Burning the Inheritance

Located in the northwest of India on the Pakistan border, Rajasthan is the largest state in India by area (132K sq. mi., comprising over 10% of India’s total geographic area) and the 7th largest state in India by population with over 83 million people.  Rajasthan’s economy, which accounts for about 5% of India’s GDP, is…

Kochi (or Cochin as it was once called), which is about two hours north of Marari Beach, is a city of about 800,000 people in a metropolitan area of about 3.3 million, making it the largest and most populous area in Kerala.  Fort Kochi is an island neighborhood of about 200,000 which is Kochi city’s…

We decided to begin our India adventure in the State of Kerala which stretches along India’s southwest Malabar coast, sandwiched between the Arabian Sea to the west and the Sahyadri mountain range to the east.  Kerala found its way onto our itinerary because of the strong recommendations of a friend whose family came from there…

While both Colleen and I were very interested in visiting India, I have to say that we did have some reservations about it.  Of all the countries we have considered and researched, India stood out as one of the most challenging for travelers with great potential for it to become overwhelming or for us to…

Back in October 2020 when we first pulled out our Rand McNally map and made a game of proposing travel destinations for The Big Trip, Zanzibar was one of the first places identified (Colleen proposed it, but it was on my list too!) and it is arguably the most exotic place we decided to include…

Cairo was a late addition to our itinerary which we added once Colleen determined that the best option (meaning least expensive option) for getting from Dahab, Egypt to Zanzibar, Tanzania was to take a very long bus ride (10 hours) to Cairo and then fly to Zanzibar from there.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) our bus…

Blame it on Croatia Neither Dahab nor the country of Egypt were on our original itinerary for this trip, which anticipated spending the month of August (including our 35th wedding anniversary) relaxing on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, taking a break from the more active and engaged sort of traveling which has become our staple. …