Travel

Downtown Chicago at Night
Travel

Trip Review: Weekend Getaway to Chicago

A few weeks ago, we decided to make use of one of the last truly fall weekends and check out one of our favorite cities, Chicago, before it became a snowy winter wasteland. We’ve visited Chicago before, of course, so this time was less about tourist destinations, and more about re-acquainting ourselves with the best […]

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Travel

Trip Report: Copenhagen + our Disastrous Dinner at Noma

I couldn’t believe our two-week vacation was already coming to a close, but after our rowdy antics in Stockholm and a sea day mainly spent recovering from the non-stop pace, our cruise was sadly at an end. That meant one final full day in Copenhagen before we boarded our flight back home. Upon disembarking our […]

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The mosaic golden walls of the Stockholm City Hall
Travel

Trip Report: our time in Helsinki & Stockholm

After concluding our 48 hours in St. Petersburg, we continued our whirlwind tour of the Baltics with a stop in Helsinki, Finland. Here, we looked forward to yet another excellent public transportation system, and hopped on a bus right outside the cruise port using tickets bought via the HSL app on our phone. Our first […]

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The front of the Church on the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Travel

Trip Report: 48 Hours in St. Petersburg, Russia

After having left Tallinn, Estonia the previous day, we awoke very early the next morning for our brief 2-day stint in St. Petersburg, Russia. As Russian visas are notoriously difficult to obtain, there’s a nice little loophole for travelers arriving by cruise ship — they may stay in the country without an official visa for […]

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A woman smiles in front of the Norwegian Getaway cruise shipped, docked in Talinn, Estonia
Travel

Trip Report: The Norwegian Getaway, Warnemunde, and Talinn

After our excellent adventures in Copenhagen, it was already time to board our cruise, the Norwegian Getaway. This would actually be our second time on this particular ship, having previously taken a trip through the US Virgin Islands on this vessel back in 2014 (before I started this blog). That being said, this would be […]

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Travel

Trip Report: 48 Hours in Copenhagen

After successfully arriving in Copenhagen via London, we were ready to see what this Baltic jewel had to offer. The previous evening, we’d checked into our hotel, the Absalon Hotel in Copenhagen’s Vesterbro neighborhood. We had found this hotel via the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal, and booked our stay using points gained from the […]

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The entrance to the Harry Potter UK Studio Tour in Watford, UK
Travel

Trip Report: British Airways Business Class and the Harry Potter UK Studio Tour

Guys, this vacation was a long time coming! After moving, and then starting new jobs, both the hubby and I were having to hoard all our vacation days in order to make the trip we planned before leaving our old jobs actually happen. The reality of that meant that we hadn’t taken a “real” vacation […]

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The Marfa Prada art exhibit.
Travel

West Texas Road Trip, part three: Marfa & Beyond

After spending the past few nights camping in Big Bend National Park, it was time for us to emerge back into the world of taking showers and not sleeping on the ground! On our final night in Big Bend, after breaking down our campsite in near record time (around an hour, I think!) we headed […]

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Travel

West Texas Road Trip, Part Two: Big Bend National Park

Following on our road trip from Austin and an overnight stop at the Davis Mountains State Park, we were on the road once again, this time headed to Big Bend National Park. We set off from Fort Davis, where we were able to restock our gas and ice (and, had we needed other supplies, we […]

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The Davis Mountains, as seen on a hike during our West Texas road trip adventure.
Travel

Trip Report: Our West Texas Road Trip, part one

As loyal readers will remember, last June we set off to visit some of the country’s greatest national parks: Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And that meant that we just happened to have an annual National Parks pass sitting around, collecting dust. Not wanting to let a good thing go to waste, we decided that before […]

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