February 2009
1 post
Set Them Free
By Conor
There are old ladies walking around the streets of Chiang Mai selling the freedom of small birds.
The ladies have round straw baskets, each containing three birds. When I see this, I cannot resist setting them free.
They chirp excitedly when I open the basket, and they fly away. I wish I could set all the birds, but it costs too much.
(Note: Buddhists believe that showing...
January 2009
3 posts
Travel Sick
By Conor
When we arrived in Australia for the first time, it was sort of a relief. People spoke English, the weather was nice, and we were in a nice house.
But after a while I started having a recurring dream. In the dream I was back home, except I felt sad, sad that I wasn’t traveling any more.
After a while in Australia, I started getting bored. Every day we walked to the beach,...
False Alarm
By Caroline
We got to the hotel in Wollogong, south of Sydney, at about 3 pm. We watched an episode of the Simpsons and then went for a walk to find a place for dinner.
When we returned to the room after dinner a man from the front desk reminded us that this hotel had very sensitive fire alarms. He said even steam from the shower would set it off. He told us to be careful while...
December 2008
4 posts
“Traveling in New Zealand is like traveling inside a painting.”
– —Caroline James
Here area some pictures to show what I mean.
A Visit to the Agrodome
By Conor
After leaving Auckland,New Zealand. We drove to a town called Rotorua. It is famous for its geothermal springs…and its Agrodome Adventures.
Agrodome is a company that lets people do extreme sports such as Zorbing.
Zorbing is a sport where you climb inside a giant plastic ball and you roll down a hill! Caroline and I went in one together. We did a Zorb with water inside...
Catching Up
By Caroline and Conor
It’s been a while since we’ve posted, but we are working to catch up! New Zealand was great. We drove all over the country and saw some amazing scenery.
New Zealand is a country made up of three main islands: The North Island, The South Island and Stewart Island. We went to the North and South Islands.
We started in Auckland, which is the biggest city (but...
November 2008
1 post
A Tale of Two Flights
By Conor
On our way to New Zealand, our family went on two different but similar flights.
FLIGHT ONE. The first flight we went on was 12 hours and with LAN Chile, this flight was from Santiago, Chile to L.A.
Once in our seats we saw our personal entertainment system, which had games, music, movies, and TV shows. You could start the program or movie any time you wanted so it was pretty fun, they...
October 2008
5 posts
Full Cama or No Cama
By Caroline
I’d rather be in a semi-coma than ride in semi-cama. Let me explain.
When you buy a bus ticket in Argentina you get three levels of service: Semi-cama is the lowest, cama is in the middle, and full-cama or first-class is the highest. The first bus ride we went on was full-cama. This was probably a bad idea considering we got used to the service. When we got on we were served olives...
Party With Mr. Puffy Pants
By Caroline
We got to the tour agency at 9:45 after the worst ride on the subway I have ever experienced. It was so crowded and I couldn’t have moved my arms if I tried to.
If that wasn’t bad enough all the other trains were behind so at every stop our train had to wait 10 to 15 minutes for the other trains to start catching up. I was definitely glad when that ride was over.
At about 10:30 we...
Xul Solar
By Conor
Last Wednesday we visited an art museum about Xul Solar. Xul Solar wasn’t his real name it was just a name he made for himself. His real name was Oscar Agustin Alejandro Schulz Solari.
Xul had a eccentric way of looking at the world which means he thinks his own way, for example, he made up his own time zone, made up his own language (he also could speak many other languages),...
Scenes from Buenos Aires
By Caroline
Here are some of our favorite pictures we took wandering around Buenos Aires.
Dog walkers are everywhere, with lots of well-behaved dogs.
A corner store in our neighborhood.
Antique glass for sale at the San Telmo market.
From the Japanese Gardens.
Freddo has the best ice cream we’ve ever tasted - love the dulce de leche flavor!
Statue from one of the...
Argentina Zoofari!
By Conor
On the way to the Lujan Zoo I didn’t know what to expect. I had read that at the zoo people could pet wild animals. I hoped that they weren’t mean to the animals to make them behave.
When we got there, the first thing we did was go to the elephants. The zoo keeper explained that these were Asian elephants and he explained how to ride them.
Caroline and I were the...
September 2008
12 posts
Help Wanted: Dog Walker in Buenos Aires
By Caroline and Conor
There is no shortage of dogs - or professional dog-walkers - in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Peru's Floating Islands
By Caroline
If you ride in a boat about thirty minutes away from mainland over Lake Titicaca you start to see what look like hay stacks with houses on them. That morning we had woken up at 5:30 and got in a car to go to the boat that would take us out on Lake Titicaca to the Uros islands.
