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Guide to the Best Places to Celebrate Burns Night 2019 in Scotland

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Wondering where to celebrate Burns Night in 2019? We’ve put together a guide to the top places to join a Burns Supper or other type of Burns Night event to celebrate Robert Burns and his poetry. Whether you are a lifelong Burnsian or new to Scotland’s favorite bard, there are hundreds of ways to celebrate Burns Night in Scotland. We list 2019 Burns Night events in Ayrshire, Dumfries, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and information on when, where, and how to join these events. Whether you are looking for a formal Burns Supper, The Big Burns Supper festival, a poetry reading, a casual Burns brunch, or a family-friendly ceilidh, we have you covered. We also discuss each area’s connection with Robert Burns and Burns related attractions that you may want to visit. We also provide a brief history of Robert Burns and what happens at Burns Suppers for those who are celebrating Burns… Read the rest

Edinburgh Day Trips: 15 Best Day Trips from Edinburgh Scotland

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After three years in Edinburgh, we’ve put together a guide to our favorite day trips from Edinburgh Scotland. There are so many things you can do and see on a day trip from Edinburgh, which include exploring castles, touring whisky distilleries, teeing off on a famous golf course, exploring historical attractions, birdwatching, hiking in national parks, and visiting filming locations for popular movies and TV shows like Outlander, Harry Potter, and Downton Abbey. We suggest ideas for 15 day trips from Edinburgh that cover a range of interests as well as a wide array of regions from the Scottish Borders to Glasgow to the Scottish Highlands. For each day trip from Edinburgh, we provide all the information you need about how to plan your day out, from how to get there to things you can do there. We provide information on traveling by car, bus, train, and as part of a… Read the rest

Belfast Travel Guide: Top 40 Things to do in Belfast Northern Ireland

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Belfast is the capital and largest city in Northern Ireland, and there are so many things to do in Belfast! Belfast is probably best known for being where the RMS Titanic was built as well as for the violence and suffering here during The Troubles in the later part of the 20th century. However, today the city offers a lively historic city center, the famous Titanic Quarter, fun pubs, excellent museums, hundreds of street murals, beautiful gardens and green spaces, Victorian architecture, and a growing tourism industry. Belfast is perhaps not as well-known as Dublin to international travelers, but the reward of visiting here is a less crowded city where experiences feel more authentic.  We’ll share our guide to Belfast attractions, highlighting all the top things to do in Belfast, from central Belfast to the surrounding area. We’ll also share information about how to get there, when to go, public transport options,… Read the rest

Travel Photography: Best DSLR Cameras for Travel 2019

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DSLR cameras are a popular camera choice for travel photographers, as they offer great battery life, excellent image quality, a wide range of lens options, and full manual controls. They allow the photographer to take a lot of control over their travel photography and are available at a wide range of price points to suit most budgets. We’ve put together a detailed and helpful guide to the best DSLR cameras for travel. As professional travel photographers, we’ll help you decide if a DSLR camera is a good choice for you, provide advice on how to choose the best DSLR camera, and share a list of the best DSLR cameras currently available across various price points. We also give advice on how to make the most of a new DSLR camera, point out camera accessories that may be useful, and provide tips for protecting your camera while you are traveling. Choosing… Read the rest

Travel Tips: A Guide to Doing Laundry While Traveling

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Travel is fun but doing laundry while traveling can be a tedious chore. However, washing your clothes during a trip gives you the advantage of being able to pack less, rewear your favorite travel clothing, and return home with less dirty laundry. If you are going on a trip of more than a week, you’ll probably be thinking of laundry options. It can be difficult to figure out the best way to wash your clothes on a trip, and you don’t want to waste much of your vacation time on laundry. We’ve done trips of 6 months or more at a time, so doing laundry while traveling was essential! We’ve put together a guide to washing clothing while traveling for all budgets, whether you are a backpacker or luxury traveler. We cover all your options from hotel services to laundromats to hand washing in the hotel sink to camping solutions. We… Read the rest

