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

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

The title really speaks for itself. Joann anticipates there will be many more of these as the trip progresses. Greg dreads it.

After becoming accidental daredevils with our trip to Lamu, we thought we'd take a different kind of risk by heading up to Naivasha, an area two hours outside of Nairobi, for a walk on the wild side. Or a bicycle ride, more specifically.

There's lots to see in Naivasha, but the big draw for us was Hell's Gate, an adventurous national park where you can walk or bicycle among the animals. These include zebras, cape buffalo, baboons, hyenas, gazelles, elands, hartebeest, giraffes and, apparently, just a few large predators.

It's honestly very safe, but that didn't stop Joann from giving her family a bit of grief. (Sorry, Mom.) :)

There were no lions nearby, but we were nonetheless engrossed in our bike ride so didn't take very many photos. The few below will give you an idea of the plentiful wildlife and stunning scenery we got to enjoy.

The prize at the end of your bike ride through the park is that you reach Hell's Gate Gorge, a fascinating landscape through which you can hike with a Masai guide. We got to wander through gorgeous (*wink*wink*) scenery like this during an amazing three-hour hike.

On the bike ride back through the park, Greg couldn't resist a climb on Fischer's Tower, one of the well-known landmarks of the park.

We've got a few days ahead to rest up in Nairobi before we head to Uganda for a short trip. We can't wait to tell y'all about it!

​- JC & GK

Today is officially the last day of our first month away. It's been fascinating, surprising, breathtaking and unforgettable, and we have been counting our lucky stars along the way.

It seems we have one more lucky star to add to the tally this week because after a sunny and relaxing four days in Lamu on the coast of Kenya, we found out that the State Department had issued a travel warning for the area the day we arrived. Whoops.

(To our Moms - Deep breaths. We're both fine. See proof from today below.)

​That said, there were also travel warnings for the coast when Joann was here two years ago, and both then and now our local friends were largely unconcerned and continued to tell us about how amazing Lamu is.

After four days there, we can't help but agree. Lamu is an island that historically served as an Indian Ocean trading post. Its architecture was unlike anything we've seen before, with a mix of African, Arabian and Asian influences.

​Donkeys
The small alleyways of the town necessitate a unique form of transport: donkeys! Donkeys still serve as the primary mode of transportation as there are almost no cars on the island.

Dhows
Lamu is also known for its dhows, a traditional sailboat that is still used. It lacks a main sail and has a single spinnaker sail up front that can be re-positioned.

Greg got a chance to try his hand at one when we took a sailing "lesson". We use that term loosely because by "lesson", we mean that we got to sit in a dhow while our captain, Isaac, had Greg steer the rudder and kept yelling "Make move, make move!"

And More!
When we weren't sailing, we were enjoying the gorgeous 12km beach just steps away from our room at Banana House, a beach we had all to ourselves since tourists don't flock here for another few weeks. We essentially only had to share the beach with the cats that wander everywhere in Lamu.

We are now on Lake Naivasha, just a couple hours outside of Nairobi, and we're excited to share more about our upcoming adventures. Thanks for following us this past month, and we can't wait to share more tales from the road!

- JC & GK

As we were planning our travels, Greg and I thought a lot about what kind of trip we wanted to take. We could go the classic tourist route and try to see all the major sights and check off as many of the "Top Ten Things To Do In ____". We could try to be like locals and skip the famous sights for the hidden gems. We could also be less directed and just wander along, waiting to be surprised.

The amazing thing about our time in Amsterdam is that we got to do all three. Here's a glimpse of our favorite moments from each of the three ways we saw the city.

The Classic
We got to see some of the city's most famous sights with Joann's family, and there's not a lot we can add to what is said about Amsterdam's most famous sights and to dos. The canal cruise is lovely, relaxing and informative. The Van Gogh Museum is a real treasure (though surprisingly no mention of Starry Night!). Museumplein is gorgeous and perfect for people-watching. The Anne Frank museum is an enduring reminder of the power of even the smallest acts of good in the face of overwhelming hatred.

The Local
A friend from Chicago - one of the most fascinating people we know - moved to Amsterdam to work for a company that is growing the circular economy. He showed us around some places that we never could have found on our own, including NDSM (a neighborhood of innovative spaces), FabCity (a temporary exhibition showcasing leading innovators in sustainability) and Instock (a fascinating restaurant that rescues imperfect food to create marvelous three-course meals).

The Wanderer
With a few days on our own in the city, we spent a fair amount of time wandering around on our own, stopping at anything that looked interesting (or delicious). Vondelpark, though famous, wasn't on our list of things to see, but we happened upon it because it was close to our hotel, and it was Joann's favorite sight in the city. We also wandered into some totally delicious food along the way. Naturally, we sought out the chance to pet some cats.

We have now made it to Kenya, and we're heading on a safari tomorrow. We're excited to share more when we get back!

​- JC & GK

We are back on dry land after a week on a cruise with Joann's family from Amsterdam to the Norwegian fjords. It was a week of stunning landscapes, SO much food and countless hours with family. We couldn't have asked for more.

To give a quick cast of characters, traveling with us on the cruise were Joann's mom and dad; Joann's sister, brother-in-law and nephew; Joann's brother and his girlfriend and Joann's grandmother.

We ranged from 22 months old to 81 years old, which basically meant that we usually didn't go more than 30 minutes without someone needing to pee. :) We're a loud, boisterous family, and at any given moment, about a third of us is in a huge hurry and another third is dragging behind. All to say, it was a week of hilarity and wonderful memories, as a week with Joann's family always is.

With this crazy crew in town, we sailed out of Amsterdam and headed off for a full day at sea.

 Over the course of the week at sea, we made four stops in Norway:

• Eidfjord: A small town in a beautiful fjord where we kayaked and road a train up a mountain to see the views
• Alesund: A town situated on a fjord with breathtaking views from its famous Mt. Aksla
• Gerainger: Pretty much everyone's favorite stop - absolutely breathtaking scenery of Geraingerfjord, the nearby mountains, a glacial lake and houses precariously perched amidst it all
• Bergen: The second-largest town in Norway and a chance for us to try Norway's marvelous seafood and shop the works of its local artisans while taking in the gorgeous scenery of the mountains and water

We were blown away by the peacefulness and beauty of each stop, and our walks through these towns helped us work off at least a bit of the copious amounts of food we were eating on the ship between stops.

With that, we are back in Amsterdam for a couple more days before we head to Kenya. We'll post again shortly about our time in Amsterdam before and after the cruise!

We'll end the post with a HUGE thank you to Joann's parents for bringing us on this wonderful family cruise and to Joann's brother-in-law, Albert, for planning the whole thing!