Croatian Exploration

Much of my exploration time by myself or with some friends visiting from Asheville was spent hiking hills and mountains or lounging at beaches, two of my favorite activities! Some things are definitely worth repeating, such as climbing Croatia’s tallest mountain, Dinara. See this previous blog post about when I first scaled this peak back […]

Kotor, Montenegro

Equipped with a rental car on this latest trip to Croatia, I leveraged the opportunity to drive down to Montenegro. More specifically, I drove around the Bay of Kotor and explored the old town of Kotor and hiked up to the mountaintop overlooking the bay. Montenegro is a small country, and it has only around […]

Bosnia and Herzegovina

All along Croatia’s Dalmatian coast lies Bosnia and Herzegovina inland, to the east. This other former Yugoslav republic is often referred to as just B&H or even just Bosnia, though Herzegovina is its own district area within the country. B&H interrupts Croatia’s coastline for a short 20 kilometers (12 miles), providing the country with some […]

Whoa-atia

Truly, Croatia never fails to amaze and surprise with its spectacular beauty. Despite all the exploration I’ve already done over the past couple of years while spending months here total, there are still plenty of Croatian destinations I’ve yet to explore. For such a small country, there’s an embarrassing abundance of travel-worthy destinations. Equipped with […]

Fortress-Hopping

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year and a half since Colleen and I previously visited Croatia’s gorgeous Dalmatian coast. This time we rented a car, and so we have much more flexibility and opportunities. We’re staying in Tisno again (about halfway between Zadar and Split, if you know Croatia), but during this […]

Bless Bless

The Icelandic language retains more of a relationship to Old Norse than do other Scandinavian languages, such as Norwegian. Modern Icelanders can even read the old medieval sagas without too much trouble. Their language hasn’t evolved as much as other Scandinavian languages which were influenced by other European languages, such as French. And even today, […]

Ways Iceland Can Kill You

In preparing for this trip, I read Rick Steves’ Iceland guidebook, and in it he has a two-page section covering various ways that Iceland is deadly. Here’s how he starts out: Several times a year, Iceland is captivated by a full-scale land and helicopter search for travelers sucked out to sea by a wave, separated […]

Smoky Cove

Earlier this year, my niece Katelyn (my sister’s daughter) contacted me and said she’s long wanted to visit Iceland, and she wondered if maybe I’d like to travel there with her. With deep appreciation and excitement, I immediately answered yes, of course!! And I’m really happy I did! Katelyn is a wonderful travel partner — […]

Cairo, Part Two 🇪🇬

After finishing the Nile River cruise, we flew back up to Cairo for another two nights there. I’m not sure why Uniworld schedules the trip this way — I would have preferred to get all of Cairo up front. But anyway, on this return visit we got to visit the pyramids of Giza, the most […]

State Pharaoh

Many of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs ruled over a united Egypt (both upper and lower), controlling a vast area along the Nile. We could understand the huge distance covered because we had taken an hour-long flight from Cairo to Luxor, traveled farther south along the Nile by ship to Aswan, and then flown on another […]