Category: Travel Page 3 of 51

Camping Orchard Beach State Park

On November 7, 2023

In Camping, Michigan, Project: State Parks

Orchard Beach State Park

Since we are coming up on campground reservation season for next summer, I figured it was time to share some campground reviews from last summer. Because we took the big Europe trip, we didn’t get started with our camping season until after the 4th of July this year. Our first camping trip of the year was at Orchard Beach State Park which is a park and campground on a cliff overlooking Lake Michigan in Manistee.

It is important to note that while the park is called Orchard Beach, the beach has been closed for several years due to erosion of the cliff. But, if you are looking for a beach, 5th Avenue Beach is a short drive away. Unlike some Michigan State Parks, Orchard Beach is not far at all from Manistee. It is only a short drive to the shops, restaurants, and riverwalk downtown. If you are hoping to explore Manistee, this is a great place to camp!

Orchard Beach is famous for its sunsets. Campers flock to the edge of the cliff to watch the sun go down over the waters of Lake Michigan (top). Like most Michigan State Park campgrounds, the sites at Orchard Beach are very open to each other and even the outside sites didn’t have much privacy.

We booked Orchard Beach because it is a park I’ve wanted to check out for a while but also because of its proximity to the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area and the Lake Michigan Recreation Area where we were booked the following weekend. While camping here, Chris had to work for two days and the cell signal (both Verizon and T Mobile) in our site was pretty much nonexistent even though the RV Life app said the park has good signal. He ended up having to go to a coffee shop in town to work and the wifi there wasn’t great either. If you need to be connected while camping, Orchard Beach is not a great option.

Overall, the campground was clean and the people were friendly, but the lack of cell service made this stay very difficult for us. While I enjoyed our stay in Manistee, there are other Michigan State Parks that I enjoy more than this one. This is probably a one-and-done for us.

Thanks for stopping by! To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. To read campground reviews, check out my Michigan Campground Reviews page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.

Wordless Wednesday: Porto Streets

By Ashleigh

On November 1, 2023

In Travel, Wordless Wednesday

2023 Europe Trip Report Recap

By Ashleigh

On October 31, 2023

In Cruise, Travel

Toledo at Night

Looking back on our summer vacation, it was a wonderful, whirlwind trip where we got to see many unique locations. We didn’t have much time at any of the stops and so many places have been added to me “must return” list.

The trip started with 12 days at sea on a cruise ship and it was a great, relaxing way to get to Europe. If you have the time and you enjoy being out at sea, I highly recommend it. And we really enjoyed our time on the Norwegian Getaway. It is a big ship with a lot of different places to eat and things to do. I really think Norwegian’s Breakaway class ships are my favorite cruise ships.

Furnas on Saõ Miguel Island

Our first taste of Europe was in Ponta Delgada, Azores which is a place many people have never heard of. The landscape was anything I had ever seen before and one day just wasn’t enough time. We saw beautiful coastlines and steaming hot springs. We had food cooked in the ground. We bought some tea that was grown on the island. It was an incredible experience and we have been watching flight prices to Ponta Delgada since we got home.

Madeira was a place that has been on my list for a while and the one day just wasn’t enough to see everything. There were beautiful vistas and delicious food. We barely scratched the surface. We will be back to ride the toboggan in Monte!

Shadows as the sun set at Ponto Final

We arrived at mainland Europe in Lisbon and it was hot (it got up to 90°F) and our Airbnb did not have air conditioning, but this didn’t stop us from exploring the city! We had three full days in Lisbon but I would love to go back and dig deeper. We did a wonderful food tour where we tried all the food of the city. I celebrated my birthday with one of the most amazing dinners on the water that I think about all the time (above). And we explored the unique city of Sintra and its colorful castle.

