Knowing that I would be turning 40 while in India, I had great plans for celebrating my birthday. But India had other plans for me. The day before my birthday, on a six hour car ride from Udaipur to Jodhpur, I began to have a headache, fatigue, and fever. Tyler and Kara had just gotten over cold like symptoms so …
We spent three days in Udaipur, a city that is labeled as India’s most romantic city and one of its least hectic cities to visit. One of Udaipur’s claims to fame is that it was featured in the James Bond movie “Octopussy.” Hotel Boheda Palace We stayed at Hotel Boheda Palace, a great hotel with reasonable prices and views over …
As a grand finale in Mumbai, we took a street food tour, and it was by far our favorite thing we did while staying in this city. Using Reality Tours again, who we used for the tour through Dharavi, we spent four hours on our last evening in town trying foods prepared in food stands on the streets of Mumbai. …
Mumbai, our second stop in India, is a city that exceeded my expectations. After our tour through Nepal, Bhutan, and northeast India, we were all ready for another big city. Mumbai, known as Bombay until 1996, is one of the world’s largest cities by population. This city is the fifth largest in the world and the largest in India. Most …
Mumbai, known as Bombay until 1996, was the first major city we visited while in India. Mumbai is known for its film industry, being home to Bollywood, and its slums, made famous by the movie “Slum Dog Millionaire.” Sixty percent of the Mumbai population lives in slums. While in Mumbai, toured the Dharavi slum, Mumbai’s largest slum, with Reality Tours. …
The four of us have finally arrived in India. This is a country that we have both been looking forward to and fearing, if that makes any sense. We know that India is filled with amazing sights and some of the world’s best food, but also has hazards by the handful. When we tell other travelers that we will be …
About a week ago, my family was taking a one week tour around Bhutan. While we were in Punakha, we went white water rafting. It was very fun, and we all enjoyed it. It was a nice, sunny day in Punakha when we went white water rafting. Before getting into the raft, we put on our gear, met our crew, …
Bhutan, this tiny country located in the Himalaya mountains, has just recently opened its doors to tourism. As of 1974 Bhutan began to allow tourists to enter. It wasn’t until more recently when tourism really began to boom here, and tourism has now become a leading source of revenue for this country. The Daily Tariff Bhutan believes in offering high-quality …
Pokhara, a small city located about 200 kilometers (124 miles) west of Kathmandu, is a popular tourist destination in Nepal. This city is located on Phewa Lake at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains and is the beginning of the Annapurna Circuit, another very popular trek in Nepal. Pokhara is known as the adventure capital of Nepal and this is …
Kathmandu, Nepal…how best to describe this crazy city? Chaotic, dirty, loud…but Kathmandu is also exotic, beautiful, and captivating. The streets are dusty and dirty. Even though you want to look up at the thousands of signs over your head and in the windows of the shops, you must always be looking down to avoid stepping in potholes, on burning …
Trekking to Everest Base Camp (EBC), a bucket list item for many travelers, is not just an adventure for twenty or thirty year olds. It is possible to trek to Everest Base Camp with kids, as we proved in October 2014. Tyler and Kara were 10 and 11 years old when we trekked to Everest Base Camp. Kara had turned 10 just three …
My family and I hiked to Everest Base Camp (EBC) trek. The day after reaching EBC, my Dad, Indra (our EBC guide), and I tried to hike to the summit of Kala Patthar. When we were almost at the top, I got altitude sickness. It was terrible, and now I will tell you about how you can get it, what …
Trekking to Everest Base Camp in Nepal was one of the highlights of our trip around the world. In fact, this trek was so important to us that we planned the entire year around this two week adventure. Trekking to base camp was more challenging than we anticipated, both physically and mentally, but was absolutely worth it. While traveling through …
Our visit to the United Arab Emirates was very brief, really just a layover between South Africa and Nepal on our trip around the world. The UAE is a country that Tim has always dream of visiting, these cities born from oil and paved with gold. We had three days of luxury before heading to Nepal, a country on the …
In this post, Tyler writes about our experience shark cage diving in Gansbaai, South Africa. On September 10, 2014, our family went shark cage diving. It was a really great experience, one of the best in Africa, and we all loved it. We drove to the office of White Shark Ecoventures in Gansbaai, South Africa, where we would meet our …
The Garden Route, a stretch of coastline along the southern coast of South Africa from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth, is home to a huge number of game reserves and animal sanctuaries. These animal sanctuaries, similar to zoos, offer opportunities to get up close with their animals. Our animal encounters with the elephants, lemurs, ostriches, and cheetahs were some of the …
The hike around Robberg Peninsula is rated as one of the top things to do in Plettenberg Bay, South Africa. It is a 9 km hike around a peninsula jutting out into the Indian Ocean. On this hike we climbed up and down the rocky coastline, hiked past a colony of seals, and wandered on a second, smaller peninsula made …
The Drakensberg Mountains, another UNESCO World Heritage Site, cut through the eastern portion of South Africa. The mountain range starts at Blyde River Canyon, located just west of Kruger National Park, and heads southward, through the smaller country of Swaziland, and ending near Lesotho. For four nights we stayed at the Umzimkulu River Lodge in Underberg, located in the southern …
For some more adventure and a chance to visit another country, our family of four went for a drive over the Sani Pass into Lesotho. This mountain pass, not very well known by most in the US, is a big tourism draw for South Africa. The Sani Pass is a winding dirt road that takes drivers up and over the …
iSimangaliso Wetland Park, the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Africa, is located just north of St. Lucia, South Africa. We spent several days in St. Lucia, using one of these days to tour the park. This was a huge change in scenery from where we have been, as we were now staying on the east coast of South Africa, …