We were captivated by New Zealand's amazing wildlife on the South Island, so we started our North Island adventure at Zealandia, a nature preserve in Wellington that has a 500-year goal of returning a 225-hectare valley to the condition it was in before humans ever set foot in it.

Our nighttime tour gave us a glimpse of our first kiwi (sadly not pictured - it was very dark)! And the daytime tour showcased some of the country's amazing birds, including the tekahe, one of the craziest-looking animals we've ever seen.

We explored wildlife underwater as well with some diving at the famed Poor Knights Islands. We got the best surprise as we jumped in the water when a New Zealand fur seal came to play with us!

We didn't think New Zealand could get much cooler (partly literal - the water while we were diving was SO cold), but then we headed to Hot Water Beach. It's a small town known for a beach that sits atop significant geothermal activity.

​At low tide each day, you can dig a little pool in the sand on the beach and make your very own hot tub. It took about half an hour of prospecting before we found a spot with hot water, but once we struck geothermal activity, it was amazing!

We like to think we made one of the best hot tubs on the beach. We had a piping hot stream on one side and regular cool sand on the other, which kept us from getting too hot like many other people on the beach did. (Note that we were wearing our winter jackets on the beach, but the water was hot enough that we had to go fetch cold ocean water to cool down our tub!)

After enjoying our DIY spa, we traveled further around the North Island, taking in the sights and meeting fascinating folks along the way.

Finally, as we returned our trusty and ridiculous van, we spent our last couple days in Auckland wandering and eating so much delicious food. In particular, we had the most amazing meal at The French Cafe. (Joann got too excited about the lemon meringue dessert, so we missed taking a picture.) :)

With that, we finally had to say goodbye to New Zealand. It's been an amazing three weeks, and we were excited for our short stop in Fiji - the very last of our trip. Here's to one last adventure!

- JC & GK

We have been remiss in updating you all on our adventures! We have spent the last couple weeks driving all over the South Island of New Zealand, hopping from campsite to campsite in another hilarious vehicle. (See our crazy campervan below!) 

It has been stunning, breathtaking and positively exhilarating.  After picking up our awesome van, we booked it from Auckland to the South Island, but once there, we managed to take time to enjoy at least a bit of New Zealand wine country at Saint Clair.

​From there, there were far too many amazing views and fascinating finds to share, but we'll share some of our favorite moments and shots. We did a lot of driving, so many of our days looked like this:

While most of our nights looked like this:

(Side note: Stereotypical gender roles pictured but not intended; we alternated driving and cooking every day!)

For the first part of our trip, we focused heavily on seeing some of New Zealand's amazing wildlife, including at Ohau Waterfall near Kaikoura. This is a waterfall and pond where seal pups hang out between trips back down to the beach to feed from their moms. It's like a baby seal playground!

If that wasn't enough, we wandered to a lighthouse and wildlife preserve where we saw a colony of yellow-eyed penguins! These little guys are native to New Zealand, and they wander in from the sea every evening around dusk to rest in their burrows. Look at their little footprints!

And to top it all off, we had the most amazing wildlife experience of our lives. Typically, when we see anything that says "swim with dolphins" or "dolphin encounter," we are incredibly wary. Most "swim with dolphins" experiences use captive dolphins, often captured from the wild and kept in inhumane conditions at worst and unnatural conditions at best.

But when we read about Encounter Kaikoura's dolphin, we were thrilled and amazed. They take snorkelers out looking for one of the pods of wild dolphins that resides around the coast. Once they find the pod, the snorkelers hop in and essentially try to entertain the dolphins enough that they'll stay and play. They would swim within a few feet of us, eye-to-eye, and they really seemed to like it when anyone would dive down or noises through their snorkel. We spent a full hour freezing in the waters while absolutely enchanted by the dolphins as they stayed and played with us - without any incentive (e.g., food) other than fun. This short video gives a great sense of the trip though and our time with "the world's friendliest" dolphin. The GoPro died while we were swimming, so this is the best shot we have of one of members of the 400-strong pod of dolphins! ​

These were some of our favorite moments, but there have been a million more in the two weeks we've spent on the South Island. Below are just a few more!

And finally, a picture of one of Greg's happiest moments of the trip so far. :)

We're excited to share more in our update about our week on the North Island. We can hardly believe that our travels our coming to an end soon, but we are squeezing every last moment of joy out of the time we have left!

- JC & GK

Hi everyone – It’s been quite some time since our last update! We recently finished up a week on Palau which has been one of our favorite stops to date (and is one of the last on our trip :( ).

​We've been hearing amazing things about the diving in Palau for as long as we’ve been scuba diving. The country also has a famous lake well known for being filled with thousands of non-stinging yellow jellyfish that you can snorkel through. The pictures of the lake look incredible, and we’ve wanted to see it for ourselves for a long time.

