Now that we are back to living a more typical adult life these days, I have to remind myself that we still need to be silly sometimes and have fun like kids. Life is too short to focus solely on the not so glamorous things we must do as adults such as pay bills and go to work to earn a paycheck.

On our trip around the world there were many times we realized that although we may be in our 30′s, we still feel like kids at heart. We played on playgrounds, we rode bicycles, and honestly what is more childlike than wanting to sleep outside in a tent every night for two-plus months? Okay, so I recognize that not many children would want to “play” camping for that length of time.

In the end, I must say that being a kid at heart can also be extremely entertaining for those around you…don’t we all remember when someone went streaking across the Salt Flats in Bolivia…WAIT, WHAT???

While we did live a more responsible and fully-clothed existence the month we were on Oahu, we managed to have fun like kids while we explored the North Shore.

“My childhood may be over, but that doesn’t mean playtime is.”  ~Ron Olson

Nothing screams having fun like a kid than going to explore a MAZE!

On a mission to find his wife…

No such luck

She is off planning where to travel to next

Scenes of North Shore living

Swinging into an afternoon of child’s play

Looks like just a relaxing day at a Hawaiian beach right?

But we had other plans in mind…

What’s that Lifeguard? Did you say we should not be jumping??

My Kid Brother Husband

Even the dogs here know how to have fun!

Running for the waves at Banzai Pipeline

Dustin playing around in the ocean

Follow the rules like a responsible adult?

These surfers say No!

At the end of the day playing hard like a kid sure can wear you out…

As a traveler you are a tourist, like it or not.  You may take guided tours that pick you up at your hotel and follow the flag leader single file around the destinations OR you walk, hitch hike, take local transportation, and immerse yourself in corners of the planet only seen by a mere 10% of travelers.

Traveler = Tourist

There is nothing wrong with it.  In fact in my opinion if your not touring the places you travel to you are not really seeing the country.  Oahu has been the Hawaii HQ of tourism since before our parents were born.  So it’s hard to visit this Brussels of Bicycle tours destination and feel like you are someone special experiencing the place, but if you look hard enough you can visit the cross-roads of tourism and still end the day kicking back on top of the world!

Someone is getting a bit scruffy on the road

Pearl Harbor – U.S.S. Missouri & the U.S.S. Arizona Memorial

Showing off her Hindu protection bracelet Sumita gave her way back in India that has somehow not broken off; I think it’s called a Rakhi?

Picking out our next destination

Find the path less traveled

The Olomana Trail takes a bit of an uphill turn

Yoga Posing Around the World – Olomana Trail Oahu Hawaii

The Oahu Windward Coast

Narrow Downhills

We have been begged by a lot, but this Tree Begging was the first

Sometimes tourism makes you want to stab yourself… With a tree?

Hopefully we can continue the work and bring you more than a teaser in the near future.

WeGoRTW – Yoga Posing Around the World

WeGoRTW – The Trailer

When you’re sitting in your cubicle at work and imagining your Hawaiian vacation, you don’t often picture a large metropolitan city or rush hour traffic as a place you want to spend your two week break.  Because of this for our two previous vacations to Hawaii – Kauai and Maui, we never even considered making a stop in the concrete jungle of Honolulu on Oahu.  So what changed?

Well, budget for one.  The last blog post outlined how to get a fully furnished Hawaii condo for $65 a night, our next goal was to figure out how do you explore the highlights of the island for less than $10 a day.

THE BUS

Honolulu is home to one of the best metro bus systems in the United States that regularly makes the top 10 list.  For a small fee you can explore the whole island without the need of a rental car, insurance, or gas.  Should you find yourself visiting Oahu on a budget and want to save a few dollars, here are the route details to the sites we enjoyed:

• Airport to Waikiki resorts – Bus #19 or #20 – $2.50 pp
• Waikiki to Hanauma Bay snorkeling – Bus #22 – $2.50 round trip*
• Waikiki to Diamond Head Volcano – No bus needed, enjoy the walk
• Waikiki to Manoa Falls – Bus # 5 – $2.50 round trip
• Waikiki to Pearl Harbor – Bus #20, #40, #42, #62, or #A – $2.50 round trip*
• Waikiki to Olomana Trail – Bus #56, #57, or #57a – $5.00 round trip
• Waikiki to North Shore & Dole Plantation – Bus #52 – $5.00 round trip
• North Shore to Pipeline & Turtle Beach – Bus #55 – $2.50 round trip*