Top 20 Things to Do in Huntsville Alabama

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Following a recent 5 day visit, we decided to write a travel guide to the top things to do in Huntsville Alabama. Although Huntsville is best known for its space-related attractions, we discovered that there is much more to see in this city than rockets and space shuttles (although rockets are awesome!). Huntsville is a city in northern Alabama that initially grew because of its cotton and railroad industries, but today it is best known for its military technology and aerospace industries. It was here that scientists designed and tested the Saturn V rocket that would send men to the moon for the first time. Today, the city is full of rocket scientists and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center continues to be at the forefront of U.S. rocketry research and construction, earning Huntsville its nickname “Rocket City”. Huntsville’s top visitor attraction is definitely the excellent U.S. Space and Rocket Center and… Read the rest

Puffins in Iceland: A Guide to Where to See Puffins in Iceland

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Want to see puffins in Iceland? Well, we have the guide for you, and we’ll share with you all the best spots to see puffins in Iceland. Puffins can be found in all areas of Iceland, you just need to know where to look. The Atlantic puffin has become an emblematic animal of Iceland, and many visitors want to see this cute black-and-white little bird with its bright orange beak and webbed feet. Luckily, Iceland is one of the best places to see puffins as it is home to the largest colony of puffins in the world, and over half of the world’s population nest here each year. Although numbers have been sadly declining in recent years, it is estimated that over 5 million Atlantic puffins nest in Iceland each year during the spring and summer months. However, even though there are millions of these little birds in Iceland, they are… Read the rest

Travel Photography: Best Mirrorless Cameras for Travel 2019

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Mirrorless cameras are considered by many to be the perfect travel camera as they offer great image quality and functionality, but are lighter and more portable than DSLR cameras. We’ve put together a detailed and helpful guide to the best mirrorless cameras for travel. As professional travel photographers, we’ll help you decide if a mirrorless camera is a good choice for you, provide advice on how to choose the best mirrorless camera, and share a list of the best mirrorless cameras currently available across various price points. We also give some advice on how to make the most of your new mirrorless camera and tips for protecting it while you are traveling. Choosing a Mirrorless Camera for Travel Photography Before we go through our suggestions of the best mirrorless cameras for travel photography, we wanted to do a quick “mirrorless camera 101”, so you understand what a mirrorless camera is,… Read the rest

Guide to the Best Coffee in Rome: 12 Top Cafés in Rome Italy

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Looking for the best place to get a coffee in Rome? Italy is a great place to sample coffee as it is the home of espresso and has a very developed coffee culture. We’ve visited Rome multiple times, and on those visits we’ve drunk a lot of wonderful cups of coffee in the Eternal City. So we wanted to share some of our favorite cafés in Rome to get coffee, with a focus on central locations. Need a coffee break after a visit to the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, Spanish Steps, or Borghese Gallery? We got you covered. These locations vary from simple local cafes to a 18 century upscale historical coffeehouse to a former artist studio! Before we get into our cafe recommendations, we’ll first share a number of tips and advice on ordering and drinking coffee in Rome, including typical coffee drinks, how to order coffee in Rome, how… Read the rest

La Garrotxa Travel Guide: 15 Things to do in the Volcanic Region of Catalonia

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The volcanic La Garrotxa region of Catalonia lies between the Pyrenees & the beautiful Costa Brava region in Spain. La Garrotxa is best known for its well-preserved medieval villages, good food, outdoor activity opportunities, Romanesque churches, and volcanic park. La Garrotxa Volcanic Zone Natural Park is one of the best preserved volcanic landscapes in Europe, containing 40 inactive volcanoes. If you are looking for a rural escape from Barcelona or Costa Brava, La Garrotxa is a short distance away making for a perfect Girona or Barcelona day trip or weekend getaway spot. Scenic vistas, rural landscapes, and medieval villages abound here. With a large network of trails, Garrotxa is a popular destination for both hikers and cyclists. Laurence and I have been lucky enough to have visited La Garrotxa several times and we seem to be in the area at least once a year. In this post we’ll share all you need… Read the rest

