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Category: Road Trip

Out And About In Aruba: California Lighthouse, Bushiribana Gold Mill, Casibari And Ayo Rocks, and Arikok National Park

Out And About In Aruba: California Lighthouse, Bushiribana Gold Mill, Casibari And Ayo Rocks, and Arikok National Park

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After a really rough start to our trip, I was finally able to get myself close enough to normal to start exploring the island with Ariel and the kids. Amazingly, despite blowing the first 4.5 days of a 7 day trip, we managed to reach basically every corner of the country. Which really isn’t saying a whole lot as the entire island is only 69 square miles. For reference, Middlesex county in New Jersey (where we live) is over 300…

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Journeying To The Bob Marley House At Nine Mile: Part 1

Journeying To The Bob Marley House At Nine Mile: Part 1

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Most people that go to Jamaica, tend to park themselves in their hotel and spend their time lounging on the beach or poolside. Jamaica, whether fairly or unfairly has a reputation for being a little dangerous. I was shocked the first time we went there, to find out it consistently ranks in the top five for homicide rates in the world. In fact, the US State Department has a level 3 travel (Reconsider Travel) advisory for the entire country, and…

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A Tale Of Two Icelands

A Tale Of Two Icelands

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After several days of truly miserable rain, wind and generally awful weather, we lucked out into a truly incredible last day on the island. We packed up all of our stuff, started reloading our suitcases for the return journey, and hit the road. And what a road it was. Our last full day on Iceland was also our best weather day. One of my primary rules about road trips is to never backtrack unless absolutely necessary. After all, why see…

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Oh So THAT’S Why They Call It Iceland

Oh So THAT’S Why They Call It Iceland

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Believe it or not, 4 days into our trip to Iceland… we hadn’t really seen any ice! We tried to see some glaciers, but with all the rain and clouds, our visibility was less than a mile at best, and sometimes even less. Really miserable stuff. But finally the rain was over, and we were headed for the Jökulsárlón glacier lagoon. We had reservations on a boat but had some stops to make beforehand, so we had to be extremely…

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Today In Iceland I Learned That Viking Helmets Didn’t Have Horns And That Hobbit Houses Were Real

Today In Iceland I Learned That Viking Helmets Didn’t Have Horns And That Hobbit Houses Were Real

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So day 3 started with… more rain. Turns out the beautiful valley we roamed around in the last post wasn’t quite ready to give up on the rain after all. Rain which didn’t let up all day. Like a constant downpour from the minute we left our cabin, through 8+ hours in the car – our longest driving day of the entire trip. But we had no choice but to keep moving forward. Our destination for this day was Vik,…

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Making Our Way Around Maui With A 4 Year Old: Baby Beach, Dragon’s Teeth, A Luau, And A Maui Road You Should Actually Stay Away From

Making Our Way Around Maui With A 4 Year Old: Baby Beach, Dragon’s Teeth, A Luau, And A Maui Road You Should Actually Stay Away From

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So after a week of exploring Maui with our son and my dad, I thought I would summarize what we did, because a lot of it isn’t really what families with young children do when they go to Hawaii. In fact, few families even go to Maui, as it’s generally seen as a honeymoon/romantic type of destination. But we actually found there was a ton of stuff to do, even with a 4 year old! We stayed Lahaina, near the…

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A view from the driver's side window of the Piilani Highway
Should You Drive The Piilani Highway aka The “Forbidden Road” After The Road To Hana?

Should You Drive The Piilani Highway aka The “Forbidden Road” After The Road To Hana?

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This is Part 2 of a series on The Road to Hana and the “Forbidden Road” aka the Piilani Highway aka “the back road” to Haleakala. If you’d like to read about our experiences heading towards Hana, check out Part 1 by clicking here. The Piilani Highway has a legendarily bad reputation due to a sometimes literally lethal combination of really rough road patches, blind turns (some with cliff walls on one side and cliff drops into the Pacific ocean…

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The Pools of 'Ohe'o
The Road to Hana and the Piilani Highway (aka the “Forbidden” Road)

The Road to Hana and the Piilani Highway (aka the “Forbidden” Road)

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So I wrote this right after we got back from a rather epic driving day. After leaving the house at 8 am in the morning heading east via the Hana Highway, we staggered back at about 7 pm after heading west on the Piilani Highway. In short, the trip was incredible. But you already knew that, right? The Road to Hana is one of the best-known drives in the entire world. Nicknamed “the Divorce Highway” because of all the supposed…

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Exploring Oahu With A 4 Year Old: The Polynesian Cultural Center, Lanai Lookout, Kailua Beach, And A Diamondhead Fail

Exploring Oahu With A 4 Year Old: The Polynesian Cultural Center, Lanai Lookout, Kailua Beach, And A Diamondhead Fail

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The second half of our Oahu adventure (aside from LOST film site searches, which I already talked about), included our very first Hawaiian luau, and an exploration of the east coast of Oahu. For our luau experience, we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. This effectively completed our Oahu island circuit, as we had previously been in this town during our trip to the sea turtle beach earlier in the week. The Polynesian Cultural Center is far more…

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Mokulē‘ia Beach
‘Lost’ In Oahu

‘Lost’ In Oahu

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So we’ve been in Hawaii for about a week, traipsing around Oahu to literally every corner of this island. Tomorrow we’re heading for Maui, and in a week we start the journey home. Oahu is great, and I’ll try to put together a post with more details on what we’ve been up to while we’re on Maui, where we should have a little more down time. This post is going to be dedicated to talking about a sidequest I had…

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