Author: Caroline

Exploring Phuket

Posted on by Caroline
Ahhh…. Now, what a lovely day it’s been! My original plan for the day included an early start with a GrabCar (the Thai equivalent of Uber) into Phuket City so that the kids and I could get a glimpse of the Sunday Walking Market and be back in time to meet a local guide for the afternoon. But as I was trying to figure out where to go so I could book the car, I happened across the critical information that the market doesn’t open until 4 PM. And I felt immediate relief - I knew that it was too much to squeeze into a day, and it would probably stress me out. (I don’t know how to explain why...Read More

Quieter Day

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday the kids and I had a quieter day, exploring the Boat Lagoon Resort while Tim started his classes. I let the kids sleep in a bit (it had been a late night and a full day the day before) and then we had a late breakfast. We checked out the resort bicycles and tooled around the lagoon. The kids and I had sooo much fun on the bicycles! There weren’t any bikes that were small enough for Duke, so he mostly rode behind me on my bike. There’s a grocery store here that it is probably used mostly for provisioning the yachts that are here. To our Guam eyes, it was a lovely grocery store, with all kinds of...Read More

Travel Day

Posted on by Caroline
Oh. My. It’s been a full day. Security check points-ticket counters-more security check points-immigration-health checks-even more security checkpoints-more health checks. Tim got a tip that we should print out all the paperwork and have it in hand, and that was an incredibly valuable tip. But it also meant that at every check point along the way we were juggling passports, immigration forms, boarding passes, COVID test results and insurance forms. For all four of us. In a foreign language. We’re sitting on the airplane, about to fly from Bangkok to Phuket. One more gauntlet of paperwork before we can rent a car and make our way to our hotel for the night. The kids have been (mostly) patient, and (almost)...Read More

To Thailand!

Posted on by Caroline
Like a lot of people, we’ve been dreaming of travel. After all, a large part of the reason we moved out to Guam was so that we could explore Asia. After navigating stacks and stacks of paperwork and entry requirements and covid tests (thank you, Tim, for tilting at the bureaucratic windmills!), we got on a fight last night and arrived in Manila. We are now mid-way through what you could call an extended lay-over or a very brief visit to Manila, and in a few hours we’ll board a flight to Bangkok and then on to Phuket. Tim has a week-long free-diving conference there and the kids and I are going to explore the beaches and temples and foods...Read More

New Years Day 2022

Posted on by Caroline
Our favorite way to celebrate New Year’s Day is by getting outside for a nature walk. On New Year’s Day in 2020, we had just arrived in Guam. Still wildly jet-lagged and muddled, we decided to head down to Umatac Bay for a walk along the beach. Everything felt foreign, exciting, and breathtakingly beautiful. It felt like a sneak-peak into the mysterious new life we’d leapt into. As the devastating 2020 turned to the inexorable 2021, by New Years Day we were still in Denver for an extended visit with my parents. We drove to the foothills of the Rockies for a snowy and cold New Year’s Day hike in a park charmingly named the Lair of the Bear (thankfully...Read More

Catching up

Posted on by Caroline
We're back in Denver for a few days on what is, essentially, an extended layover. I've fallen very far behind on the places we've visited since we left Mykonos. It felt like we got on an out-of-control escalator after we left Mykonos, and I never found the time to get caught up. Our initial vision for our month was to find a place in Europe and use it as a base. We imagined going out on day trips and coming back to the local bakery and markets to pick up groceries for dinner. We imagined an immersive, slow-paced month. We would get to really know whatever village we landed in and truly experience local life. But then we started adding...Read More

Why we travel

Posted on by Caroline
If you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been making up this trip as we’ve been going. I’m absolutely loving this mode of travel since we’ve got a little more time. But it also means that as soon as we get somewhere, we’re trying to simultaneously enjoy where we’re at and think ahead to where we’re heading next. (On a side note, I can’t think of a better metaphor for life). But once I add in working part-time and my own personal travel journaling, I haven’t done nearly as much blogging as I hoped I would. But we’re nearing the end of our trip now and I’ve been thinking a lot about what lessons our kids have learned from this experience. I’m excited...Read More

Τα λέμε αργότερα!

Posted on by Caroline
We’ve spent the last few days in Mykonos. It’s somehow managed to be simultaneously exhilarating and utterly relaxing. Tim found a place to rent ATVs, so we’ve all put on our helmets and motored our way around from one end of the island to another. I needed all my faculties focused on driving, so I got very few photos, but the landscape was alien, stark, and stunning... tiny whitewashed chapels, donkeys, goats, views over the Aegean Sea, a rising gibbous moon, iconic pine trees and, of course, the beautiful white and blue houses. The impossibly narrow roads are also teeming with other tourists on their ATVs and scooters, pedestrians, hotel vans, and somehow (surely it’s a break in space/time?) gigantic...Read More

The Acropolis

Posted on by Caroline
Yesterday we visited the Acropolis. Let me say that again. Yesterday we visited the Acropolis. There are so many layers of story and history, I could spend a lifetime reading and exploring. But for this trip, a few hours on the Acropolis and a few hours in the museum will have to do. We followed the advice of a taxi driver and arrived at the foot of the Acropolis around 8 AM. Based on the waves of tourists flowing in later and the rising heat, it was the right time to be there. Today's site directs the tourists to arrive at the south side of the Propylaia, but we decided to backtrack a bit and enter through the Beulé Gate....Read More

With the Wind

Posted on by Caroline
This style of traveling is new to me. Every day we wake up and evaluate our itinerary - how are the winds? Our moods? Our whims? Which harbor has space for us? Then we go where the winds take us. Even before we left for Greece, we were juggling so many shifting variables, that we never truly nailed down where we would go and when. We’re only starting to get a hazy idea of what we’ll do after our boat trip, but it’s not a certain thing yet. So when we arrived in the Poros harbor last night, I wasn’t entirely sure where we were. I didn’t know the history, the landmarks, the cuisine. But the arrival was stunning. We...Read More