Should We Stay or Should We Go - Our Travel Journal

After months of planning and looking forward to it, our Newfoundland adventure finally began. We flew into St. John's on an early morning flight, picked up our rental car, and headed to our Airbnb in Bay Bulls, which was about thirty minutes south of the city. W e were tired but excited to finally be there. Bay Bulls is a small fishing community on Newfoundland's northeast coast, about thirty minutes south of St. John's. Settled in the early 1600s, it has a long history tied to the sea. Fishing has been the lifeblood of the community for centuries, and although the industry has changed over the years, the harbour is still an active working one. Today, Bay Bulls is best known as the gateway to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve, home to North America's largest Atlantic puffin colony. It's also one of the best places in Newfoundland to take a boat tour in search of puffins, whales, and sea caves. For us, it turned out to be the perfect place to stay. It was close en...

  One of the biggest challenges of any trip is figuring out what to pack. For this trip, I knew it would be even trickier. After all, we were heading to Newfoundland in June. While many people think of June as summer, Newfoundland doesn't always get that memo. We were hoping to see icebergs, which meant cool temperatures were practically guaranteed. Add in a lot of hiking, sightseeing, and time spent outdoors, and I needed to pack items that could handle a wide range of conditions. To make things a little easier, I used the Sudoku Capsule Wardrobe method. If you're not familiar with it, the idea is to pack a small collection of clothing pieces that all work together. Three bottoms, three tops, three layers, all in neutral tones. In a grid each piece is layer out: first row is layer top bottom, second row is top bottom layer, and third row is bottom layer top.  This will provide 7 different combinations.  It's one of my favourite ways to pack for longer trips. I started...

Every trip has a beginning, and surprisingly, ours started at the theatre. Last year, my sister and I went to see Come From Away , the musical based on the true story of what happened in Gander, Newfoundland, during the events of September 11, 2001. When U.S. airspace was closed, dozens of international flights were diverted to Gander, a small town that suddenly found itself welcoming thousands of stranded passengers.  After the show, we went out for dinner and, naturally, we began talking about Newfoundland. I mentioned how much I love it there. I've been fortunate enough to visit several times over the years, and every trip has left me wanting to go back. There is just something about the place—the rugged coastline, the colourful communities, the history, and especially the people. My sister had only been to Newfoundland once before. It was a quick weekend trip to a town on the west side of the island, so she really hadn't had the chance to explore much of what Newfoundla...

  Happy Canada Day! It’s July 1st, the day Canadians celebrate our beautiful country.  It’s also the beginning of a new Ultimate Blog Challenge month. For those unfamiliar with it, the challenge is simple: write and publish a blog post every day for the month. Thirty-one days, thirty-one posts. I've participated before with varying degrees of success. Sometimes I've made it all the way through, and other times life has had different plans. Either way, I always enjoy the challenge because it encourages me to write more consistently and finally tell some of the stories that have been sitting in my head waiting for their turn. This month my posts will be focused on a specific part of Canada. A couple of weeks ago, I returned from a two-week trip to Newfoundland with my two sisters and my cousin. It was a trip filled with laughter, long drives, incredible scenery, and enough stories to keep me writing for quite a while. So throughout July, I'll be sharing my thoughts and a...

Photo by Alicia Christin Gerald on Unsplash These are challenging times. For the past few years, my siblings and I have been on what feels like an assisted living merry-go-round with Mom. We tour residences. We talk finances. We start the intake process. We discuss what life might look like there. Then she changes her mind. "I'm not ready." And everything comes to a stop. This has happened several times since my dad passed away four years ago. The reality is that living alone has become increasingly difficult for her. There have been health issues, emergency room visits, struggles with eating properly, and a growing sense of loneliness. I also suspect she's dealing with some depression, although that's not something she talks about much. After the last time she backed out, my siblings and I decided to take assisted living off the table. We told Mom that we'd simply bring in services as she needed them—housekeeping, meals, and whatever else might help her stay ...

I had such a sweet little plan for an early Mother’s Day this year. The idea was simple - take my 90-year-old mom to a workshop at The Watering Can, along with my sister and sister-in-law, and spend a relaxed, creative afternoon together. It was meant to be a day that mom would enjoy with her daughters and we would all remember for a long time - plus we would all come home with a beautiful arrangement! If you’ve never been, The Watering Can feels like a bit of a hidden gem in Niagara. It’s a beautiful flower market, along with a greenhouse and cafe.  It's a whole experience. You can wander through tropical plants, pick up fresh flowers, grab something sweet to eat, and even take part in a workshop like the one we signed up for. It’s all set right in the heart of Southern Ontario's beautiful wine country, which makes it feel even more special. Unfortunately, the plan didn't pan out like I had envisioned.  My mom wasn’t feeling well a couple of days prior which required a hos...

Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash Today is the final day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge , where we post every day for the month of April. So… how did I do? Not quite as well as I had hoped, but I showed up for 23 days—and I’m good with that. It was a busy month filled with appointments and other commitments, so I’m calling it a win. More importantly, I’m back to blogging again after falling out of a routine, and that feels really good. The goal now is to keep the momentum going—maybe not daily, but at least a couple of times a week. The next Ultimate Blog Challenge is in July, so if you’re a blogger, come join us. It’s a very supportive group. What’s Next What’s next for these two retired wanderers? (Because that’s what this blog is really about.) We’ll be home for the next month, and there’s plenty here that needs our attention. We have a trailer (or caravan, for my European readers) on a seasonal site, and we’ll be opening it up within the next week. I’m really looking forward t...

  As in regular life, when travelling things can go wrong - and at times - drastically wrong.  Recently, we had a travel day that challenged us - physically, mentally, and required us to dig deep to find extra patience. It was in January.  We were taking some back-to-back cruises - one of which left us with a day between the end of one cruise and the start of another.  As we were in Miami we thought we would rent a car and use that time to explore the upper Keys and the Everglades.  All went well until the next morning when it was time to drop off our rental car and head back to the port. What we didn’t know was there was a marathon that was happening in that area of Miami and was ending in a park right by the bridge leading over to the cruise ports. Challenge One Our first challenge came when we were trying to make our way back to the car rental centre. Many streets were closed for the marathon - and closures were happening in a very fluid manner. Streets were ...

Here’s a fun travel quiz for this lazy Sunday morning. Which Travel Style Matches My Personality? Which Travel Style Matches My Personality? See My Result I am an explorer. What about you? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

One of my most favourite places I've been to was a beautiful little town in the Czech Republic. Our day in Český Krumlov felt like we were stepping onto the pages of a fairytale. It was a picture-perfect town complete with cobblestone streets, medieval buildings, a winding river, and a castle on a hill. After arriving in the port of Linz, Austria, (while on our river cruise) we boarded buses  and within  about 20 minutes we crossed the border into the Czech Republic. We travelled a little farther until we reached a magical little town on a bend of the  Vltava River - a UNESCO World Heritage Site.