Ever since our first experiment with AirBnB (where we snagged a New York City...
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Best of the Blog: 2013’s Top 5
Earlier this week we started counting down our ten most popular posts of the prior year. Today we finish with the year’s best five.
5) The Upside of Travel Planning
We discover yet another way in which the clichéd and seemingly travel-wise advice to “go with the flow” fails us.
4) Pele Puts Out
It’s one of the most awe-inspiring sights we’ve ever seen: molten lava flowing into the Pacific Ocean. From our front-row seats near the edge of a cliff, we watched in wonder as Pele, the volcano goddess of the ancient Hawaiians, performed spectacularly.
3) That Old Black Magic
Yes, of course I measured it.
A Portland confectioner has us under its spell.
2) Are the Childless Selfish
We take a bit of a detour from our regular travel musings to delve deeply into a thorny lifestyle question. Are we selfish for not having children?
1) Why We Won’t Travel to North Korea
2013 witnessed the death of our namesake ambition. We won’t be visiting everywhere once, after all.
We started wondering whether everywhere on earth was really worthy of our tourist dollars in a post titled Rethinking Everywhere. That article received enough of a response to earn a place of its own on this year’s Best of List. But it was soon eclipsed by our deep dive into the ethics of traveling to one place in particular: North Korea.
A Tale of Two Cities
As great as it was to be back in New York City (we really do Love NY), we have to admit that this time, it was equally good to get away. Over the past four years of travel we’ve mostly managed to avoid winter and, in the process, have become hot-house-flowers of sorts. Last weekend’s storm gave us enough snow and ice to keep us stocked up on winter weather for the foreseeable future.
And for all the bitching we always do about air travel – the ridiculous undressing for security, the cramped coach seats, the inevitable delays – we really owe it a big, fat round of applause. Thanks to modern aviation, we spent only a half a day getting from Central Park’s winter wonderland to Southern California’s bikini beaches.
After spending two weeks in the cold, returning to the sun and palm trees we’d otherwise have taken for granted felt like vacation. It is nothing short of a holiday miracle.
Kayaking Blackstone Bay: Glaciers and Waterfalls
There were two big things we wanted to do while in Alaska. The first was a glacier trek. Check. The second was to do some glacier kayaking. For that, we made our way down to Whittier, Alaska, where we hooked up with the Prince William Sound Kayak Center for gear, guide, and transportation.
Denali, Bad and Good
We had a stormy relationship with Alaska’s Denali National Park; turbulent at first but then growing into a kind of appreciation and fondness.
Things would have gone smoother had we understood Denali peculiarities from the beginning. Even under the best of circumstances, visitors may find Denali to be a bit of a mixed bag. But forewarned is fore-armed, as they say. So here’s what you can expect from America’s third largest park.
Everywhere Once 