*Cheap round trip prices based on returning in under two hours of departure

Hanauma Bay claims to have the best snorkeling in Oahu

We have to agree their sea turtles were the friendliest in the world

Just a short walk from Waikiki you find yourself entering the Diamond Head Volcano

Heading up to the rim of Diamond Head

Heading up through the old Army Battery

Overlooking Waikiki from Diamond Head

Looking east back to Hanauma Bay

Hanging around on the Manoa Falls Trail

Trail finding through the bamboo

Possibly a tree house would make a new good home for us

Making some friends on the trail

End of the trail reward

Departing from New Zealand we hadn’t yet decided if we were ready to pack it up and head home, but we did know after camping in the great outdoors and moving daily all through Australia and New Zealand we did want to take a break and slow down.  Surprisingly we found the airfare to Hawaii to run about the same price as much closer flights and if we decided to head back home afterwards it was cheaper to make the pit-stop versus flying direct.

Our next hurdle to make our month long Hawaiian vacation a reality was finding a place to stay that wouldn’t break our $100 a day budget.  Thanks to some last minute help from David Rogers a local agent who referred us to Jeanne Hearn at Tropical Hawaii Realty they set us up in a great affordable place to stay at the Waikiki Rosalei building.  For only $65 a night (cheaper than a hostel dorm room), we had a two room apartment with full kitchen, bath, internet, A/C, and cable TV to call home for a month; SCORE!

With accommodations behind us and some $35 a day spending money we got to researching on how to make our stay in Hawaii a memorable one! (more to come)

The Big Kahuna

Our Hawaiian Home for the Month, $65 a night, thanks to Tropical Hawaii Realty

Enjoying Slowing Down

and Taking in the Views

Waikiki Beach is the most touristy Hawaiian Beach, but it’s great for people watching

Always the Bride

Catching local retirees singing Hawaiian Songs

Jamming out some ukulele lessons of my own

or also known as…

Our idea of Rest and Relaxation in Hawaii

Not the biggest waves, but a workout moving a 9ft+ board around

By now you may know that we have made it back to the mainland of the USA, but to share some of our last favorite picture memories from the trip we will catch you up on our departure from New Zealand.  Our friends Sarah and Robbie, that we had met during our hike to Everest Base Camp, welcomed us into their own custom built home for our stay before the flight to the states.  Not only was their house amazing but Auckland the largest city in New Zealand felt like our own hometown of Austin Texas.

Auckland is a large trendy metropolitan city surrounded by over 50 volcanoes, yet still has a feeling of a spread out small town and a sense of community with a strong sailing culture.  Sarah had taken us around to the 2nd highest view point in the city sitting on top of volcano Mount Eden.  While Robbie found a Keep Auckland Weird experience by treating us to Silo Park Friday night movies by the bay which goes on every week during the summer.

As we have said all along it’s the people that make the trip!

Buying a Car in New Zealand

After spending a month in Australia with a rental car bill that ran us into the thousands, we decided upon arriving to New Zealand that our first step was to secure cheaper transportation to move us around.  Reading some other travel blogs we had heard it was cheap and easy to buy a used car while visiting and sell it before you fly out.  Below is an outline of some of the tips and myths we found to buying a car in New Zealand.

Tips:

1. We found Gumtree and TradeMe to be the best websites for finding used car classifieds
2. Other than making sure it’s mechanically sound, you really want to ensure that the registration and WOF (Warranty of Fitness) is current or even better good for the entire time you are visiting
3. Upon buying the car head to the nearest Post to update the registration into your name; cost $9 NZD
   • Note when selling make sure to update that you sold it through the NZ Transport Agency
4. If you are flying out on a Sunday don’t wait until late on a Saturday to sell the car as you will find the banks are all closed until Monday.  This is problematic on getting a good exchange rate on your currency before leaving the country.

