Cappadocia: A Surreal Landscape

Our first views of Cappadocia, a region in central Turkey, were from the window of our shuttle van which picked us up at the Kayseri airport and drove us roughly an hour to our hotel in Göreme. Although we had Googled the area and had an idea of what it would like, it was still pretty cool to see the mars-like landscape in person. When we arrived at our hotel the receptionist asked us if we had already signed up for the red, green or blue tour. Neither of us had a clue what he was talking about and excused ourselves to go Google it in our room. We clearly had done very little research of the area because the first thing that comes up is those tours and almost everyone (who doesn’t rent a car) does a tour. We are usually fairly anti-tour but this one was the only way possible to see everything in the region in a limited time – and I was really interested in learning more about how the landscape was formed. Continue reading

“Little by little, one travels far” – J.R.R. Tolkien (England)

One of the first things I did when we decided on dates for Europe, was start messaging all my friends and family who live there. Staying with people you know in other countries and cities has countless benefits: you get to catch up with someone you likely haven’t seen in a long time, you are shown a different side of the area, you can get away from just the touristy spots, you can often drive around (without having to weigh the pros and cons of a rental car), you get a glimpse as to how people in that area live and, in my opinion, it improves the overall experience. Oh, and free accommodation doesn’t hurt the budget… Continue reading

Seven Day Stopover in Iceland

Our plan was to fly from Vancouver to Europe and we were looking for the cheapest city to land in – Paris, Frankfurt, London, etc. We checked prices to Reykjavik out of curiosity (I had always wanted to go Iceland) and they turned out to be surprisingly cheap. While Icelandair offers a “free stopover up to one week” en-route to Europe, it was even cheaper to only book a flight to Reykjavik with them and then another airline to England (we flew into Bristol with EasyJet). Continue reading