…ess-than-stellar experience. But airbnb has grown a lot in these past two years and on this trip, we found killer airbnb apartments at great prices numerous times. In Shanghai, Melbourne, Bilbao, Berlin, Amsterdam, Budapest, Copenhagen and Edinburgh, we found sensational airbnb’s that were generally under $200 a night for a two bedroom apartment. The great thing about airbnb is that it’s also a social network of sorts — you review the…
HOTELS ARE LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES
…w of the best have been guest rooms belonging to friends or acquaintances. We live our lives surfing airbnb.com and hotels.com, trying to figure out the next place to lay four weary heads. We’ve very serious about our accommodation budget (under $200 a night), so every time we show up somewhere it’s a bit of a crap shoot. We’ve paid far too much for some very scary rooms (Agua Caliente, Peru) and fallen madly in love with…
KINDRED SPIRITS
What kind of family would abandon their lives to discover the world? Well, it turns out that at any given moment, there are actually hundreds of families doing just that. We hear occasional stories about other families that are out on the road — and early in our journey, we would glance at other blogs to see if our paths might intersect with any of these like-minded wanderers. Then, while we were in Paris, a chance conversation with an…
THE BEST CITIES IN THE WORLD (TO LIVE IN)
…s markets and subways are just footsteps away. So without further ado, here is our list our favorite cities to potentially call home: 10. CUSCO, PERU This growing metropolis of half a million people is the gateway to Machu Picchu but it’s a great city unto itself. Nestled in the mountains of Peru, it’s a surprisingly cosmopolitan city with people arriving at its international airport from all over the world on their way to the Incan ruins. The…
THE SIMPLE POWER OF THE ORANGE HAT
…em easy to spot in a crowded train station, easy to follow through a congested street, and always visible 100 yards away in any direction. Jen too sports a more stylish orange sun hat, further testament to the family’s collective devotion to the color. (Only Franny, in a fully-justifiable act of teenage rebellion, refuses to wear anything orange. God bless her.) When we get home, we’re not sure what do with the orange hats. Retire…
REAL ESTATE PORN: OUR APARTMENT IN PARIS
…ds for the lives of Parisians. And what an incredible place in Paris we found! Never has an apartment been such an important character in our journey. Through sheer determination, we scoured airbnb.com and vrbo.com (and several more obscure sites) looking for a place to call home for an entire month. In the 10th arrondissement, on the very happening Canal St. Martin, we got lucky. Check out what we found. If the owner would have allowed us,…
FRANNY REPORTS: THE RECOLETA CEMETERY
…that the good die young. Well, in the Recoleta Cemetery the young are greatly honored. There was another girl who died in an avalanche at a very young age. Apparently, she was taking a nap in a hotel in Austria when an avalanche came and killed her immediately. This young girl is said to have one of the most tragic deaths and for that is honored by her family with a beautiful statue in front of her mausoleum. The next story that interested me is…
HOW OTHERS LIVE: THE FLOATING VILLAGE
…ughout our travels, we’ve discovered a handful of villages (complete with schools, stores and hospitals) floating in the middle of vast bodies of water throughout Southeast Asia. The first was in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. The second was a fishing village in Thailand. But we didn’t get to know either of these villages as intimately as we got to know the floating village on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia. Join us for this (very) close-up look…
TRAVELIN’ HEAVEN: THE KINDNESS OF FRIENDS’ PARENTS
…of earth’s charming treasures, and more-or-less took over Lesley’s house for a few days. And she loved it! Our kids became like her grandkids. She brought us croissants every morning, Franny and Finn kicked the soccer ball around her backyard, and we all spent a gorgeous afternoon in St. Tropez together, where we all rested on the beach. She even whipped up an unforgettable dinner party where her boyfriend Jay, an ex-pat Madison…
PERSPECTIVES ON CAUTION, FEAR AND JUDGEMENT ON THE ROAD
…perience, but at the moment, it felt like the right decision for our two families. Okay, this headline appeared in the New York Times on January 16 as we sat in a restaurant in the French Alps, planning our departure for Morocco five days later. The French owner of the restaurant who we had become friends with came over to our table, knowing that we were headed for North Africa and spoke to us in French so the kids wouldn’t understand:…