions. One was the Donkey Sanctuary, home to over 130 animals whose numbers are best illustrated with this perspective.…
For an island that cannot be considered large to any degree, Aruba offers an unexpected variance of climatic zones. Its west- and southwest-facing coasts are a vacationer paradise, with great beaches and pleasant if generally windy weather year-round. The northeast-facing side, where rocky shores abut an arid desert, is much…
As I stated in my “back from” announcement, you don’t come to Aruba to go sightseeing. You come for the beaches, for the outdoor activities, for the nightlife. None of those attractions and pursuits customarily align with carrying around an expensive semi-professional camera. And yet, I always bring the camera…
Just as in Costa Rica last year, we did not drive ourselves in Belize, instead taking advantage of the private transfer options offered by the resorts we were staying at. That decision saved us a lot of aggravation with the uneven quality, shall we say, of the Belizean roads, major…
One of the gorgeous days while in Hopkins, we went on an “island hopping” expedition to visit several cayes that are strung along the Belize Barrier Reef. Some of these tiny islands are nothing but greenery atop sandy banks, while others are built up with resorts and even have small…
For the second portion of our stay in Belize in December, we were based in the seaside town of Hopkins. Now, I believe I have sufficiently established throughout all of my travels that I am not much of a beach person. As much as I like dipping in the sea…
Tikal is one of the most important monuments left behind by the Mayan civilization. The history of the huge – in the context of times – city spans over fifteen centuries, reaching its apex between 200 and 900 CE before rapidly declining at the beginning of the 10th century. It…
Abandoned cities of the Mayan Empire dot the landscape across Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Belize. Some are quite famous (think Chichen Itza, which I visited over a decade ago, or Tikal, which will be the subject of an upcoming post). Others are much less known. Xunantunich, practically on…
Our trip to Belize at the end of the last year was split between two locations, one inland and one on the coast. The inland one was near the town of San Ignacio in the western Belize district of Cayo. This was a great base for visiting Mayan ruins, swimming…
Whenever we venture outside of the major urban centers on our travels, I drive. Not having to depend on strangers for transportation and enjoying the unconstrained ability to stop and explore something of interest along the way are a couple of reasons that always tip the scales toward getting behind…
The pattern established in Arenal continued on the Pacific-coast leg of our Costa Rican trip. We went on a number of excursions in the Manuel Antonio National Park area – beaches, surfing, driving ATVs, dipping into the waterfall cascades – and in almost all instances my camera remained at the…
I doubt that anyone would ever expect surpassing nature photography from me. Therefore, you will not be overly disappointed by the realization that I have little in the form of exceptional from our stay in the Arenal National Park area in Costa Rica. We went ziplining, dipped in hot springs…
Hardly anyone budgets time for San Jose beyond an overnight stop on the way to other destinations in Costa Rica when the flight schedule dictates so. Spending time in the capital city in a country that is famous for its sun, sea, rainforests, and fauna sounds a bit wasteful. That…
To state the obvious, you can only see so much of a place when time is limited. While in Panama City on a layover that spanned two nights and one full day, we managed to set foot in three major locations of interest. Casco Antiguo and the archaeological site of…
The World Heritage site in Panama City, inscribed for being the oldest continuously occupied European settlement on the Pacific coast of the Americas, comprises two components. Both somewhat confusingly have the moniker “old” in their names. Casco Viejo (or Casco Antiguo) is the historic heart of the city but is…
In what feels like ages ago but is merely a matter of less than two decades, we were recent American immigrants still awaiting naturalization and possessing decidedly limited financial means. In those prehistoric times, our travel journeys were few and far in between and normally limited to north-American locations where…