Having arrived back home in Copenhagen after this amazing round-the-world journey, we thought we would reflect a little on what we’ve learned. It seems like an eternity ago – the rush…
New York
We arrived at our last stop on the trip by bus, a surprisingly comfortable, cheap and convenient way to travel from DC to New York (we had gone by plane or train…
A quick stop in Washington DC
We spent a busy day and a half in DC where in our best (and well practiced) power-tourist style, we visited a total of 4 museums, including the Art Museum of the Americas, the…
4 days in The Big Easy (New Orleans)
Neither of us had ever been to the famous city of New Orleans so we were sure to make this one of our final stops of the trip. While the weather…
2 weeks in sunny Vancouver
We were impossibly lucky with perfect sunny weather for almost our entire stay in Vancouver. We had been to this beautiful city a number of times before, but still managed to discover lots…
Whistler and waterfalls
After a lovely Easter in Vancouver, we took a 3-day trip up to Whistler. Lucky for us, spring had arrived. The snow was powdery and the warm weather suited our casual skiing outfits well – several…
3 days in Seattle
We traded the dry heat of Austin for the damp cold of Seattle on a 3-day stop before heading north to Vancouver. We had been to the Seattle/Tacoma area once before…
SXSW, BBQ and local beers in Austin, Texas
We had a great week in Austin visiting family and friends. It was our first time in the Texas capital and we were impressed by the music culture (on full display…
6 days in Tulum
This was our first trip to the Yucatán Peninsula and we some fantastic days of sun, beach, great Mexican food (with one obvious exception) and incredible Mayan ruins. While Cancun…
2 coasts and the central valley in Costa Rica
On February 23, we took the short flight from Panama City to San Jose, Costa Rica and after a couple hours waiting at the Airport Marriott and a quick stop in…
Panama, more than just a canal?
We arrived in Panama City knowing almost nothing about it. Ok, knowing one major thing about it. Having recently traveled through the Magellan Strait (see post here), the European quest for…
Photo impressions of Valparaíso
We spent 4 days in the bustling port city of Valparaíso about 1,5 hours drive from Santiago. The city is a disorganized mess, and on first impression a bit of a…
The sun and the stars
After saying goodbye to Chris and Julie in the Santiago airport, we continued north with Alex’s parents to the Elqui [elki] Valley which enjoys over 320 days of sunshine a year, making…
Volcanos, hot springs, markets and islands
We spent a couple of days in picturesque Puerto Varas, located on a mountain lake with a view of the almost perfectly conical Osorno Volcano. We had this magnificent volcano in…
Expedition cruise to Cape Horn and the Magellan Strait
We spent last 4 days on the expedition cruise ship Via Australis first sailing south to Cape Horn, the southernmost point in the world, and then navigating north through the…
Glaciers and whiskey
The world’s third largest ice field (after Antarctica and Greenland) is located in southern Patagonia and feeds the Perito Moreno glacier. Our morning started with a 1,5 hour coastal walk to various…
Experiencing a working ranch in Patagonia
We spent 3 days at Hosteria Alta Vista, a guesthouse on a working Patagonia ranch. The original farm was established by true pioneers in 1908 and predates the town of…
Estancia Cristina
We spent 4 days at the Estancia Cristina, one of the few private ranches still allowed to operate in Los Glaciares National Park. While originally a working ranch dating back to 1914,…
Bird watching and the catch of the day
From Bariloche, we flew south to El Calafate where we went bird watching in Laguna Nimez Nature Reserve. We stayed in Califate 1 night before boating to the remote Estancio Cristina…
Bariloche
From Buenos Aires we flew south to San Carlos de Bariloche. Besides the beautiful, scenic nature we found that there was a surprising abundance of microbreweries in the area. We managed to…
2 days in Buenos Aires
After a fairly rough and significantly delayed ferry ride from Colonia, Uruguay to Buenos Aires, we arrived at an awesome wine bar and boutique hotel in the Palermo Soho area to meet…
Montevideo
We spent 2 days wandering the city of Montevideo where we found some great cafés, tasty empanadas and a couple of interesting markets and other landmarks. One of the most unusual…
The anatomy of a 24-hour travel day
We just wanted to share the longest travel day of our trip so far. It certainly isn’t the worst ever (we’ve heard horror stories of 40+ hour travel days), but a little bit…
2 weeks in the Bay Area
After our whirlwind tour of LA and Santa Barbara, we headed north to the San Francisco Bay Area. Having left Copenhagen almost 3 months ago for the second leg of our journey,…
The Full L.A. Experience
We arrived in Los Angeles early on a Friday morning after an overnight flight from Hawaii. First stop was coffee (you can see Kristina smiling in baggage claim), then a short pit stop…
December 13, 2015 – an unusually long day
Question: How do you manage to have 1 hour at the beach, 2 happy hours, 3 showers, 6 meals (2 breakfasts, 2 lunches and 2 dinners), a 6 hour plane…
Bula!
