Should We Stay or Should We Go

One of the biggest challenges of any trip is figuring out what to pack. For this trip, I knew I had my work cut out for me. We aren't just going somewhere for a couple of weeks. This trip starts in Amsterdam, continues on to a nine-day Adriatic cruise, then takes us to Malta and Barcelona before we board the Norwegian Viva for our transatlantic journey across the Atlantic and into the Caribbean. That's a lot of different kinds of travel to pack for. There will be sightseeing and walking around cities, warm afternoons and cooler evenings, casual days on the ship, dinners where we'll want to dress up a little, shore excursions, and plenty of days when I'll probably be perfectly happy in shorts and a T-shirt. And somehow, all of that has to fit into one suitcase! Back to the Sudoku For this trip, I'm going back to one of my favourite packing tricks: the Sudoku Capsule Wardrobe. If you're not familiar with it, the idea is to start with nine pieces of clothing...

Photo by Julien Goettelmann Sometimes a trip takes a little longer to happen than you expected. This one has been six years in the making. When Son #3 graduated from college in 2020, we had planned on doing a special graduation trip. Of course, 2020 wasn't exactly a year for travelling, and like so many other plans, that one was put on hold. In fact, 2021 wasn't much better, so we continued to wait. By 2022, we were ready to start thinking about the trip again, but there was one important detail. His girlfriend was finishing her doctorate, and he wanted her to be part of the celebration too. We thought that was a wonderful idea, so we waited a little longer. Then, in 2023, she finished her doctorate, accepted a job in Virginia (she is American), and the two of them got married. Somewhere in the middle of all that excitement, Son #3 began the process of getting his green card. And that process took time. For the next couple of years, planning a big family trip wasn't p...

Photo by The Six When you see the iconic pictures of Canada, you’ll most likely see a photo of Lake Louise. It is one of the most beautiful places to visit in the Rockies. To be honest, I’m sure there are even more spectacular places tucked away in the mountains, but Lake Louise is relatively easy for tourists to visit, and because of that, it has become one of the best-known places in Canada. However, for me, the lake next door, Moraine Lake, is even more beautiful. It is a place that has left a mark on my soul. From the very first time I saw it, it has stayed with me. There is something about that lake, surrounded by those mountains and that incredible blue-green water, that I find almost impossible to put into words. So when we decided to spend the day visiting both Lake Louise and Moraine Lake, I already knew which one I was most excited to see. Getting There We decided to book a tour that left from Banff rather than try to organize the logistics ourselves. With the popularity of b...