trip report: Australia & New Zealand final impressions, New Zealand top 5, & budget, January 2020

“Do I go somewhere new or do I go somewhere I love?” is a common question among travellers. I have friends that have hike the same 200 mile trail (the John Muir Trail) more than ten times and I also have friends looking to rack up the country count. I was able to do a little bit of both over the course of 3 weeks. Explore down under, down under and return to the mountains of New Zealand. 

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This is the final entry of our Australia and New Zealand trip series. You can navigate to the other parts in the index below.

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trip report: Patagonia – final impressions, top 5, & budget, January 2019

At the end of our third trip to Patagonia, I feel that we’ve seen and experienced plenty of what Patagonia has to offer. It’s enough for me to call it my favorite region in the world I’ve traveled to so far. And also enough for me to publish a top 5 list. But at the same time I know I haven’t come close to experiencing all that is Patagonia, so I’m publishing my future trip ideas at the same time. Hopefully my experiences will inspire and help you in your planning to visit this amazing area of the world.

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This is the conclusion of my 2019 Patagonia trip report series. You can navigate to the other parts in the index below. Read More

good ideas: three road trips out west

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the idea

Seeing how this is the first real post, I thought I’d start it off with excitement and hope for the future. That is a few road trip ideas out west. Additionally this is also an example of the kind of research that goes into planning my trips. There are a few elements that came about to creating these three specific trip ideas.

The first element is that I have the southwest companion pass until the end of 2016 and 70k miles left to blow through (more to come about it in the future). Since southwest is mostly a domestic carrier (though Costa Rica for Spring Break ’16 is possible, anyone want to join?), I started to think about places in ‘merica I wanted to visit.

The second element is that despite having lived in California, there are still a lot out west that I have not explored. I took to google maps a while back to create a list of places I’d like to visit or would like to return. Additionally, it’s been three years since I’ve gone back to Cali to hang out with the gang there (where we’ve had a few pretty awesome trips) and I’ve recently had a few messages with them about heading out there again.

The last element was hearing a podcast about roadtrips on The Extra Pack of Peanuts, especially since they’ve mentioned a few I’ve done. Anyways, that got me thinking. With great hanging out and camping with Kevin two weekends ago (post to come), we’ve identified three trips. Since these are ideas, feedback would be great.

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