We took a train from Lisbon to Porto where it was much cooler. Our Airbnb was in a great location that was just steps from one of the city’s famous bridges. We took the most amazing tour of the Duoro Valley where we learned so much about the history of the region and got to try some amazing wines. I feel like we barely scratched the surface on Porto. We will have to return and take another trip to the Duoro as well!

Toledo (top) was probably the most historically and architecturally interesting place that we visited on this trip. Walking through the streets was like walking back to the 11th century. The cathedral was breathtaking and one of the most ornate churches I have ever seen. If you are planning time in Madrid, take a day trip to Toledo. It is worth it.

Royal Palace of Madrid

I complained about the heat in Lisbon, but it only got worse in Madrid. I feel like the heat (highs above 100° F) and the difficulty escaping it really color my memories of Madrid. Of all the places we visited on this trip, I don’t feel a draw to return to Madrid. Other places in Spain (Andalucia, Asturias, Barcelona, etc) are still on my list, though.

From one temperature extreme to the other, we barely scratched the surface of Iceland but what we saw really makes me want to go back. It was an amazing landscape, in some ways very similar to the Azores, and I would love the time (and money) to properly explore it.

Overall, this trip was very long but went by very quickly. It was amazing and life-changing and I want to do it again next summer! You will have to wait and see where we are off to next!

Thanks for stopping by! To read more about this trip, check out Cruising the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain trip report. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.

Wordless Wednesday: Icelandic Sheep

By Ashleigh

On October 25, 2023

In Travel, Wordless Wednesday

12 Hours in Iceland

By Ashleigh

On October 24, 2023

In Travel

Posing Sheep of Iceland

We ended our time in Europe with a twelve-hour layover in Keflavik, Iceland. Out of all the crazy things we did on our trip to Europe, when I look back on our trip, this is the one thing that doesn’t seem real. We had a night flight from Madrid to Iceland that was so strange because the later it got, the lighter it got outside as we got closer to Iceland. I think I mentioned in my last post that it was very hot on our last day in Madrid (101°F). It was hot in the airport and it was hot on the plane, so I was still wearing shorts and sandals when we landed and I was OK being cold (40°F) as we walked from the airport to a rental car agency at 2 am.

Something to know if you are planning on exploring Iceland a little during a long layover, all the rental car agencies that we looked into require you to pay for a minimum of two days. If you want to explore on your own it won’t be cheap. If you land during the day, there are shuttles that will take you to the famous Blue Lagoon if that is what you want to do on your layover. There are not many other options when you land at 2 AM. So, we got into our very expensive rental car and drove to our expensive, lackluster, hotel where we crashed for a few hours and took VERY hot showers before heading out to see as much of Iceland as we could before it was time to go back to the airport and finally head home.

Road going by Kleifarvatn Lake

We found a guided driving tour of the Reykjanes Peninsula on the free app Locatify SmartGuide. It took us around the volcanic features, lakes, and hot springs and told us about the geology as well the some of the local legends about trolls and fairies. Our first stop was an overlook on Kleifarvatn, the largest lake on the Reykjanes Peninsula. The interesting think about Kleifarvatn is that most of the water comes from underground. The water level has diminished greatly since the Icelandic Earthquakes of 2000.

Gunnuhver Hot Springs

Our next stop was the Gunnuhver Hot Springs, a collection of mud pots and steam vents with an intense sulfur smell that took me right back to the hot springs of Yellowstone. The name Gunnuhver comes from a local legend about an angry ghost, Gudrun, who legend says, was trapped in a hot spring by a local priest 400 years ago. Iceland’s largest mud pool can be found at Gunnuhver and unlike the other geothermal areas in Iceland, the groundwater is 100% saltwater which gives a different look to it.

Krýsuvíkurkirkja

Our next stop was Krýsuvíkurkirkja, a historic church (above). It was built in 1857 and closed in 1929 but has since been used as a residence until being transferred to the National Museum. The original church burned down in 2010 but it has since been rebuilt in the historic manner.

