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 […]

Upper Egypt

Somewhat confusingly, upper Egypt is farther south than lower Egypt, but that’s just because of our concept of north and south. Upper Egypt is higher up altitude-wise, and logically the Nile flows from upper elevations to lower ones all the way to the delta in northern Egypt out to the Mediterranean. After Luxor and Kom […]

In a State of DeNile

First, allow me to express my deep gratitude for having such a wonderful and unforgettable travel opportunity with my father! I don’t take it for granted. He’s an excellent travel partner, up for nearly anything, and having amazing travel stamina, almost always getting up in the morning before I do, ready for exploration and new […]

Cruising the Nile

On our final morning in Cairo before the cruise, we received a wakeup call at 3:49am. It’s difficult to recover from jet lag with that type of schedule! We flew to Luxor to begin the cruise on the ship River Tosca, with its capacity of 82 guests. We first visited the Karnak Temple, a vast […]

Cairo, Part One 🇪🇬

After an almost eight-hour wait in the Munich airport, during which we took long power naps in the quiet terminal, we finally arrived in Cairo, exhausted but excited. We had flown EgyptAir from Munich on a modern plane with a feature-rich seatback entertainment system which offered a travel prayer from the Quran prior to takeoff. […]

Konec (The End)

So this is it, the final post for the nine-week trip around Central/Eastern Europe and Portugal. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading the posts as much as I have enjoyed writing them, and thank you for following along on this adventure! I’m signing off for now, though perhaps I’ll come back to this blog one day […]

Missile Lane Knee Us

Before I sign off tomorrow, I thought I’d share some stories today in this penultimate post. Unintended consequence Back in Budapest, on the day I visited the mineral bathhouse, I minimized my possessions for the subway trip up there from my apartment so as to minimize any potential losses when I stored my valuables in […]