Visiting the Covered Bridges of Madison County in Iowa

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During a road trip a few years ago, Laurence and I decided to make a detour to visit the covered bridges of Madison County Iowa. Madison County is located about 30 miles from Des Moines and is called the “Covered Bridge Capital of Iowa” for having the largest group of covered bridges in one area west of the Mississippi River. The bridges are historically significant and were all added to the National Register of Historic Places in the 1970’s. However, their popularity as a tourist attraction came in the 1990’s after the publication of the bestselling book The Bridges of Madison County by Iowa-born author Robert James Waller. The novel tells the fictional story of an Italian-American housewife Francesca who has a brief but life altering affair in 1965 with a National Geographic travel photographer who comes to take photos of the local covered bridges. The covered bridges reached even greater… Read the rest

3 Days in London: A Perfect 72 Hour London Itinerary

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London is one of the world’s largest and most exciting cities, offering visitors thousands of things to do, including museums, royal palaces, beautiful parks, historical sites, and world-class theatre. With all these options, planning a trip to London can be a bit overwhelming, especially for first time visitors. We’ve put together a recommended 3 day London itinerary that will help you see the city’s highlights if you have at least 3 days in London. Our suggested 3 day itinerary has you visiting all the city’s most famous attractions (e.g., Westminster Abbey, Windsor Castle, Tower of London) as well as some of the city’s lesser known attractions. In addition to the 3 day itinerary, we also provide tips on how to get around London, a map that plots out each day’s suggested itinerary, and tips on how to save money during your 3 days in London. Planning Tips for 3 Days in… Read the rest

Best Compact Cameras for Travel 2019

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Almost everyone takes a camera with them on vacation, and we’ve decided to put together a guide to the best point-and-shoot cameras for travel. Having a great travel camera will help you capture those wonderful travel moments and share them with your family and friends. As professional travel photographers and writers, one of the most important pieces of our travel kit is our travel cameras. We rarely go anywhere without them! Cameras come in all shapes and sizes these days, from the one on your smartphone to compact cameras to professional level DSLRs. We personally think though that the best camera you have is the one on you and one that you know how to use. For many people, a compact camera, often called a point-and-shoot camera, is the perfect travel camera as they are generally small, lightweight, easy to use, and budget friendly. We’ll help you decide if a point-and-shoot… Read the rest

Palamós Travel Guide: 10 Things to do in Palamós Spain

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Palamós is one of our favorite Costa Brava towns and after several visits we decided to put together a travel guide to help other travelers discover all the wonderful things to do in Palamós Spain. This Mediterranean coastal town is one of the best preserved fishing villages in the Costa Brava and is a perfect place to relax and learn about the local Catalan culture. The town offers scenic hiking paths, several beaches, water sports, historical attractions, and an excellent fishing museum. It is also well known for its fresh seafood, cooking workshops, and famous Palamós gambas. If you enjoy seafood, this is the town to visit! There are plenty of things do in Palamós and you can easily spend a couple of days here. The town also makes for a great day trip from Barcelona or Girona as it is well located within Catalonia. Whether you have 1 hour or 1… Read the rest

Iceland on a Budget: How to Save Money in Iceland

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Iceland is a popular but expensive travel destination. To help with your trip planning, we’ve put together a guide to how to travel to Iceland on a budget. Our advice is based on the 6 weeks we have spent traveling throughout this beautiful country. In this post we’re going to share our top Iceland budget tips to help you save money on your Iceland trip. We’ll start with giving you an idea of what things costs in Iceland and how to set up a budget for your trip, and then we’ll share 21 different budget tips to help you travel in Iceland on a budget. We share ways to save money in Iceland on flights, accommodation, rental cars, dining out, camping, alcohol, groceries, fuel, and sightseeing. Whether you are traveling on a $1,000 budget or a $10,000 budget, you want to get the most out of your money and your trip… Read the rest