Bridge Between Continents One of the final stops of the trip was at the bridge between the continents (left). This is the place where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling apart. Visitors can stand on a bridge separating the two plates. One side of the bridge has a sign that reads “Welcome to Europe” while the other says “Welcome to North America”. The giant fissure the bridge scales really drives home the tectonic theory that the plates are shifting a few centimeters each year.

After that, we headed back to the airport, dropped off our rental car, and flew home. Even though we got to the airport several hours early, we really didn’t wait around much at all. Since we were leaving the Schengen area (a group of 27 European countries where you don’t need to show your passport to cross their borders. This is the area that will be requiring a visa for Americans to visit at some point in the future) we had to go through passport control and additional security screenings. The boarding process was very complicated and involved multiple escalators and a bus to the plane. If you are flying out of Keflavik to a non-Schengen country, give yourself more time than you think you will need.

My one complaint about this experience is that Icelandair seems to be expanding its U.S. service faster than Keflavik Airport can support. It was very crowded in the area after passport control. There was only one set of bathrooms and one food option, but that seemed to be where all the people in the airport were. There weren’t even enough gates for all the flights. We had to be bussed out to our plane.

Overall, we had an amazing time in Iceland. I feel like we barely scratched the surface. If you are thinking about a trip to Iceland, be aware it is VERY expensive and it is not easy to convert Icelandic Kronas to U.S. Dollars in your head like it is with the Euro. The few meals we had there were pricey for what they were and the hotels were outrageous. The sights are unlike anything else I had ever seen, just make sure you budget appropriately for your time in Iceland or you may be in trouble.

Thanks for stopping by! This marks the end of my recap of our Cruising the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain trip report. Next week I will post a final recap, so keep your eyes out for that. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.

Wordless Wednesday: Madrid

By Ashleigh

On October 18, 2023

In Travel, Wordless Wednesday

Royal Palace Lamppost

Two Days in Madrid

By Ashleigh

On October 17, 2023

In Travel

Palacio de Madrid

Some of the links below are affiliate links and as such, I earn a small commission from purchases that allow me to continue telling you my stories without costing you anything extra.

After our time in Toledo, we took an early train back to Madrid. Our flight wasn’t until the following evening so we had almost two full days to explore Spain’s Capitol.

We stayed in a boutique hotel near the Palacio de Madrid called Hotel Principio Pio which felt very similar to Hotel Per La in Los Angeles. One benefit to hotels when arriving at a destination early in the day is that often you are able to check in early. We arrived around 10 am and even though check-in wasn’t until 3 pm, our room was ready so we were able to set our bags down and relax a bit before we started to explore the city. I only really had two goals for our time in Madrid, the Prado Museum, and Palacio de Madrid. We decided to break them up and do one each day.

Madrid’s Plaza Mayor

After settling into our hotel, we headed to the Prado. I was able to buy tickets online in advance which allowed up to skip the line. The Prado Museum is Spain’s premier art museum and is known to house one of the world’s finest collections of European art, especially Spanish art. Being my first visit to a European art museum, I enjoyed seeing new-to-me artists such as Goya, Francisco de Zurbarán, and El Greco. Probably one of my favorite parts of the museum was a special exhibit that showed the similarities between selected works of El Greco and Picasso. Picasso spent many hours in the museum in his youth and many of El Greco’s paintings were the inspiration for some of Picasso’s famous works. The Prado is also home to an older version of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. I could’ve stared at it for hours comparing it to the most famous one. If you enjoy art and art museums, the Prado is a wonderful museum that you need to visit in your life. Wonderful guided tours of the Prado can be found on Viator.

We started our second day in Madrid with a guided tour of the Palacio de Madrid. While I was able to get tickets to the Prado a few days in advance, all the tickets to the Palace were booked up so, to see it, we had to book a private tour. In the end, I am glad I did because our tour guide explained a lot about the palace and the history of Spain that you wouldn’t get just by walking through. It did get crowded at times, but we had earpieces so we were able to hear her even if we were separated, which was really nice. More tours should invest in this equipment!

