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dougsmith51
Nov 258 min read
NZ (final post): Rotorua to Auckland
Leaving the Lake Taupo area, we traveled north to Rotorua. Although New Zealand has plenty of volcanos and earthquakes, Rotorua has the...
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dougsmith51
Nov 95 min read
NZ: Abel Tasman to Lake Taupo
At the end of our last blog post, we were still at the bottom of the South Island. As much as we'd loved the mountains, lakes, and...
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dougsmith51
Nov 27 min read
NZ: Queenstown to Fiordland
Continuing south from Wanaka , we drove twisty roads through mountain passes and arrived in Queenstown. Queenstown is the self-proclaimed...
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dougsmith51
Oct 268 min read
NZ: Christchurch to Wanaka
We flew Qantas from Hobart, Tasmania to Christchurch, New Zealand on Friday, October 11 to begin Phase 3 of our Down Under adventures....
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dougsmith51
Oct 128 min read
Tasmania
Tasmania (called "Tazzie" by most Australians) was very different than Western Australia. Temperate, even cold this time of year, rather...
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dougsmith51
Oct 56 min read
Western Australia, Part 2
We pick up our time in Western Australia after we left the Exmouth area for Shark Bay. Both peninsulas are UNESCO World Heritage sites....
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dougsmith51
Sep 284 min read
Western Australia, Part 1
Leaving Sydney on Saturday, September 7, we flew northwest all the way across Australia to the Indian Ocean and the town of Broome....
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dougsmith51
Sep 74 min read
Sydney
We landed in Sydney after a 15 hour flight from San Francisco on Qantas (22 hours of travel start to finish). We'd decided to spend a few...
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dougsmith51
Aug 312 min read
Down Under, Coming Up!
We're very excited to share an upcoming adventure in Australia and New Zealand! We'll be gone about 11 weeks total, starting at the...
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dougsmith51
Oct 22, 20236 min read
Eye on London
Before flying home to the US, we broke from our explorations of the rural UK countryside and spent our last few days in London. We drove...
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dougsmith51
Oct 15, 20236 min read
Edinburgh and The Yorkshire Dales
On Wednesday, September 20 we took the ferry from Stornaway on the Isle of Lewis to Ullapool on the Scottish mainland, about a...
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dougsmith51
Sep 30, 20235 min read
Scottish Isles: Skye and the Outer Hebrides
Leaving Ambleside at about 9 am, we started the eight-hour trek up to our island destinations: Skye and the Outer Hebrides (the island of...
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dougsmith51
Sep 16, 20233 min read
The Lake District
After flying overnight from Dulles Airport to Heathrow, we picked up our rental car from Avis and began the drive north. Because we...
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dougsmith51
Sep 4, 20231 min read
Up Next: Exploring Britain's Outdoor Wonders
What, traveling again already? It is true that we've just wrapped up our 2023 RV summer travels. However, not ones to let the grass grow...
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dougsmith51
Mar 19, 20238 min read
Buenos Aires, Plus...
We had to leave Antarctica a day early because of storms forcasted in the seas between the Antarctic peninsula and the tip of South...
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dougsmith51
Mar 11, 20235 min read
Antarctica
The "jewel in the crown" portion of our voyage began on Saturday, March 4 with a visit to Elephant Island. Elephant Island is where...
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dougsmith51
Mar 5, 20235 min read
South Georgia
After leaving the Falkland Islands, it took two-and-a-half days at sea to arrive at South Georgia, which we explored for five days....
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dougsmith51
Mar 1, 20234 min read
The Falkland Islands
We boarded the MS Fram mid-afternoon on Sunday, February 19. We decided to get to the dock by walking the 25 minutes from our Punta...
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dougsmith51
Feb 25, 20235 min read
Patagonia and the Blue Towers
We started our adventures with a long flight (three legs) to the southern tip of South America, flying first to JFK airport then from...
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dougsmith51
Feb 11, 20231 min read
Coming Up: Patagonia and Antarctica
We WILL be getting back on the RV road in June, but in the meantime we're taking a COVID-postponed trip that includes Patagonia in Chile...
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dougsmith51
Dec 3, 20224 min read
More From the Dolomites Photography Workshop
We'd previously dropped a blog post about our week in the Dolomites, providing an overview of our time there and the photo workshop we...
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dougsmith51
Nov 19, 20226 min read
Rome
Leaving our Abruzzo relatives behind on October 31 we drove to our final Italian destination, the eternal city of Rome. We'd booked a...
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dougsmith51
Nov 12, 20224 min read
Tuscany and Abruzzo
Armed once again with a rental car (another Fiat 500 hybrid with manual transmission), we drove south from Venice to our next home base...
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dougsmith51
Nov 1, 20225 min read
Venice
As our Dolomites adventure wound down, we were driven back to the Venice airport. There are several ways to get from the airport to the...
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dougsmith51
Oct 20, 20222 min read
The Dolomites
We spent eight days in the Dolomites on our photography workshop organized by Wild Photography Holidays. The workshop was led by James...
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dougsmith51
Oct 13, 20227 min read
Milan and Lake Como
Having crammed five weeks of stuff (including winter clothes and Doug's camera equipment for our photo workshop in the Dolomites) into...
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dougsmith51
Sep 29, 20222 min read
Coming Up: A Photo Trip to Italy
NOTE: We will be spending the entire month of October and early November in Italy. Even though it's not a trip in the Ciaowagen, we're...
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dougsmith51
Nov 14, 20201 min read
How to Take Great Pictures of Flowing Water With Your iPhone
We've received a number of compliments on our pictures of waterfalls and streams this year, especially the pictures where the falls or...
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