Myths:

1. Buying a car in the south island with the expectations that you can make money in the north island is a myth.  Both Auckland and Christchurch have plenty of inventory especially now that flights from Australia to Christchurch are cheaper.
2. Because the price of diesel fuel is quiet a bit cheaper than unleaded in New Zealand you would think buying a car or van that runs off of diesel would save you money; and it could if you get poor gas mileage.  But the truth is with the diesel tax (RUC – Road Usage Charge), you will pay $55.80 NZD per 1,000 KM.  So in the end it evens out with unleaded fuel.
3. In hindsight I regret buying short term auto insurance from companies like Backpacker Car World and Christchurch Backpackers Car Market.  Not because we personally had a problem with it, but talking to other travelers it is not worth more than the paper it’s written on and if you have any issues it won’t cover you.  We paid $156 NZD for 3 months of liability coverage and would have been better off  working with reputable companies like BBH.  Note NZ Auto Insurance AA would not cover us as we are not long term residents.
4. The final myth was selling a car would be easy, it wasn’t.  We got lucky and sold it on our very last day.  My tips to you on selling it would be: 1st list it on Gumtree (free) and TradeMe ($40-$60) as soon as you know your departure day.  2nd if you leave through Auckland checkout the Sunday Ellerslie Car Fair and Saturday Auckland City Car Fair.  We had luck at the Saturday sale, but I would say we were very lucky!  15+ cars were there for sale by backpackers and only about 3 sold that day, also watch out for the shady scam guy who will try to offer you 1/5 of what you are asking for your car (he is preying on the weak).

Overlooking Auckland from Mount Eden Volcano with Sarah

Let the used car selling begin

Happy Buyer and Seller – Paid $1,200 & Sold for $1,200

Maybe for our next adventure we will sail around the world

Robbie showing us around town at sunset

Love this photo! – click it to see it full size

Enjoying drinks with Robbie’s mom and step-dad

Movies in Silo Park

Thinking of our friends back home and abroad

While traveling through 20+ countries there have been so many things we have learned…of these are the advantages of living in the USA (hence why we are returning home). But we have also learned that our amazing country could learn a few things from the places we have visited. While I won’t cover them all in one blog post, I will say there are a couple that kept coming up as we traveled around the world.

1. With the rising obesity epidemic in America, we all know we need to eat better. As we traveled through all these places, one thing became very clear to us. The countries where fresh produce is limited or overpriced, obesity is higher. Being a Dietitian and traveling to foreign places has been difficult on the diet. From carb-laden meals in Central and South America to stir fried everything in Asia, finding fresh produce is always a breath of fresh air. It was always a pleasant surprise when we were in countries where the American dollar isn’t necessarily a benefit (for example: Italy and Australia) and we found their availability of fresh produce incredibly well priced. One thing to note is these countries all use weight in Kilograms. For those who don’t know, 1 kg is 2.2 lbs. This means the world to your budget when apples cost $1.29 per kg vs per lb (like in the USA). The metric system rocks!

***On a side note I have lofty goals for returning to life in the USA, one which is to start my own garden to grow some of my own produce. Anyone have tips or advice for me?

2. The first time I noticed the sign I literally laughed out loud. While in South Africa we were about to walk across a fairly sketchy looking bridge. As clear as day there was a sign stating that by walking on the bridge you are aware that you assume all liability if something happens to you. That was definitely not the last time we saw a sign like that, but one thing we have loved while traveling around the world is how in most other countries there is no worry of constantly being sued by people. Some places do put warning signs, but for the most part these countries have not embraced the desire for excess litigation. Why can’t we just take responsibility for our own actions?

I have to say world exploration without so much worry is what has made visiting other countries so much fun!

Without a worry in the world

Not overly populated is just what we like

Priced just right in New Zealand = Healthy campers!

What, no KEEP OUT sign? No tour guide forcing you to sign a waiver in order to go inside ?

Cave exploring in the middle of nowhere. How long do we have to be gone before someone comes looking for us?!

Inside the dark cave

Seeing our very first Glow Worms!!!

Whangarei Falls

What tourists do when it is their millionth waterfall to see

Or they do this daring move…better lawyer up!

WeGoRTW liability

Perhaps camping alone is also something we should worry about?

Don’t worry, Be Happy!

Dustin contemplating the ways of the world

Face to face with the Te Matua Ngahere, the “Father of the Forest” which is the largest Tree in NZ (52 ft girth)

Yoga Posing ‘Round the World – Te Matua Ngahere, Waipoua Forest

“I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel as far as we do.” ~John Muir

You didn’t think just because in our last update we announced we were coming home that we didn’t have any more travel updates for you, did you?  Noooo!

The dreaded question and the one we most often receive when people find out we have been traveling long term around the world – What is your favorite place?

There is no one answer to this.  The politically correct answer usually goes like…. “oh, everywhere is great and we really enjoyed <insert country name of the inquirer>“.  OK just kidding about that last part, we wouldn’t do that.

But it really is the truth.  In our memories usually it’s not the place that we remember best, but our experiences we had in that place that are most memorable.  This is why so many top sites and wonders of the world are actual a let down.

