Category: Travel
There are 3 popular trails that bring hikers down into the canyon - South Kaibab and Bright Angel from the South Rim, and North Kaibab from the North Rim. People will attempt rim-2-rim by hiking down North Kaibab, stay overnight within the canyon and hike up either Bright Angel or South Kaibab. For day hikers, … Continue reading North Kaibab Trail
The Grand Canyon is one of my favorite National Parks, if not the favorite. In the 5 years we’d lived in Tucson, we’d been to Grand Canyon 3 times, including an overnight at the Bright Angel Campground at the bottom of the Canyon. However, all 3 trips were to the popular South Rim. After a … Continue reading Grand Canyon North Rim
In years past, we’ve always saved our valuable vacation days for off peak season travel in order to avoid the crowds and high costs of everything. Visiting popular National Parks like Zion and Grand Canyon, where you go seek solitude, during the busy summer months did not appeal to us. Our first Narrows hike back … Continue reading The Narrows
En route to Zion from Las Vegas is a not so well known Nevada state park called Valley of Fire, so named after its fiery red rocks. In contrast to the surrounding grey rocks laid down during the Paleozoic era, the red rocks were formed later during the Mesozoic era. This entire area used to … Continue reading Valley of Fire State Park – White Domes Trail
Being situated in Coastal CA is most ideal for us. We have the Pacific on one side, and, in my humble opinion, the most spectacular landscape in all of America on the other side. I am referring to the Southern Utah and Northern Arizona region, where you will find my 2 favorite National Parks - … Continue reading Virgin Hotels Las Vegas – Curio Collection
I’ll be the first to admit - I LOVE planning for trips. Retirement has given me all the time in the world to do just that, and this year’s trip planning has been particularly rewarding. Unlike last summer, this year is starting to look like an expensive summer for travel. It all comes down to … Continue reading Trip Planning – A Competitive Sport
Two “baby” hikes. For our last day in Tahoe, we decided to go on a hike that the kids would be able to do. After some research, I decided on the Cascade Falls trail. A baby hike of just 1.4 miles out and back. The beginning of the hike looked promising with a wide and … Continue reading Cascade Falls & Eagle Lake Trails
After yesterday’s 10-mile hike, we decided to take it easy today. Spent the day at Meeks Bay paddling the day away. Rented boards from SUP Tahoe - highly recommend these guys They racked up the boards on top of the minivan for us Whiling away the hours on the lake
We were supposed to do stand up paddling today, but due to high winds we postponed it to tomorrow, and I made the last-minute executive decision to move up our Mt. Tallac hike to today. As a result of the last minute change, we ended up starting our hike very late - 11AM, instead of … Continue reading Mt Tallac Trail
We finally made it up to Lake Tahoe after having lived in CA for the past decade. Joe had always wanted to check out the place, but for some reason I’ve always felt there’s something better than going to a lake. For me, lakes are for fishing, swimming and, subsequently, contracting some kind of brain-eating … Continue reading Rubicon Trail
With travel beginning to thaw, the industry is pulling out all the stops these days to try to get people to sign up for their rewards cards. With Delta’s 90k sign-up bonus, Capital One Venture’s 100k, and Amex’s 75k, it can be hard to decide which one to sign up for. After some research, I … Continue reading Points and Miles Traveling Part Two
This is the year of traveling for “free”, thanks to credit card points and mileages accumulated. We have 4 upcoming domestic trips, between the end of May and the end of October, all covered by points and miles (I’ve decided to hold off on international trips for as long as the US requires Covid testing … Continue reading Points and Miles Traveling
It’s been a year since I last ran. Suffering from burnout from running and non stop training for the last 8 years, I was toying with the idea of giving myself a break from running. Back in April of 2020, the California State Parks (including my training ground) closed due to the pandemic, and that … Continue reading Back To The Old Haunt
Going home! It’s been a while since we’ve traveled to a place where we’re happy to be going home. There’s nothing wrong with Morocco, but we think Turkey ruined it for us. Our trip to Turkey was absolutely one of the best (a close second after Botswana and Tanzania), and after having just been there … Continue reading Traveling Back To The US
Most important thing to take care of today was to get our Covid test, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to return home. A dizzying and confusing array of breads and pastries. Not sure if I was having breakfast or afternoon tea. We got to Meknés an hour later and found a crowd outside the testing … Continue reading Chefchaouen – The Blue City
First order of business today was to get our Covid test in order to get back to the US. Breakfast at the riad. Carbs on top of carbs, paradise for a carb lover. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. After arriving at the public Covid testing site, we realized that the turn around time was … Continue reading Fez And A Bonus City
Yesterday was the 6-hour walking tour. Today is the 7-hour car trip from Marrakech to Fez. Before leaving Marrakech, we stopped by the Majorelle Garden, which was closed for the last 2 days. Normally a popular and crowded garden, we had the whole place to ourselves thanks to the fact that there are hardly any … Continue reading Marrakech to Fez
Our tour guide, Yousef, met us at the riad shortly after breakfast for our 6-hour walking tour. Before retirement, we always felt the need for a vacation after returning home from vacation, because the trips were always packed to the hilt so that we could see as much as possible. Since we’ve retired we’ve approached … Continue reading Marrakech – The 6-Hour Walking Marathon
After conking out for 11 hours last night, we woke up refreshed and ready to go. Breakfast at the hotel Casablanca is a modernized city, and wasn’t exactly what we were looking for on this trip, so we were pretty happy to leave and move onto the next city, Marrakech, which is a 3-hour drive … Continue reading Marrakech – Day 1
We got off the flight completely jet lagged. Morocco is 8 hours ahead of California, and we didn’t get a chance to adjust while in NYC. With hardly any sleep on the plane, we landed in Casablanca bright and early in the morning ready to go to bed. Watching the sun rise over the Atlantic … Continue reading Casablanca
Our Morocco trip was booked back in late 2019 for April 2020. With the pandemic, the trip was postponed. Since this trip was booked pre-retirement, the duration of the trip was only for a week, which is short by today’s standards. Morocco is open to US travelers, albeit with restrictions. First, we had to test … Continue reading Pandemic Travel – Africa Edition
The first leg of our trip to Morocco involved flying domestically from the West Coast (LAX) to the East Coast (JFK), since Royal Air Maroc had cut out all direct flights to Morocco except for the JFK route. Domestic travel is nothing like international travel. The crowds! Everyone, minus the grandmother, is traveling! Had we … Continue reading LAX to JFK Flight
Joshua Tree National Park is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from us - a nice day trip for a hike. Of the 15 National Parks we’ve been to in 6 states, this one ranks smack dab in the middle of my favorite (#1&2 being Zion and Grand Teton). Judging by my list of favorite … Continue reading Joshua Tree National Park
Being in nature makes me happy, and National Parks are a great source of that happiness. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way, because the people you meet on hiking trails are in general the nicest and happiest bunch you’ll ever encounter. How can you not be happy when Mother Nature … Continue reading Death Valley National Park – Day 2
Once retired one has nothing but free time. Add a little dose of spontaneity, and you get last minute trips like our Death Valley National Park trip. Thanks to the internet, a quick research can help cobble up a trip in less than 12 hours. And thanks to credit card reward points, one can score … Continue reading Death Valley National Park – Day 1
FIRE'd @ 47 