When we first arrived on the island, we were a little worried about our prospects on both these fronts. It was pouring rain and the seas were a bit rough for some of the more remote dives we’d been hoping to do. We also quickly learned that the famed jellyfish lake had seen a number of jellyfish die off recently and so most tour operators had agreed to stop tours for a few months until the population recovered. Although some rogue tour operators would still take groups, it didn’t feel like a very responsible thing to do.

We spent our first few days on the island exploring the town, and doing several wreck dives on the inner reefs, well protected from the waves & weather. We got a chance to see a bit of history we hadn’t planned on, as most of the wrecks were Japanese naval vessels sunk during WWII (one of the largest ones we dove was a huge tanker used to fuel the bombers used in the Pearl Harbor attack). You could also see several of these wrecks from shore, which added an interesting element to the landscape. Here are a few of our favorite wreck pics:

​Post-WWII the US became a big presence on the island, and you could see the evidence everywhere. Most of the branded goods were US-based, and many of the stores were as well. They still have a Ben Franklin dime store on the island (!) which was a nice blast from the past. Otherwise, the town of Koror itself was small (the whole country only has a bit over 20K people, most of whom live in or around Koror). We also used our time to get certified to dive with Nitrox (an air blend with more oxygen that allows divers to stay underwater longer than normal compressed air does). We hadn’t planned to do it, but always nice to learn something new and useful!

On our last few days, the weather cleared, and we were able to make some dives in the far outer reefs of Palau. It was, in a word, stunning. I think we’d both agree that a couple of the dives we did were probably the best dives we’ve ever done anywhere. There were HUGE vertical reefs (think multiple football fields set next to each other) stretching as far in both directions and down as you could see. Big schools of fish patrolling, and TONS of sharks and turtles as well, pretty much every direction you looked. At one point, Greg looked back at the reef after having been looking out to the ocean for a few seconds, and discovered he was almost right on top of a sea turtle he hadn’t even known was there! A few of our favorite pics from the outer wall dives are here:

We spent our last day kayaking around the main island, since we couldn’t dive right before our flight. We’d befriended a few Delta pilots who had been coming to Palau for years, and they’d tipped us off to a cove of Jellyfish you could get to off the open ocean if you knew where to look. Having missed out on our chance to see the lake, we were excited to try our luck here. We found the cove and had it all to ourselves for more than an hour as we tied up the kayak and recreated the lake experience we’d been hoping for (only complication: the ocean jellyfish DO sting :) ).

​With that – off to our last major stop, New Zealand. Thanks as always for reading and more to come soon!

Continuing to have fun along our journey. Probably more fun for Joann in these pictures than for Greg. :)

After some amazing diving in Komodo National Park, we were pretty pooped, especially with the anticipation of another great week of diving in Palau coming up. As such, we have been taking a little vacation from our vacation with a week in Bali and Manila. 

In Bali, we managed to make it to a few local sights, including the Water Blow, where the erosion on the rocks has created an inlet that spews with the high tide. It was like waiting for a geyser to blow!

We also went to the Ubud Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary, which was just about the most touristy place we've been on this trip. It's actually a beautiful Hindu temple complex, but the hoards of people feeding bananas and other food to the macaques definitely took away from the ambiance. The monkeys were unsurprisingly a hoot, though.

We were sad to leave Bali, but Manila has been a fascinating place with incredible history, including old Spanish forts and World War II history.

With that, we are saying goodbye to our lovely view of Manila Bay and heading to Palau! Thanks as always for following our adventures!

​- JC & GK

Greetings from Indonesia! After hopping briefly through Jakarta and Bali, we made it to a small town called Labuan Bajo on the island of Flores in Indonesia. From there, we took a boat for a couple hours to a small diving resort called Scuba Junkie, right on the edge of Komodo National Park (which is a fairly large group of islands and surrounding waters).

We spent the last week there, usually out on a dive boat in the park from ~6a to ~6p, doing 3 long dives each day. The resort and islands in the park were beautiful - a fantastic setting to get away and be in nature for awhile.​

​​We didn't know all that much about Komodo before we arrived, although we had heard it has some of the best, most diverse diving in the world. The stat we heard was that marine biologists can typically identify more species of fish in a single dive than exist in all of the Caribbean. 

What we DIDN"T know, was that a big reason for all that diversity is the extremely strong daily currents that are caused by having a very warm sea to the north and a cold one to the south. Neither of us had really done much diving like this before, and it definitely kept things interesting.

​Currents in the park can get up to 7 knots (which is ~8mph, or about as fast as most sailboats travel), and many of the dive sites had names like "the shotgun," which gives you a sense for the experience.

​On one hand, it was quite fun to be able to drop down and have the current carry you across huge swaths of reef without having to paddle or really do much of anything. On the other hand, when you had to fight currents or get across them, it was a lot of work and could be more than a little stressful. 