Fijians are a very welcoming people and always greet you with a smile and “Bula!” (hello) even when you’re just passing in the street or driving by in your car.…
Kiwi-English dictionary and a brief introduction to Kiwiana
We’ve had a great time traveling by car through New Zealand over the last few weeks including some minor translation difficulties and good laughs along the way. With that in mind, we’d like to share some fun…
Steamy hot springs in Rotorua
Driving north we stopped at Rotorua Lake for a couple of days. From there we took a day trip out to Waimangu Volcanic Valley which was a really amazing experience. We…
Visiting family in Wellington
From the South Island we ferried to Wellington where we visited with Kristina’s sister, brother in-law and 4 nephew/nieces. We had a lovely New Zealand dinner on our first night (lamb…
New Zealand’s South Island
We arrived in smallish but beautiful Queenstown on November 16th where our first encounter with Kiwi culture was taking the bus from the airport. Already on the bus there were lots of friendly greetings “how’s…
Kristina’s 40th birthday in pictures
Yet another major milestone of the trip, Kristina turned 40 on our second day in Sydney. Please no jokes about mid-life crises or anything like that. We had an amazing day exploring…
2 days in Melbourne
We made a brief stop in Melbourne on our way to Sydney. After a pretty tough overnight flight and outrageous lines at customs, we managed a short nap and then hit…
Reflections on a short visit to Singapore
We had a short stopover in Singapore to meet up with Alex’s friend and former colleague Kathrine. As most of you probably know, Singapore is a metropolis of modern glass…
Chiang Mai and Bangkok (part 2)
After a number of travel days (the Mekong boat trip and a bus from Chiang Khong) it was great to settle down in Chiang Mai. Here we enjoyed some delicious Thai food, checked out the famous night…
2 day cruise on the mighty Mekong river
We spent a relaxing 2 days cruising up the Mekong river in late October. While we mostly just watched the jungle and mountains drift by in the mist, we also stopped at…
Temples and waterfalls
The former Lao capital of Luang Prabang is a city (more of a town really) of 50.000 people and over 60 temples. We didn’t visit all of them but the ones that we…
2 days on Ha Long Bay
With its majestic mist shrouded islands and cliffs, Ha Long Bay is virtually the symbol of Vietnam (or at least it’s one the first pictures that comes up when you…
Bia hơi in Ha Long Bay
Luckily Kristina had read something about the northern Vietnamese tradition of bia hơi, otherwise we might have missed this great local beer custom. Bia hơi (bia for beer, hơi for…
More pho please
Arriving in Southeast Asia we were of course excited to try the local cuisine. Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup typically served with meat and plenty of fresh herbs that we have especially…
Tragic history, 4 million scooters and an old trading port
We arrived at Phnom Penh from Siem Reap in relative style (air-conditioned coach complete with WiFi) and would definitely recommend the Giant Ibis bus service over minibus any day. Here we visited the Tuol Slang…
Siem Reap and the temples at Angkor
After a long and fairly uncomfortable minibus ride (we were stuffed in like a clown car) to the Cambodian boarder, we crossed on foot and took a taxi the remaining 3 hours (poor…
Visit to Bangkok (Part 1)
Bangkok was our first stop in Southeast Asia and we spent two fun, but rather chaotic, days exploring the city before continuing by land to Cambodia. While we were pretty…
Next stop Stockholm
As we set out on the next leg of our world tour, we are excited but also a tiny bit apprehensive. While we have planned out a lot of our…
A week exploring Copenhagen with guests