Lions on the stairs of the Royal Palace

The Royal Palace of Madrid is the largest palace in Europe at 135,000 m² (1,450,000 sq ft) and is the official residence of the Spanish Royal Family, although these days it is mostly only used for official functions. The palace is full of lavish furnishings and amazing Spanish art. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted in most of the palace so I don’t have any pictures to show you. One of the rooms that was open on our visit was the crown room where a rather simple-looking silver crown is on display. It is much less ornate than what I expected anyway and our tour guide explained that the Spanish “are not the British”. Overall, I highly recommend a guided tour of the Royal Palace and I had a great experience with Madrid walking Tour and Royal Palace Skip the Line tour on Viator. Combination tours of the Prado Museum and the Royal Palace are also available on Viator.

The Architecture of Madrid

After our tour of the Palace, we still had the whole day ahead of us and we had checked out of our hotel, so we booked a hop-on hop-off bus tour. This allowed us to get to see the rest of the city and enjoy the breeze from the top deck of the bus. From the bus, we learned more about Spanish history, including that in 1874 a military coup overthrew the monarchy of Spain. A dictator named Fransisco Franco ruled from 1939 to 1975. In 1969, he named Prince Juan Carlos (the grandson of the most recent king of Spain) as his successor. When Franco died, Juan Carlos transitioned the government from a dictatorship to a constitutional monarchy and his family still rules today. In 2014, Juan Carlos abdicated the throne and said “We do not want my son to wither waiting like Prince Charles.”

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop back next week as we fly to our final stop on the trip, Iceland. To read more about this trip, check out Cruising the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain trip report. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.

One Day in Toledo, Spain

By Ashleigh

On October 2, 2023

In Travel

Some of the links below are affiliate links and as such, I earn a small commission from purchases that allow me to continue telling you my stories without costing you anything extra.

After our day in Porto, we woke up early the next morning and headed to the airport. We had an early morning flight to Madrid. I’ve heard that the Lisbon airport can be really busy but flying out of Porto (especially early in the morning) was a breeze. When we landed in Madrid, we took a cab to the train station and headed to Toledo.

Toledo train station

It was a quick thirty-minute train ride from Madrid making Toledo a popular day trip for people visiting the capital city. We decided to get our first taste of the city by walking from the train station to our Airbnb in old-town Toledo. Our Airbnb was probably one of the nicest Airbnbs I have ever stayed in. It felt like a luxury hotel room in a historic building right in the middle of Toledo and was very reasonably priced (which is the biggest reason why we chose to spend more time in Toledo than Madrid). I don’t get anything for recommending this, but if you are planning on visiting Toledo, I highly recommend staying at Emer’s Place! One of our favorite things about Toledo was how it emptied out in the evening after the day visitors left (much like Mackinac Island).

Toledo is known as the City of Three Cultures because throughout its history it has been inhabited by Christians, Muslims, and Jews. Buildings in the city date back to the 11th Century and the architecture is unlike anything I had seen before. I have since seen pictures of Jerusalem and that is the best comparison I can make. Walking down these narrow, brick roads (where unbelievably cars are allowed), Toledo didn’t feel like a real place. The only connections I could make were to Disney World, either Pirates of the Caribbean or the Morocco pavilion in Epcot.

It quickly became clear to me that most of the visitors to Toledo are from Spain. The only English-speaking tour I could find that worked in our schedule (and didn’t involve transportation to/from Madrid) was one of those double-decker bus tours, so that was how we got our first overview of the city. It wasn’t the best tour I’ve ever taken, but we learned the history of the city and got to stop at some great viewpoints around the city for pictures (above).