From a diversity of life perspective, the park more than lived up to its reputation. We saw huge manta rays, multiple types of sea turtle, dolphins, several types of sharks, and literally hundreds of species of fish, coral, and other life. A few of our favorite shots are below:

On our way out of the park, we did a little hiking on land as well to find the famed Komodo Dragons. On the islands, there were deer, buffalo, monkeys, and TONS of Komodo Dragons:

That's all for now. Hope everyone out there is doing well. More to come from Indonesia soon!

After our bittersweet departure from Nairobi, we were welcomed into Bangkok with a lovely evening and view as the start of the Asia portion of our trip.

Starting with a Misadventure
We didn't have much of a plan for our four days in Thailand, so on our first morning in Bangkok, we hopped on a bus heading toward a couple of the city's most famous sights.

We settled in for our estimated 34-minute (and apparently free - no one would take our money!) bus ride, but about ten minutes in we realized that we had gone WAY off the route. We ended up taking an hour-long ride that meandered all over Bangkok. It was a lovely and unexpected tour of the city, even if we looked like this for most of it. :)

Seeing the Sights
Greg and I braved the heat and confusing transport to head to The Grand Palace, which used to be the royal residence, Wat Pho (the Temple of the Reclining Buddha) and the Jim Thompson House (the Thai-style home and art collection of an American who fell in love with the country).

Taking a Break
Given the ubiquity of Thai massage vendors, we couldn't help but indulge in a bit of relaxation during our time here.

Diving into the Food: Central World
Central World is a huge mall in Bangkok that for the last two weeks of July is hosting Bangkok Varee, a celebration of the 234th anniversary of the establishment of Bangkok. The Varee is an outdoor market that features tons of traditional food vendors and crafts makers. It was a delicious introduction to the food in Bangkok!

Classing It Up at Gaggan
Greg was amazing and had planned months in advance to get us a reservation for dinner at Gaggan, consistently rated the best restaurant in Asia. It serves "progressive Indian cuisine" in a set menu of super innovative dishes. We were blown away!

Eating ALL the Food, Seriously
We didn't stop there, but ate pretty much everything else we found in our path!

...and the Consequences
After eating a path through Bangkok, we were sad to get ready to leave. It seems Greg's stomach wasn't quite ready to leave yet either because the night before our flight, Greg came down with the worst case of food poisoning either of us had ever seen.

A tough, sleepless night was followed by a hurried morning of changing flights, rebooking hotels, reviewing trip insurance policies and endlessly thanking the hotel doctor for the anti-nausea shots. (See below.) :)

So we nixed Singapore from our itinerary, and we've spent a couple extra nights in Bangkok giving Greg time to recover. He's all better now, and we're ready to tackle our next stop: Indonesia!

- JC & GK

Special thanks to Greg for letting Joann both take and post a picture of him in his misery. :)

For the past two months, Greg and I have technically been homeless. Wandering has been wonderful, but every now and then we did miss the comfort and familiarity of home. So over the last month, we've made a new home for ourselves.

We have spent 20 of the last 34 days in Nairobi, coming as close as travelers can to feeling like locals, thanks in large part to our incredible friends Annie and David. We wanted to share some the most memorable features of Nairobi.

Karura Forest
Karura is a gorgeous forest in the northeast of Nairobi. Full of wildlife and beautiful paths, we loved seeing a troupe of Syke's monkeys, adorable little duikers and the coolest ants we've ever seen.

Ngong Hills​​​
​​A half hour drive from the heart of Nairobi, Ngong Hills is a series of seven hills that makes for some of the best hiking we've had so far. We were quite proud of ourselves - our armed guard, who does this hike all the time, said we wore him out with our pace! Apparently most people do the hike in four hours, and we did it in two! :)

​Nairobi National Park
The only game park located within a capital city, Nairobi National Park is pretty amazing. It was fascinating to see huge game with the bustling city in the background, and we could not have been more thrilled to see rhinos, which we didn't get to see in the Masai Mara. The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust elephant orphanage nearby was also a marvelously fun (and accidentally messy) side adventure!

​Food, Food and More Food
Nairobi has an insanely good food scene, and we were so entranced in the food we often forgot to take pictures. A few of our favorites not pictured here were: Chowpaty, Open House and Beijing Restaurant. Also, Greg and I often made ourselves truly at home and ordered Mambo Italia pizza to our apartment. It was pretty great. :)

Memorable Miscellaneous Moments
The best thing about Nairobi for us was getting to observe the everyday aspects of life here. Greg and I considered moving here after our travels, and it's bittersweet to leave this complex and cacophonous city after making ourselves at home here.

With that, we have left our new home away from home and headed for adventures in southeast Asia. We are sad to leave but thrilled to enjoy the next phase of this marvelous trip. Thanks as always for joining us for the ride!