• We actually didn’t enjoy the environment and surroundings of seeing the Great Pyramids, but we did love our experiences with our new extended Filipino family.
• The massive Iguazu Falls were too overrun with tourists flowing in by the train loads to get a real sense of wanderlust, but experiencing great conversation in the wine capital of Argentina can make friends for a lifetime.
• And finally in this blog post I sought out the best Mountain biking in New Zealand and where their trails rate at the top, it still doesn’t compare to my incredible experience with the great people in Howick, South Africa
• Don’t get us wrong, some destinations like Machu Picchu really did hold up to their grandeur because you can still find your own private corner while chilling with a llama.

Though for us it really came down to the people and experiences we had with them.  By following the normal travelers route around the world we did get to see some great sites, but the really memorable and wonderful places are because of the interactions we had with the people!

Hmmmm OK we are flying back to Texas this week!!!

Other things you might be thinking “what about China and Northern Europe?” Oh, you weren’t thinking that?

Well I will tell you anyways, we do want to see them.  But we want to make sure to see them when we are ready.  We want that same excitement we had when first leaving for our RTW trip.  We don’t want to do ourselves an injustice by just simply walking through the motions within their surroundings.

What led us to this decision was after many months of fast travel in very simple conditions as well as when the unusual became the norm, the norm became redundant, and another historical or picturesque site was just another site.  Even though travel can appear luxurious through picture highlights from afar the reality is our daily lives consisted of living through logistics:

Step 1 – Figure out what you want to see
Step 2 – Choose your destination
Step 3 - Determine how to get there
Step 4 – Plan accommodations, food, and tours within budget
Step 5 - Accomplish what you came to see
**Repeat

And what we have seen has been amazing!  We wouldn’t trade it for the world!  (wait it is the world, hmm).

Still you know what I am getting at.  Some of the best travel advice we received came from a hostel owner in Mendoza Argentina – “I hear people coming through here complaining all the time how they are tired and just want to go home.  So I tell them GO HOME!  They think they have to just keep going because it’s what they set out to do.”

We have enjoyed our time around the world immensely and even though we feel we are cutting the trip a bit short by not seeing China and Northern Europe  we know there is always the future!   So what’s next you ask?  (OK I will stop putting questions in your mouth).

We are going to be traveling around Texas and Oklahoma visiting family and friends over the next few weeks.  Then we will be heading back to Austin to look for a place to live and jobs.  Who knows if we can’t find jobs I hear flights to Iceland are pretty cheap this time of year

When you plan to travel for longer than the normal 2 week vacation it can be overwhelming to make decisions on where to visit. Thankfully Dustin and I both agree on what makes a place a must see for us. We tend to want to visit countries based on what they offer us from an outdoors perspective. Although it can be considered a cliche, we definitely rely on the Wonders of the World and UNESCO World Heritage site to lead us to many places in the countries we visit. They even do a great job classifying sites into the categories of “Natural” or “Cultural”.

When it comes down to it though, Dustin and I typically find our travel passion along mountainous hiking trails that sometimes lead us to spectacular waterfalls or even an erupting volcano.

So while on the topic of an erupting volcano this leads me to tell you about the Tongariro Alpine Crossing trek. While in New Zealand we were lucky to get advice from some friends who happen to live in the country. A major plus was the fact that they have similar interests to us (this is clear considering we met them on our Everest Base Camp trek). So, when our friend Robbie sent us a highlight list for the North Island and it included this Alpine Crossing trek, we knew we had to do it. Despite a recent volcanic eruption and some of the trail being closed, we were still able to do what most people believe is the best section of the trek. Although I am not a huge Lord of the Rings fan, it was pretty awesome to see Mt. Doom up close and personal.

A very, very early start…

Tongariro Sunrise

Already gaining altitude, but the sun hasn’t caught us yet

The real climbing starts at the Devil’s Staircase amongst volcanic rock

Enjoying this flat, desert like section in the South Crater after all the climbing

Is it just me or is it the sulphur?

Yoga posing round the world – Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Posing with the Red Crater

Mt. Doom or Mt. Ngauruhoe (it’s real name)

View over the Blue and Emerald Lakes

Hiking above the clouds

Up, up we go on the volcanic rock trail

Panoramic view of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Normally we don’t follow these sorts of warnings…

But…after seeing this we thought we should listen to the experts

View of the trek from Highway 47

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