Good morning, mosquitoes. You make us murderous. And scared. Do not underestimate these pesky bugs. We’ve tried lots of different tactics to keep mosquitoes at bay. One of the great things we have here are screens, which we didn’t have when we were in La Paz. I tried to take a photo of the cloud of ~20 mosquitoes hovering on the other side of our...
Todays #TravelTipTuesday is about choice — and how it’s not always a good thing. This is not a new concept. President Barack Obama only wears two types of suits in order to pare down menial decisions so he can focus on important ones. It prevents decision fatigue. I’d argue it also increases satisfaction. My friend Jen and I were having a very philosophical email...
Hot sauce! We found a place with hot sauce! We had dinner at this delicious (and deliciously trendy) ramen restaurant this evening. It was started by a couple with roots in both Argentina and the U.S., and they make a tasty dumpling. Did you know that Argentinian food is not spicy? Same with Chilean food. Sometimes you’ll find a Tabasco-like chili sauce, but it’s more...
A friend of ours who’s thinking about taking a leap year of his own recently asked us, “Any words of wisdom on how to get started on budgeting?” Yes! Setting a budget for a leap year, career break, gap year — whatever you want to call it — can at first feel like a steep climb, but it’s easy when you take it piece...
No, this isn’t the island where Dumbledore was buried — even though it bears a striking resemblance. It’s La Islita, a small island in Lago Lácar. We’d been looking forward to kayaking today ever since we checked the forecast last weekend. We patiently waited out the cold by hanging out around town and working on our projects (my book got a cover makeover!). We...
It’s Travel Tip Tuesday. But first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Chris’s mom!!! She’s coming to visit us in Buenos Aires in April; we’re excited to have our first visitor. Today’s travel tip has to do with a project we’re currently working on: finding house sitting opportunities. Imagine you own a home — maybe have a pet or two — and want to travel for a...
Yesterday, Chris and I celebrated seven years since our first date. We had a delicious dinner cooked by the owners of the guesthouse where we’re staying, and nearly all the items came from their garden. Seriously some of the best meals we’ve had in Chile. They’re always harvesting tons of tomatoes, squash, apples, peas, basil, cucumber, and so on. We...
Soon we’ll be leaving Viña del Mar to visit southern Chile. We’ll be leaving our awesome roommates, so before we go we thought you’d enjoy meeting one of them! His name is Alexey — although he sometimes goes by Alex. He’s originally from Moscow, Russia and he’ll be heading to Thailand and Morocco next. He kindly allowed me to interview him this morning. He...
Familiar or foreign. Which is better? That’s what we’ll tackle in this week’s Travel Tip Tuesday. It all comes down to why you’re traveling and what your goals are. We’re traveling because we want to experience things that are totally different and out of our comfort zone — that will give us perspective and memories to last a lifetime. But what is memorable? How...
This is Chris relaxing at the sparkling wine bar at Viña Casas del Bosque in the Casablanca Valley. Chile, because of its unique geography (Pacific on the left, Andes on the right) and climate (sunshine, sunshine, sunshine), is a great place to make wine. In fact, it’s the fifth largest exporter of wine worldwide. We’d heard these facts, but could not be satisfied until we’d tasted it...
This week’s Travel Tip Tuesday: water bottle economics. We’ve already written about the importance of bringing a water bottle when packing for a trip. It seems obvious, but we see people with disposable water bottles all the time. Now we’ll go a little deeper and offer some extra tips and advice. (Even if you’re going somewhere with safe tap water, like here in Chile.) When...
This installment of Travel Tip Tuesday is about technology and what to bring with you when you are traveling. One of the questions we hear often is, “Oh, did you bring iPads?” We thought carefully about what technology we really needed, so here’s a little about our thought process. Ultimately, we went with our laptops and iPhones to cover all our needs. We have...