Chapel in the Cathedral

After our tour, we decided to explore the most recommended attraction in Toledo, the historic cathedral. The cathedral was completed in the 14th century on the site of a former mosque. The detail in the building is breathtaking and there is so much to see. We decided to do the free audio tour with our visit of the cathedral and it added a lot of information about the history and symbolism, but at times it was a little too much information for a non-Catholic like myself. Many people choose to take guided tours of the cathedral and I think that would be a great way to see the space, but I would choose one that guarantees a small group. A lot of the groups in the cathedral that we saw were so big they barely all fit together in each area. Look for tours like this private tour with transportation from Madrid on Viator. All-in-all, you cannot miss the awe-inspiring cathedral when you visit Toledo!

Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop by next week as I recount our day in Madrid! To read more about this trip, check out Cruising the Atlantic to Portugal and Spain trip report. To read about some of our previous trips, visit my Trips Page. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page and follow me on Instagram! For my list of gadgets to make your travels easier, click here. To see inside my camera bag, check out my updated Gear Page.

One Day in Porto

By Ashleigh

On September 25, 2023

In Travel

Porto Cathedral

After a wonderful day touring the Douro Valley, the next day we did a tour of Porto. I found a walking tour on FreeTour.com. Similar to the free walking tour we did in Santa Barbara, the idea of these tours is that you pay nothing for the tour, and at the end, you tip your guide however much you deem appropriate. These tours are usually a fun way to get to know a city without breaking the bank.

Compared to Lisbon, the buildings in Porto are much older. The earthquake and fire of 1755 destroyed Lisbon but no such disaster has affected Porto. The Porto Cathedral (top) broke ground in 1110 AD.

São Bento Train Station Azulejos The first stop on our tour was the São Bento train station which is home to beautiful Azujelo murals from the early 1900s (left). While looking at the murals, our tour guide told us the history of this building. Before it was a train station, the building used to be a convent. The city of Porto decided that they needed a train station so they took the building over, but they allowed the nuns to continue to live there until the last nun died. It was a while before it became a train station because the youngest nun in the convent was a child at the time. The building was transformed into a train station in 1893.

Our guide also detailed some of the less pleasant parts of their history. From 1933-1974 Portugal was under a dictatorship that separated them from the rest of the world. The dictator António de Oliveira Salazar (J.K. Rowling’s inspiration for the name of the founder of Slytherin House), ruled the country, repressing the rights of the citizens until he died from falling off a chair. Democracy was restored through the Carnation Revolution only four years after his death.

Our guide also told us about the summer festival celebrating São João (St. John) that was coming up later that week (thus the decorations on the right). She explained that people flood the street during São João, grilling Sardines, and walk from the city to the ocean, hitting each other on the head with plastic hammers. I am sad that I missed what is known as Europe’s liveliest and least-known (outside of the city, of course) summer festivals. In the words of our Duoro tour guide, they celebrate summer and blame it on a saint.

Our tour ended with our guide serenading us with a traditional fado song. Fado music is a traditional Portuguese genre of music that dates back to the 1820s and is known for its mournful lyrics and tone. Saudade is a Portuguese word that captures this feeling of irrevocable loss that Fado embodies. Later that day, we went to a Fado show at the Casa de Guitarra where we heard more of this music.

Port Barrels at Ferreira

That afternoon, we headed across the river to Villa Nova da Gaia to visit one of the famous port wine cellars we heard about on both our tour of the Duoro and of Porto. We chose to tour Ferreira because they are a historic port producer owned by a Portuguese family (most big port producers are British for some reason). It was interesting seeing how a big company differed from the smaller producers we toured in the Duoro. Of course, our tour ended with a port wine tasting. If you have a short time in Porto, this is a good way to get an understanding of the importance of Port. If you have more time, I recommend a tour of the Duoro instead of touring a port cellar. They are very similar experiences and I much preferred our full-day in the Duoro.

Wordless Wednesday: Douro Cruise

By Ashleigh

On September 20, 2023

In Travel, Wordless Wednesday

Croft Port House from the Duro