Category Pacific Northwest
Cortinas on Ice!
It’s been a while since my last post, mainly because I got busy at work, but also because we traveled to Spain in early March to visit my brother. We actually flew out on March 5th, the same day that a heavy snow storm blanketed the northeast. As we took off from cold, snowy New York en route to warm, sunny Madrid, I was […]
Ketchikan: A Boating License to Thrill
In Southeast Alaska, boating is a way of life. The communities of this region are scattered across an array of mountainous islands, making long-distance road travel impossible. The only way to get around is by taking a boat. For longer journeys, most residents opt for the Alaska Marine Highway, a ferry system that connects the state via […]
Meeting the Princess
Cruising is a very unique type of vacation. It can give you the means to tour a particular region or locale, but with the amenities of an all-inclusive resort in tow. For destinations like Alaska, Hawaii, and the Caribbean, it’s probably the most efficient way to visit a bunch of disparate locations in one trip. For any cruise, however, you’re gonna spend the […]
Le Tour de Vanc’
I believe every city has a quintessential way to be experienced or explored. Many cities are best experienced through their food, their sports, or their music scene. Some are best explored naturalistically–through their waterways, their parkland, or their topography. Vancouver, as we found out during our visit, is without question best explored by bike. Vancouver has […]
BC by Sea: Victoria to Vancouver
We used pretty much every possible form of transportation on our trip to the Pacific Northwest. Cars, buses, planes, trains, subways, bikes, helicopters, and lots of boats, ranging from a tiny zodiac raft to a huge cruise ship. On one day, we covered almost 100 miles between Port Angeles, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia by three modes […]
Summer Olympics
The west kicks ass. Every time I go out west I’m enamored by the diversity of landscapes, the mountains upon mountains, and the naturally-oriented way of life. Back east we have plenty of natural beauty, but it pales in comparison to the larger-than-life natural wonders of the west. Is it any wonder that 45 of our […]
Foodie Seattle
Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about how and why we ended up on a Pacific Northwest vacation. In short, we had money to spend after months of overtime at my job, and after watching the infamous foodie Anthony Bourdain traipse around Seattle on the Travel Channel, we decided to follow suit. On our first […]
Touristy Seattle
My rule of thumb is that on any trip we go on, we try to get the big-name touristy attractions out of the way first. In San Diego we did the zoo first, in San Francisco we did Alcatraz, and in London we did Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s, and the Tower of London. I like this approach […]
Mountains Beyond Mountains: Hood to Rainier
You know how certain songs or albums can become associated with specific drives, vacations, or other experiences in your life? Like hearing a song will trigger memories of where you were when you first heard it or when it was ubiquitous on the radio? I first heard Arcade Fire’s “Ready to Start” (on the same […]
Oregon Is Gorges
So we recently booked flights to Spain to visit my brother, who’ll be studying abroad there this spring (New Year’s resolution: finish all my Pacific Northwest posts before then). I’ve started planning the details of the trip, and like usual, I lean on the experience of others who’ve been there before. Friends, cousins, even friends of cousins […]
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