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The Hordes of Toledo

by Brian on May 7, 2014 in Europe, Spain, Travel

Zombie Hordes or Just a Tour Group

Holy moly, I’d wager about 75% of the people in Toledo, Spain, were on a tour of some kind. We’re totally cool with tours, but when you get thirty or forty people following the directions of a single guide they do tend to exhibit a kind of hive mentality. All individual thought (and most notions of common courtesy) goes out the window. Get three or four of these hives together in the narrow streets of a medieval city, and it’s a little like being swarmed by a zombie horde; except that none of them has tried to eat us. Yet.

Should you Visit Segovia or Toledo in Spain?

by Brian on May 5, 2014 in Europe, Spain, Travel

Toledo Spain

Of course the answer to the title question is “Yes.” If you have time, you should visit both. But when researching our own Spanish itinerary we saw so many people asking the question on various message boards that we thought we’d wade in with our own take.

Both Segovia and Toledo are medieval, walled cities that are within a 30-minute high-speed train ride away from Madrid. Which one you choose really comes down to what you’re looking for, how long you have to visit, and, if you’re on a very tight budget, how much you have to spend.

King Alfonso XII Monument

by Brian on May 2, 2014 in Europe, Photo of the Day, Spain

Buen Retiro Park, Madrid, Spain

8 Favorite Destinations, Year 4

by Brian on April 30, 2014 in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Travel, United States, Washington

Hike to Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii

Four years ago we set out to travel the country fulltime in an R.V. When people asked us how long we planned to live in a motor home, the best answer we could give them was “until we’re done.” We didn’t know how long it would take for us to see everything we wanted to see or how long we’d enjoy (or tolerate) living in what amounts to a fancy truck. We now know.

It took us just shy of four years to zigzag across the country from Maine to San Diego and make the roughly 250 other stops we wanted in between. Year four took us along the West Coast, out to Hawaii and up to Alaska, where we completed our westward migration.

With our domestic travels largely completed, we traded in our motor home for a couple of backpacks and set off to see the wider world.

If you ask us now how long we plan to travel this way, lugging all our worldly possessions on our backs, the best we can tell you is “until we’re done.” We may not know the path ahead, but we do have pretty clear recollections of the year we’re leaving behind.

With that in mind, here’s a list of our favorite destinations from our fourth full year of fulltime travel. As always with these posts, the destination header links to the original blog post on the topic.

Travelers are the Reason Air Travel Sucks

by Brian on April 28, 2014 in Travel

Great view, but still the worst seat in the house.

We have a secret to share. We actually hate traveling. Don’t get us wrong, we love destinations. It’s the getting there that sucks. That’s especially true when our travel plans involve boarding a commercial aircraft.

This isn’t news to anyone who has flown anywhere in the last decade or two. But a recent article at the travel hacking blog The Points Guy reminded me just how awful we all think air travel really is.

In an industry comparison, airlines ranked near the bottom at a score of 69/100, just ahead of internet service providers, social media and subscription TV services – so way to go airlines, you have cable companies beat!”

The article then goes on to make five suggestions for how airlines could improve customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, his suggestions all miss the biggest reason air travel is so terrible: travelers.