12.04.2011

Scenes from Savannah

Quite a change of scenery from last year's Khmer Feast in Cambodia we celebrated Turkey Day with my family in Savannah.  We all ran a Thanksgiving 5k, ate an amazing spread all weekend, took a boat cruise around the island my parents live on and fed the wild dolphins, visited the beach at Tybee Island, and all around enjoyed a family filled weekend.  Here are some trip highlights and I think it is safe to say we have the cutest nephews in the world.









































11.20.2011

Wine Country

It's been a while since our last post; spending time behind a desk isn't quite as exciting to write about as traveling, but that doesn't mean we're not getting out to explore. We've spent a few long weekends traveling around the US. Our most recent trip was to Sonoma County, California with two of our great friends. We flew into SFO, had an awesome french creole dinner at Brenda's and then drove out to Healdsburg for a weekend of food and wine. We attended the 13th Annual A Wine & Food Affair and tasted our way around the region.

As with our previous trip to Sonoma, the wine was great and the people were friendly, not much more to ask for. It's always tough to pick a favorite winery, but we are huge fans (and wine club members) of Longboard Vineyards. Their wine is consistently amazing and it's a great time hanging out with the Longboard team.

Now for the pics...



Ross & Cristin @ Twomey

Soft Pedals

Illuminated Rose



Wine Crew



At Dutcher Crossing

6.14.2011

Amelia Island

Very last minute I decided to join my family on a week long vacay to sunny Amelia Island outside of Jacksonville, FL. Being unemployed has its perks! We had a great week full of hanging out at the beach, eating yummy food, and playing cards. Here are some of my favorite pics from the week which included a quick stop over in Savannah to see my Dad and Retta.

































What a great way to kick off summer!


6.03.2011

Trip Questions & Answers

Taking an idea from some friends we met on our travels here is a list of commonly asked questions we've received.

Favorite Country?
Abby (A): Hard to say because we enjoyed so many places, but India and Nepal are at the top of my list.
Ross (R): Definitely a tough one, but I'd say India.

Favorite City?
We loved Hong Kong, it's a hi-tech city with loads of hiking trails just miles from the heart of the city.

Favorite Food?
A: Indian followed by Vietnamese
R: ditto!

Least favorite food?
A: Probably Chinese, we had some great food there, but also some really bad stuff, we had a disgusting black bean dumpling dessert soaked in sweet syrup and several very fishy tasting meals that didn't have fish in them, or so we thought.
R: China as well, and don't forget the boiled fish that made our lips tingle.

How did you get around?
Plane, train, boat, subway, taxi, car, truck, bus, auto rickshaw.  We used all sorts of transportation to get around and really planned as we went so normally a few days before we would leave a place we would do some research and find the best and most economic transportation.

Were there bathrooms everywhere you went?
Yes, some were very rustic and many 'squatty potties', but there were always bathrooms.  Toilet paper on the other hand was a rare commodity and became a staple in Abby's purse.

Was it hard to communicate?
Not nearly as difficult as you might think, English is widely used so we were lucky in that regard, except in China (see below).

Where was the hardest place to travel?
China, due to the language barrier, the weather (it was freezing in December) and strong cultural differences that didn't necessarily make for an easy visit.

Where was the easiest place to travel?
Probably a tie between Australia and South Africa.

Were you ever scared/in danger?
We were never in danger, at least that was apparent to us. We did have one situation arriving in Nairobi, Kenya and 3am and getting into a taxi where we both felt a little uncomfortable as they took us down some back roads, but we arrived at our destination perfectly safe.

Favorite Lodging?
A: Probably our amazing villa, The Longhouse, in Bail for Ben and Lisa's wedding followed by our little hut on the beach on Koh Phanghan in Thailand.
R:  I also really enjoyed the Two Dragons Guesthouse in Siem Reap, Cambodia

Did anything get stolen or lost?
A: Unfortunately, I left my Kindle on board one of our last flights and I think I had a few Euro coins stolen in Madrid, but other than that we came home with everything in tact.

Did you get sick?
Yes, were both experienced "traveler's belly" a few times in different places (Nepal, Cambodia, Vietnam) but we tok along antibiotics and never suffered with anything for more than a day.

Would you do it again?
A: Hell yes!
R: Most definitely, but days after returning Abby asked me if we won the lottery if we'd take off again…I told her I needed some time to recover :)

Did it cost more/less than you thought it would?
We averaged $185/day, we had guesstimated $150.  So we were a little over budget, but the whole trip was still relatively very reasonable.

Was it hard to adjust coming back to the US?
As strange as it sounds, coming back to the US was pretty smooth.  We think that after traveling for 7 months we were just excited to be home.

What did you miss most?
A: our bed
R: relaxing on our couch

What are you going to do with all your photos?
Like other trips we've taken we're planning on doing photo books (it's going to take several for all the photos).

What are you going to do with this site?
We'll be keeping it up for the foreseeable future and updating it with our continued travels, both here and abroad.

If you have any other questions post a comment and we'll respond.  Also check out our faq page for some more info.

4.23.2011

Around the World with Photos

We're now back in Colorado and getting back into the swing of things. Our trip was an amazing adventure and will be with us forever. One of the great things is that with our photos we will be able to relive many of the experiences again.

With that I've put together a set of photos representing each country we visited, 22 in total (I did not take a single photo in Kenya, so there are only 21 photos). I've also compiled some statistics on the photos (this information was extracted from the Adobe Lightroom database). First the less exciting stats, then on to the photos.

photos: 21,083 (236.79 GB)
picks: 1,024
days: 215
shooting days: 156
avg photos/day: 98
avg picks/day: 5
avg photos/shooting day: 135
avg picks/shooting day: 6
num landscape: 15,083
num landscape picks: 770
num portrait: 5,904
num portrait picks: 249
avg focal length: 63
avg focal length picks: 57
avg ISO: 436
avg ISO picks: 458

*picks - flagged in Lightroom, processed and uploaded to Flickr
*shooting day - a day a photo was taken

In layman's terms I took just over 21,000 photos of which 1,024 photos I felt were worthy enough to share and post on Flickr. We were gone 215 days and I took a photo 156 of those days and on those days I took an average of 135 photos.

1) Australia
opera house and bridge

2) Singapore
Floral Sents

3) Malaysia


4) Indonesia


5) Nepal


6) Thailand


7) Cambodia


8) Vietnam


9) Hong Kong


10) China


11) India
Rising

12) Turkey


13) Kenya (no photo)

14) Tanzania
Leopard with Cub

15) Malawi


16) Zambia


17) Zimbabwe


18) Botswana


19) South Africa


20) England


21) Spain


22) United States of America
Chicago Skyline

For the full photographic experience check out my Flickr collection of Running Around the Planet Photos, here.