Maldives is an excellent place to go for vacation with beautiful reefs for snorkeling and many sea creatures! My family and I have been to Maldives before, but we had a lot of new experiences during this trip. We saw a lot of whale sharks and manta rays, which we had not seen before! We also went diving for the first time! This trip to Maldives was very special. Maldives is one of the best places in the world to see whale sharks! Whale sharks…Continue Reading “Swimming with Giants in Maldives”
Perú is well-known for its famous Inca sites such as Machu Picchu. In addition, it has many places with beautiful natural scenery, and, most importantly, lots of llamas and alpacas. One of the most unique things about Inca civilization was how much they accomplished in a very short period of time. The Incas only lasted about two hundred years, much shorter than other ancient civilizations such as the Mayans which lasted up to thousands of years, but they still had comparable achievements in engineering and…Continue Reading “Incas, Rainbows, and Llamas in Perú”
Cambodia is best known for the temple Angkor Wat. However, it also has several thousand other temples despite it being a rather small country! Siem Reap was the capital of the Khmer empire for many centuries, so there are many temples in the vicinity. The temples all have many very intricate carvings, which were amazingly carved centuries ago. The carvings are often related to Hinduism and Buddhism, which were prominent religions brought to Cambodia. Many carvings that we saw depicted the Ramayana and Mahabharata, major…Continue Reading “Temples, Trees, and Smiling Buddhas”
Most of the time, when we go on trips, we naturally visit the tourist attractions and scenic places. However, some places provide the chance to do adventurous activities! In some of the mountainous places we have visited, we have had the chance to do fun mountain-related activities, namely alpine coasters and downhill scooters. We discovered alpine coasters in Germany, when we decided to go on one near Neuschwanstein Castle at Tegelberg. We were surprised by how much we enjoyed it! We later went on one…Continue Reading “Fun Mountain Adventures”
Rome is a popular city well-known for ancient sites like the Roman Colosseum. When my family and I visited Rome, I was the one responsible for planning our trip, which was quite a new experience! Rome has a multitude of sites you can visit, but I’ll talk about some of the must-sees and offer some insights I learned from planning a trip as a noob. Of course, one cannot visit Roman without touring the Colosseum. It was built almost 2,000 years ago and could seat…Continue Reading “Visiting the Ancient Sites of Rome”
This is the second part of my mom’s guest post on travel planning! If you haven’t read the first part yet, you can find it here. Enjoy some more tips! Tip #4: Location, Location, Location! When reserving hotels, do not just focus on price alone. On the hotel websites, they may state that it take 15 minutes to get to all the attractions. In reality, travel often takes longer than that. For example, in Japan and in Germany, we have been to stations that have…Continue Reading “Guest Post: Tips on Travel Planning (Part Two)”
For this post, I invited my mom to write about something she does very often: travel planning. My mom has planned almost every one of our trips since I was born and thus has many insights to offer! Throughout all of our trips here are rarely times when our trips don’t go smoothly, and my mom can often come up with some pretty unconventional itineraries that really maximize our experience. Our trips definitely wouldn’t be as fun without her planning! Here, my mom has written…Continue Reading “Guest Post: Tips on Travel Planning (Part One)”
Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is well known for being the largest coral reef in the world. In fact, It is 348,000 square kilometers and is larger than the Great Wall of China! It has many colorful coral and different kinds of fish as well as other exotic sea creatures. Since there is about 3000 km of coastline, there are many different points to visit to explore different parts of the reefs. My family and I visited the Great Barrier Reef at Hamilton Island and Port Douglas….Continue Reading “Exploring the World’s Largest Reef”
When I go to Lake Tahoe, the resort that I ski at most often is Heavenly. After skiing there for many years, I have some tips for maximizing your experience there, and also some general tips! 1. Since most people take the gondola up, runs around the gondola tend to be very popular. Comet and Dipper chairs tend to be especially busy. Sometimes it can take around 20 minutes to line up! On the other hand, Powerbowl express and Canyon chair on the California side have…Continue Reading “Tips for Having Fun at Heavenly”
Croatia is less popular than many other European countries, but it has many beautiful places that are definitely worth visiting! Dubrovnik is a popular city with many old buildings that underwent a lot of damage after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Many buildings were damaged due to shelling.In the old town, a lot of the buildings still have bullet holes! However, in a relatively short time, these buildings were restored very well, and the city remains a popular tourist destination. Dubrovnik is one…Continue Reading “Croatia—Old Towns, Oceans and More!”
Tahiti is very famous for overwater bungalows, but my family and I spent a lot of time underwater! In Tahiti we saw many sea creatures that we had never seen before while snorkeling. While snorkeling near our hotel room, we saw several octopi! The first time we spotted one while snorkeling was quite shocking. They can be really tough to find since they blend in with the rocks, but we could spot them when they moved, especially because their skin would turn white. They were…Continue Reading “Octopi and Eagle Rays in Tahiti”
Fiji is one of the most well-known places for snorkeling! When my family and I went to Fiji we were surprised at how many new and amazing things we saw there. We saw a lot of coral in Fiji, including much more soft coral than we have seen in other places, because that is what Fiji is famous for. Our guides pointed out which coral were safe to touch, and they were all really soft and nice to touch! We were delighted when we spotted…Continue Reading “Fiji—the Soft Coral Capital of the World!”
There are many places around the world that are quite famous for their beautiful views. You can find pictures online that look very nice. But how exactly can one find such nice views at these locations? Looking for the right viewpoint can be quite the conundrum. This post is about some of the nicest places that my family and I have been to and how we feel we were able to locate the best views. 1. Neuschwanstein castle Neuschwanstein castle is one of the most…Continue Reading “18 Places with Great Views (and how to find them)”
My school offered a trip to Costa Rica where we were introduced to field research! We visited the rainforest and saw many cool plants and animals. Our teacher said that we were the luckiest out of all the groups that she has taken! We did a lot of interesting research activities at various locations. 1. Probably the most unique experience we had was being able to release a baby leatherback turtle in Pacuare. Costa Rica has many beaches where sea turtles come and lay their…Continue Reading “Fun Scientific Activities in Costa Rica”
Howdy! Back in November my family and I went on a very cool trip to Japan! We spent most of the time in Kyoto, but also a few days in Tokyo. It wasn’t our first trip to Japan, but it was our first time in Kyoto, so we went to many interesting places. There are a lot of cool things about Japan, and today I’ll talk about three of them!! 1. Food We had a lot of time to experience Japanese food, and it is…Continue Reading “3 Great (and unique!) Things about Japan”
Tanzania is known for its many animals and wildlife. There are many places where one can see many interesting animals, such as Tarangire National Park, Ngorongoro Crater, and Serengeti National Park. Our main purpose in visiting the trip was to see the great migration, but we ended up seeing much more that just that! We were lucky and ended up seeing many animals that are rare to see. Along the way we learned many facts about animals from our tour guides. Today I’ll share with…Continue Reading “10 Cool Things about Animals (and more!) in Tanzania”