These islands are also called the reed islands because they are entirely made out of reeds that grow...
Cuy - It's What's For Dinner
By Caroline
In Peru (and Ecuador) guinea pigs (cuy) are a very popular food. At our house, guinea pigs are pets, not dinner!
Incredible Incas
By Conor
One thing that makes you realize how great the Incas were is how much they knew so much about the earth.
For example, at Machu Picchu there is a strip of grass that nothing is buillt on because the Incas knew that under the strip of grass was a fault line. If they had built something there and an earthquake had happened, everything they built would have collapsed.
They also...
Is Your Mama a Llama?
By Caroline & Conor
Some pictures from our visit to a llama farm in the Sacred Valley near Cusco, Peru.
Crepes in Cusco
By Conor
Down the street from our hotel in Cusco there is a great crepe restaurant. My favorite is the banana caramel (shown above). It comes with a chocolate crepe, banana, caramel, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, strawberries and chocolate sauce. Caroline and I finished it in less than a minute!
On the Trail of the Incas
By Caroline
After Ecuador, we went to Cusco, Peru, the capital of the Inca Empire. The Spanish destroyed most of the Inca buildings. But outside the city there are Inca ruins - and many of the Spanish buildings in the city were built on top of Inca foundations.
Here’s Cusco’s main plaza (built by the Spanish)…
An Inca wall that the Spanish built on top of…
Some...
Cloud Forest Visit
By Caroline & Conor
After returning from the Galapagos, our next excursion was to the town of Mindo, Ecuador, in the Cloud Forest. We met “Friendly” the dog…
Visited a Butterfly Farm…
Went birdwatching (“the worst morning of my life,” says Caroline)…
Drank a lot of fruit smoothies at our favorite juice bar…
And, best of all, went...
August 2008
5 posts
Galapagos Pictures
We’ve got some posts coming about our trip to the Galapagos, but in the meantime, here are some of our favorite pictures. It was a great trip!
And there are lots more pictures here.
Off To The Galapagos
By Caroline and Conor
We leave on Monday morning (August 4) for our trip to the Galapagos, so it will be about ten days before our next update.
Road Trip
By Caroline
We recently got back from a little side trip we took to Cotopaxi, Quilotoa and Banos. The trip took three days and two nights.
The first day we rode to Cotopaxi, which is a volcano. We were supposed to climb up part of it, but the wind was so strong it blew Conor over.
After Cotopaxi, we arrived in Quilotoa after a “45-minute drive” that took over two hours. Quilotoa is a poor...
Volcanoes and More Volcanoes
By Conor
This week we took a three day trip south of Quito. First, we went to Cotopaxi (a volcano) and climbed up part of it. It was very hard. The wind was blowing rocks in our faces and I fainted for five seconds because there was barely any air because of the high altitude. Next we went to Quilotoa and we went down into a volcano crater and rode back up on a donkey. The view was amazing and...
July 2008
4 posts
A Trip Outside Quito
By Conor
Saturday we woke up pretty early and got van with our tour guides Carlos and William to take a trip outside Quito.
First we came to this little cliffside shop with animals roaming around. I got a picture with a llama and a ram. I also played with a small golden retriever puppy.
Next was the Otavalo market. They were selling everything from grains to shrunken heads. I bought a...
Getting Here
By Caroline
After a long day of travel we arrived in Quito, Ecuador. During our travel we experienced delays, losing my ipod for an hour on the plane [I never told dad that this happened ;)], and confusion over the language. We rode in a taxi through town to get to our hotel, which is really beautiful. It has a courtyard and a balcony. The first few times we climbed to the top of the balcony we...
UH OHHH
20 days till we leave!!!
June 2008
5 posts
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
– Dr. Seuss
I’m getting really scared for this trip…..I worried about so much. We are leaving in 1 month and 20 days!
May 2008
9 posts
Countdown
19 days till we leave! Uh oh.
What Conor Said
OK, so get this. I am going to travel around the world for 365 days. Kind of like the movie, except not. I am totally psyched to do it, and who wouldn’t be? (Other than my sister…) A bit about me: I love cheetahs. I can’t wait to go to Japan. I’m looking forward to living on a boat for ten days while we’re in the Galapagos. Once our trip starts, I’ll be writing a story as we go (chapters to be...
How Caroline Came to Travel the World
When my dad asked me if I would go around the world I said, “Sure.” Like we were ever going to do that! The trip started out as a secret and something we could only talk about as a family – and with no one else. I never thought it would happen. I was sure it was just another one of my dad’s crazy ideas that would never be possible. My dad would sit in his office all day researching and learning...