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We found a furnished apartment, just a few minutes from the main piazzas, in a 300-year old building on a quiet lane, with the best landlords we ever could have imagined. They invited us to partake of barbecues in their rustic taverna, to accompany them to their country property to pick fruit from their orchard, and helped us with the paperwork for residency.
Enjoying a locally-grown coffee on my sunny terrace in Cuenca, Ecuador, with my husband Ken and our little rescue dog, Sally, I’m wondering what my family and friends are up to in England. I’m smiling because the dream of living in South America finally came true, almost 15 years after the seed was planted.
It took a global pandemic to prove something to me...something I already knew but for which I now have verifiable proof. And that’s this: Life truly is richer and more affordable overseas. You see, in February of 2020 I was fortunate enough to be whiling away some very pleasant time in both Panama City, Panama and Mexico...
The city of York, in the north of England, is a gem that many visitors overlook simply because they do not know what it has to offer. It can take weeks to experience a sprawling metropolis like London—York, on the other hand, promises 2,000 years of British history and culture, all in a compact, easily accessible city.
My intended destination was Kong Lor cave, one of the highlights of central Laos on the Thakhek Loop, a 350-mile route normally starting from the town of the same name. The loop is gaining notoriety as an inexpensive must-do in Laos for its abundance of caves, nearly empty winding roads, and mountainous landscapes.
Some of the places in Belize that have gotten very popular recently, are a gamble, and we wanted to shed some light on the possible positives and negatives about some of the crazy growth shown in some of the new hotspots in the country.
No one likes to be in the hospital, yet whenever my husband, Clyde, thinks about the time he was hospitalized in Spain, he smiles. Spoiler Alert: He liked the spongebaths. We’d been house- and petsitting in the rural countryside of Spain. It wasn’t a tough gig. Surrounded by nothing more than a desert-like vista of dirt...
Whether you’re standing in the center of the medieval old town or peering down from the city tower, you’ll never lose sight of the mountains in Innsbruck. In summer, the vibrant, colorful city comes to life with open-air concerts and outdoor cafes open late into the evening.
Early mornings are my favorite time in San Salvador. I love to sit on my balcony and watch as the city wakes up. In the hour just after dawn, you can still hear the call of geckos and the songs of birds. It’s never really cold here, but at that time, the air is relatively cool and the smell of fresh-baked empanadas de leche wafts up to my fourth-floor balcony.
I’m traveling south from Quito toward Ambato, and the straggling residential overflow from the capital city persists until the road branches off eastward into the Pastaza valley. That’s where the town of Baños de Agua Santa sits, snug in a hollow between snowcapped peaks. You have to remind yourself to look up...