We recently had a great week exploring Copenhagen with Alex’s parents. Even though the weather was mostly windy, wet and overcast, we still managed to have a good time and get out into the city, including…
A weekend in Warsaw
We recently had a great weekend visiting Kristina’s aunt Basia in Warsaw. While we have always enjoyed the city and have been there a couple of times before, this time we got…
1 Monday afternoon in Copenhagen
We recently arrived safely back in Copenhagen and it’s been great to catch our breath a bit since then. While we have a number of projects and small trips planned…
Our European road trip in 7 statistics
Reflecting back on our 3 months on the road in Europe, we thought we would share some fun statistics. Total time spent in the car: 90 hours (at least) Total petrol…
Some reflections on experiencing vs. remembering
So we recently got to talking about a relatively common, but somewhat perplexing phenomenon – the strange feeling that time is passing both fast and slow at the same time. Consider…
The Type 3 turns 88,888
On the drive from Essen to Dortmund, the VW hit a major milestone of the trip. After 3 months of traveling, nearly 7,500 kilometers, 1 oil change (Alex did it in a…
The industrial culture of the Ruhrgebiet
We spent 3 days visiting our friend Tobit in Dortmund, and aside from the opportunity to try a variety of local beers (Dortmund is famous for its brewing tradition), and…
The car train from Verona to Düsseldorf
On July 25 we boarded the car train for the overnight trip to Düsseldorf. Having driven over 7,000 kilometers since our departure from Copenhagen, it was nice (for both us and the car) to…
Verdi’s Nabucco opera at the Verona arena
Once in a while we like to take a break from beer tasting and experience a little high culture. So when we stumbled on opera season in Verona, we decided to check it out. The show…
1 day in Venice
Venice is of course an incredibly beautiful place and one that other cities can’t help but compare themselves to. Apparently, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Amsterdam and Bruges all fancy themselves the “Venice of…
Photo highlights from Dalmatia and Istria
We had an amazing time traveling along the Adriatic coast visiting the cities of Split, Zadar and Rovinj in Croatia, Koper and Piran in Slovenia, and Trieste in Italy. The area offers…
Chef’s Table at the Wine Vault Restaurant in Rovinj
Over the years we have traditionally celebrated our anniversary at a nice restaurant but this year, 2.5 months into our world tour and with our 10th anniversary at hand, we looked for…
Paklenica National Park
During our stay in Zadar, Croatia, a small town up the coast from Split, we drove out to Paklenica National Park were we spent over 6 hours hiking, swimming and…
Arrival in Split, Croatia
We arrived in Split by ferry early in the morning on July 6 and were able to check right in to our apartment just south of the city. And what amazing…
Driving across northern Italy (June 26-July 6)
We spent around ten days traveling through northern Italy on our way to Croatia. After arriving in Savona on the overnight ferry from Barcelona, we spent our first night camping just outside Genoa.…
World Expo 2015
If you didn’t know, Milan is currently hosting the World Expo (Alex was surprised that they still have those). Luckily, we had discussed this with some friends before leaving Copenhagen, so made a special…
Beers, beaches and Sant Joan (or 4 days in Barcelona)
We spent 4 days with Chris and Julie in Barcelona just relaxing and enjoying the city. They took us to some great local restaurants including an awesome craft beer place…
Visit to Starfleet Academy
We’re pretty sure that this area has been used as a Sci-Fi movie set, but can’t place exactly where. If not, it certainly should be. In reality, the City of…