- JC & GK

Imagine if your country were known primarily for two things: magnificent mountain gorillas that occupy lush cloud forests but also a horrendous and recent history of genocide. Such is the case for Rwanda.

Truthfully, Greg and I didn't know that much more about Rwanda than what the world more broadly seems to remember about the country. While we spent only a few days here, we were glad to be fascinated and surprised as we learned more about the country.  Greg would now rate it as one of his favorite segments of the trip and it's at the very top of places to return to.

Our greatest teachers about Rwanda were the staff and community at Red Rocks Rwanda, the campsite and hostel where we stayed ahead of our trip to see the mountain gorillas.

We didn't leave Greg on his own for long, though, because the local women next taught us both how to make a traditional beer out of banana. It was a sticky affair, but we loved it!

We got to enjoy the fruits of our labor! Greg looks like he's already feeling the effects of the banana beer.

And after much anticipation, the time finally came for us to visit the mountain gorillas! We hiked through some of the forest in Parc National des Volcans, we finally came upon this gorgeous mug!

Coming off of the incredible high of seeing these amazing creatures, we headed back to Kigali before returning to Nairobi.

There are no photos from our last day because we went to the Kigali Genocide Memorial, and it didn't feel quite right to take photos. Joann wanted to add a small note about her experience there below.

With that (and after being surprised by one of the best Indian meals of our lives at Khana Kazana), we headed "home" to Nairobi. We can't wait to tell you more about our adventures there over the past month.

- JC & GK


From Joann:
I imagine the Kigali Genocide Memorial is not an easy experience for anyone. It documents the brutal genocide of an estimated 800,000 to 2,000,000 Rwandan Tutsis in 1994, organized by the government and perpetrated by regular people - fathers and sons, friends and neighbors. Children were cut down by machetes, women were systematically raped, families were burned alive in the places where they sought refuge.

I couldn't help myself from crying as we walked through the exhibits and then again when we got back to our hotel. I felt a depth of sadness I haven't felt for a long time, and for days now, my mind keeps coming back to the same question: how can people do this to each other? 

I still don't have an answer; I'm not sure if anyone does. But what I took away from our visit was that tragedy like this, on this scale, with this impact, does not happen overnight. The 1994 genocide happened over the course of only three months, but its roots can be found over a century before through racist colonial policies. Hatred at this scale seems always to start smaller, when it's easier to overlook, easier to ignore, easier to justify.

The last room in the memorial displays pictures of children as young as 15 months old who were killed in horrific ways during the genocide. And there's no way to make sense of that other than to think that it is possible only because it is so easy to hate, for all of us. The little seeds of hate - as small as a hateful word - take root and flourish because it is so easy to hate. And eventually even the unthinkable is possible because it is so easy to hate.

So I guess all I really meant to say with all this is that I still have no answers, but I suspect that the answer might start with doing what is not easy. More respect, more compassion, more tolerance. And always more love.

We recently finished up four days touring through Uganda - we had a great time there. We drove about 600 miles in all, out from the capital of Kampala to the far western side of the country and back, seeing some of the largest lakes in the world (including Lake Victoria and Lake Edouard), as well as a bunch of national parks and game reserves in Uganda.

What can we say about Uganda? The forests were beautiful. The lakes were HUGE, and the since it was the dry season there, the shorelines were absolutely packed with animals looking for water:

Everyone was very friendly, but the place definitely had a little rougher edge (and much rougher roads!) than most other places we've traveled. One of the things that fascinated Greg was the fact that you could get a savings account at Barclays Uganda that paid 18% interest, despite an official inflation rate of just ~6%. Not sure about that inflation rate, but either way - crazy!

Easily one of the big highlights of the trip was the number of primates we saw. Chimpanzees were the big draw, but we saw six different species of primates, each fascinating in its own way.  A few of our favorite pics:

Although they were pretty plentiful, most of the time it was hard to get a good picture! It felt like they were observing us every bit as much as we were observing them, but most of them kept their distance up in the trees. Chimpanzee trekking was especially exciting, as to keep up with them we basically had to run through a jungle without no real trails. We came out with more than a few scrapes and bug bites, but it was definitely worth it to spend some time with them.

One of the other interest sites we came across was a huge bat cave in the middle of a forest in the far west of the country (near the border with the DRC). Standing even 10 yards away, you could feel the heat emanating from what was at least several thousand fruit bats (see pic below).  As we got closer, we also saw a huge (~six yards long) python curled up enjoying the heat as well. 

Outside of the forests, a lot of our best site-seeing was along the banks of the lakes. We saw a lot of the same wildlife that was in the Masai Mara (see post), so here are just a few of our favorite pics:

Well, that's all for now. We'll have an update soon from Rwanda!

​- GK & JC