I am starting to wonder about you guys. every time you celebrate your ‘love’ (V-day, anniversary) you jump off something very high. Please explain.
— A good friend responds to our Valentine’s Day bungy jump, capturing a little problem we seem to have.
So there we were in New Zealand, Valentine’s Day approaching. We find ourselves in Queenstown, the so-called adventure capital of the world where just about any adrenaline-pumping, blood-draining exercise can be found. So we think: What sort of shared experience, that we haven’t done before, can we do together to celebrate Valentine’s Day?
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Filed Under: New Zealand, Pacific, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
26 Comments | 15 February 2013
I have never been to Japan.
Audrey has, but she enjoys the distinction of having eaten a hamburger there. In fact, she requested it. Insisted even. Forgive her though, she was only seven, it was her birthday and she was tired of noodles. But she did wear a blue kimono to make up for it.
No, this is not Audrey.
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Filed Under: East Asia, Japan, Travel by: Daniel Noll
40 Comments | 3 May 2012
This is a story of an old legal pad, a mountain in Africa, and a distant dream of shooting an honest game of golf under 90.
Tucked deep inside a cardboard box in Prague, Czech Republic, there’s a half-torn crumpled piece of yellow legal pad paper that reads somewhere in the middle, scribbled in blue ballpoint: “Climb Mt. Kilimanjaro.” Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Africa, Tanzania, Travel by: Daniel Noll
31 Comments | 26 May 2011
For a relatively small island, Bali can pack in a lot of activities in just a week: volcano-climbing at dawn, diving in coral reefs, cooking traditional Balinese cuisine, visiting Balinese Hindu temples, taking in a traditional Kecak performance, hanging with monkeys, and enjoying a few Balinese massages.
Remember when you’d return to school from summer break and write an essay entitled: What I Did on My Summer Vacation? Well, here’s our modern-day approach to that question: What did we do on our week-long Gap Adventures tour of Bali? Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
20 Comments | 23 May 2011
Apparently, it’s easy to be a travel snob. Independent travelers can look down on tour groups as not being “hard core” or “authentic” enough. Luxury travelers can look down on backpackers as cheapskates one notch above street riffraff. Holiday-makers looking to relax with a cocktail on the beach are not “real” travelers while those who are trying to live on $5 a day are “escapists.”
I could go on and on with the stereotypes and slurs that I’ve heard fly in all directions, but that’s not the point. One thing travel can teach you – if you allow it to – is that the world is made up of people whose goals and preferences differ. And those differences — they also apply to travel. Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Indonesia, Southeast Asia, Travel by: Audrey Scott
35 Comments | 19 May 2011
Over the weekend, we alluded to the fact that we had been selected as inaugural members of the Gap Adventures Wanderers in Residence program. We were introduced on stage, we called it out on Facebook and Twitter, people congratulated us.
Then the phones started ringing. The back channels lit up. So did the front channels. Everyone was asking, “Sounds cool. Now what does this mean again?”
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Filed Under: Blogging, Travel by: Daniel Noll and Audrey Scott
32 Comments | 8 November 2010
We are excited to announce that we have been selected by GAP Adventures for their Wanderers in Residence program. In preparation for the official announcement today, we answered a few questions about our journey, including the age-old travel writing and travel blogging query, “Why do you travel?”
In doing so, we ticked off a list, gazed at our navels and stumbled onto a stickier query: Is travel merely an instrument to achieve a set of objectives or is travel an aim in itself? Continue Reading »
Filed Under: Perspectives, Travel by: Daniel Noll
21 Comments | 6 November 2010