Roman and Moorish ruins (Málaga, Granada and Cartagena)
We visited a number of Roman and Moorish ruins in the cities of Málaga, Cartagena and Granada. We found the most interesting Roman history in Cartagena where there was a…
Street art (Málaga, Cartegena and Valencia)
We spent a little over a week driving up the Mediterranean coast of Spain stopping briefly in a handful of different cities and towns. We visited the Picasso Museum in…
4 countries in 4 days (June 13-16)
So we just realized that we’ve been in 4 different countries over the last 4 days (not that this was the goal, but pretty impressive nonetheless). Leaving Lagos, Portugal (one),…
Camping in Lagos (or why hammocks are awesome)
We spent 3 nights camping just outside of Lagos in the Algarve region of southern Portugal. There we explored the harbor town, visited Praia do Camilo and surfed at Sagres, the southwestern tip of Europe.…
Surfing in Ericeira
We stopped for 4 nights in the town of Ericeira, just north of Lisbon, right in the heart of Europe’s only World Surfing Reserve (4 kilometers of amazing beaches dedicated…
7 days in Porto (May 31-June 7)
We had a great week exploring Porto including the historic city center, the amazing bridges and of course the port wine. Aside from just having a wonderful and relaxing time…
The first 2 casualties of the trip
So about a week into the trip, Alex managed to open a gas station door into his face (not really sure how that’s possible, but clearly an achievement in clumsiness).…
Port wine cocktails, seriously?
Ok, so first port is an after dinner drink, then it’s an aperitif. Now we’re supposed to have it over crushed ice or mixed with tonic. The product and marketing…
Northern Spain in pictures (May 22-31)
We spent a little over a week driving across northern Spain where we found excellent food, beautiful beaches, charming old city centers and a just a touch of high culture.…
Bob’s Beer
On our way to San Sebastian, we made a pit stop at Bob’s Beer, a small brewery located in the town of Hasparren, France. Here we met, wait for it,…
The wild ocean in Biarritz (May 20-22)
We really should have been surfers (but it’s not too late and Alex at least is still feeling ambitious). The coastal town of Biarritz (thanks to Sandra for the recommendation!)…
Camping in Arcachon (May 17-20)
As we moved steadily south we expected the weather to warm up, but have been disappointed so far as the coastal climate has been mostly cold, cloudy and wet. But regardless,…
3 funny things in Poitou-Charentes
Visiting La Rochelle on our way to Rochefort we found a couple of funny things. First of all, there was a disproportionately large number of old Citroën 2CVs in town.…
2 stops in Brittany
We enjoyed a handful of days in Brittany stopping in the towns of Dinan (thanks to Katrine and Kristian for the suggestion) and Carnac. In Dinan, we walked the historic…
Normandy in pictures
We spent May 6 through 11 along the coast in Normandy stopping in the towns of Dieppe, Étretat, Merville-Franceville, Cabourg, Houlgate and Mont Saint Michel. The countryside was idyllic, the towns…
Shrimpegeddon
So what would you do with a giant bowl of tiny unpeeled shrimp? Eat them whole with a fork, try to peel them? Maybe someone out there knows, but I…
1969 VW Type 3 1600TL Fastback
Mike, Amelia, Kevin and Sara were all visiting us in Copenhagen around the time we bought the car almost 5 years ago. It’s been great fun ever since – a…
In Bruges
We spent May 4 and 5 in Bruges, Belgium. For those of you that haven’t been, it’s a beautiful medieval city ringed by canals. If you have seen the movie…
1 day in Utrecht
Our first stop was in Utrecht, The Netherlands, a city where my brother Chris lived and studied in 2003. And while Kristina and I met in Amsterdam, she had never…