• Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Final

    Back to the Start On Tuesday, we left Lagos in the south of Portugal and prepared for the 300 Km drive back to the Lisbon airport where we dropped off our rental car. We had the car for 10 days but it was no longer…

  • Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 3

    Down to the Coast Approaching the halfway point of our Portugal trip, it was time to leave Evora and head south to our next destination.  We spent four nights in Evora and felt it was the right amount of time for a town of its…

  • Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 2

    The Short Connection In all of the years that we’ve travelled, the number of times our flights have gone wrong has been pretty small. Lost luggage or missed connections have been so few and far between that it’s hardly ever mentioned. When we were planning…

  • Our Excellent Portugal Adventure – Part 1

    Choosing Portugal We often get asked how we end up determining what destination we plan on going to next. I think this happens more often when we’re choosing a destination that isn’t quite on the beaten track as France or Italy for example. It definitely…

  • Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Final

    Final Days We’ve now arrived at the final destination of our Costa Rican Adventure, now located very close to Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific Ocean side of Costa Rica. From our balcony, we have a nice view of the ocean and we’d also…

  • Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 3

    Over Land and Water After our four-night stay at the Lost Iguana Resort, it was time to pack up again as we would be picked up by our driver to be taken to our next destination. Our journey would take us a short drive to…

  • Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 2

    Getting Here I mentioned in my previous post that we had a very early start leaving Vancouver yesterday morning. We arrived at our hotel late last night, around 10 PM so it was a pretty full day of travel and we were pretty tired, but…

  • Our Excellent Costa Rican Adventure – Part 1

    Getting Ready Over the years, our routine of getting ready to travel has evolved. Quite a while ago, I started making a list using some software and that list has ballooned to almost 70 items. I know this sounds extreme but it includes many mundane…

  • Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Final

    Sidebar I was originally planning on writing 4 installments for this Return to France adventure but for a number of factors this will be the final one. I’ll be covering a lot of ground, almost a 8 days worth. Missing the Crowds It’s now Sunday…

  • Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Part 2

    Getting Here It’s 4AM here in the Paris apartment we’re staying at where I’m writing this next installment of our Return to France Adventure. A bit more on that in a minute. Wednesday was our travel day getting to Paris from Vancouver and had its…

  • Barb and Baden’s Return to France – Part 1

    We needed to check our notes because we couldn’t believe that it’s been 12 years since our last trip to France. Of course, it’s been three years since we’ve been anywhere outside of North America, this Return to France trip is significant for us in…

  • Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Final

    Leaving the Beach As I had mentioned in my previous posting, Wildwood, New Jersey is a resort destination known for its boardwalk and beaches. In the three days we stayed in Wildwood, although we walked kilometres of the beach, we only scratched the surface as…

  • Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 3

    Driving to Distraction One of the reasons why I like being in larger cities when travelling is that we’re usually exploring on foot and the kilometres of extra walking per day serves to offset the calorie-rich foods we’re often eating each day. It’s unavoidable, as…

  • Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 2

    Sidebar: I neglected to send some of you the first installment of this Excellent Adventure. I had to rebuild the mailing list from memory as I’ve stopped using the Gmail account I was using back in 2019 for this purpose. My apologies. Travelling “Light” I’ve…

  • Our Excellent East Coast Adventure – Part 1

    Getting Back Online Again We were in Sri Lanka when I last wrote an update on my travel blog. Regular readers know that I’ve been fairly diligent at posting updates here at least twice a year for the last 18 years. Of course, none of…

  • Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Final

    The Food Anywhere that we’ve travelled to in the world, the food is often one of the main differentiators that give you a real sense of the local culture. While it’s possible to get hamburgers and pizza pretty much anywhere, we always want to try…

  • Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Part 3

    Elephants It’s been five days since I last posted an update and we’ve done quite a bit since then. I had mentioned in my previous post that we were staying in the town of Dambulla and it was our base for two days while we…

  • Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Part 2

    It’s Like a Punch in the Gut Being a tropical country, it was expected that we would be dealing with hot temperatures and we all had tried to do our best to mentally prepare for this. Coming from Vancouver, we don’t have a lot of…

  • Our Excellent Sri Lankan Adventure – Part 1

    15 Years of Adventure A few months ago I realized that 2019 celebrates the 15th year that I’ve been writing my ExcellentAdventure.ca travel blog. My first reference to Excellent Adventure was during our trip to New Zealand and the Cook Islands in 1999, several years…

  • My Excellent Iceland Adventure – Final

    Final Posting I was debating if I was going to post the 4th chapter of my Iceland blog before the final but in the end, I decided to wrap everything up in this final installment. I’ve done quite a bit in the past few days,…

  • My Excellent Iceland Adventure – Part 3

    The Long Drive Since I had planned to leave Ólafsvík this morning, I had to prepare myself for the over 400 Km drive to my next destination. I felt that the best option was to get on the road early so I was packed up…

  • My Excellent Iceland Adventure – Part 2

    End of the City I spent most of the day walking around Reykjavik in the sunshine. It being Sunday, most of the stores were closed but by the time they’re all open tomorrow, I’ll be heading out of town and won’t be returning again to…

  • My Excellent Iceland Adventure – Part 1

    Solo Trip About 5 months ago a large map of Iceland went up on the wall of our 2nd bedroom. Over the subsequent months, more and more notes were added to the map as I researched and developed the itinerary for the trip to Iceland…

  • Our Excellent English Irish Adventure – Final

    The Emerald Isle After completing our few days in York we knew that the end of the England part of this trip had arrived and we prepared ourselves for the flight into Ireland. We flew into the city of Shannon and were only there long…

  • Our Excellent English Irish Adventure – Part 3

    The Weather I normally might make a passing comment about the weather when we’re travelling but I have to make a longer comment in this case. The weather has been … unpredictable. Since arriving in London and getting some rain for about an hour or…