Unlocking Hidden Travel Gems: The Experts Behind Guided Tours

When your amazing tour guide not only tells you WHY you should watch the sunrise at the Grand Canyon, but also shares where to watch, AND gives you tips for perfect viewing – the result is a true memory of a lifetime!

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that we are big fans of guided tours – especially for those bucket list destinations that we’ve always dreamed of. Having now experienced 3 very different – and amazing – tours, we are even more convinced that the stress-free nature of guided touring is a fabulous way to spend time exploring new places!

When people ask me about guided touring, one question that often comes up is “What are the guides like? Are they really knowledgeable?”

So, let’s chat about that a bit today. Read more

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Adventures Abroad: On Our Way to Venice, the Floating City

Beautiful Burano – one of the most colorful places I’ve ever visited!

Continuing on our Globus tour of Italy’s Great Cities, after leaving Rome, we headed north towards Venice. As it’s a long drive though, we made a few stops along the way. First was an overnight stay in Umbria at Posta Donini, a 17th century villa in the town of San Martino in Campo. This lovely villa has been completely renovated into a luxurious resort and spa – with a wonderful restaurant to go with it. I confess that, while looking forward to Venice and the rest of our tour, it was definitely tempting to want to stay here longer! Read more

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Adventures Abroad: Rome, the Eternal City

Yes – we threw our coins in the Trevi Fountain so that we will return one day!

To say that we had a wonderful time on our Italy vacation would be an understatement! Globus Tours did a fabulous job of planning the tour of “Italy’s Great Cities” and while it would be impossible to see and do everything in Italy in 9 days, we did a LOT during our time there, and lifetime memories were absolutely made!

I shared a number of photos and quick reviews on our Facebook page while we were traveling but wanted to take the next few weeks to chat in more detail about the places we visited. We will start with the city where our journey began and ended – Rome. Read more

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Exploring California: The Foggy and Fun Coast

While we spent most of our northern California tour in remote areas of the state – dominated by majestic mountains, towering trees, and granite cliffs (along with it being quite hot and dry) – we actually began and ended our trip in areas that were VERY different from the rest of our time. From the city vibe of San Francisco to the quaint and historical areas of Carmel-by-the-Sea and Cannery Row, it was fascinating to explore these coastal areas – to say nothing of experiencing how different (in many ways) they were from what we saw the rest of the week.

We began our California adventure in San Francisco, and this was certainly a city that I had been looking forward to visiting for a long time. Having been to Los Angeles and southern California, we knew San Francisco was going to be different from that part of the state – and we weren’t disappointed! Read more

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What is the Best Way to See the USA?

Photo via https://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm

When you picture the perfect vacation, what do you see? Chances are the pictures that come to mind are beautiful scenery, wonderful hotels, amazing food, exploring new places and seeing new things, and above all else, memories that last a lifetime. What you may not picture though, is everything that goes into organizing this perfect, and stress-free, vacation.

Which brings me to today’s post about the “best way to see the USA”. You can pick your destination and begin to plan, spending hours researching everything there is to know, reading hundreds of reviews online for hotels and dining options, figuring out how you’re going to get there (and if you want to see multiple destinations, how you’re going to get from one to the next), all the while wondering what you’ve missed, and if you’re paying too much. And then when you get there, you can spend more hours waiting in lines, hoping you get to see the things that were important to you, hoping you don’t get lost, and trying not to be disappointed when that hotel that looked amazing online, hasn’t actually been renovated in years.

Vacations are much-needed opportunities for us to unwind, explore, spend precious time with our families and loved ones, and create lifelong memories. They are investments, both in time and in money, and as with all investments, should be made wisely. The good news is there are two things you can do to make a wise investment in your vacation plans to see America: Read more

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