The year 2020 will go down in the books as the year the world stopped. Almost every nation went into lockdown around the same time and even local travel halted. Like most of the world, you may be feeling a little stir crazy and ready to leave the bubble you’ve been in. As the news of a vaccine came on the scene and the most vulnerable are building some immunity, travel is seeming more and[…]
Read more
Disclaimer: While we did get robbed, we loved Mexico City and strongly recommend it to everyone! We made some embarrassingly amateur mistakes that we will not repeat. Had we avoided them, I don’t think we would have been robbed. Overall we felt quite safe in Mexico City, and we don’t want anyone to get the incorrect impression that it’s a risky place to travel! Go there and eat tasty food! (And I just must mention[…]
Read more
If you’re heading to Cusco, you probably know that it’s at high altitude – 11,200 feet, or 3,400 m. Not Mt. Everest-type high, but enough that perhaps 50% of people will feel some altitude sickness symptoms if they arrive in Cusco without spending a few days (or more) at intermediate altitudes to let their bodies acclimatize! So what is altitude sickness? In Cusco, for most people, it’s just a headache — maybe a nasty one[…]
Read more
If you’re planning a trip to Lima, or to Machu Picchu and thinking about stopping over in Lima, you might be wondering: is it safe? Like always with this question, it’s tough to answer definitively. On the one hand, Peru in general has lower crime rates than its neighbors Colombia and Brazil; on the other, crime is much more frequent in Peruvian cities than in the United States or Europe. We have had a great[…]
Read more
When we were planning our trip to Rio, most people recommended staying in Santa Teresa or the Ipanema/Leblon areas. We couldn’t decide, so we spent time in both! Now, where you stay in Rio will have a big impact on your experience there, so choose wisely! The city unfortunately isn’t particularly walkable, and being a city of over 11 million people, it’s huge. That means long taxi rides for you if you’re not staying in[…]
Read more