ZandaTrek

ZandaTrek ZandaTrek is the brainchild of a husband and wife, who left their old lives behind and headed out to This is dumb

When Zach and I got married in 2015, we asked our guests to give us money toward a honeymoon as opposed to a traditional...
21/06/2024

When Zach and I got married in 2015, we asked our guests to give us money toward a honeymoon as opposed to a traditional gift registry because we needed a vacation and didn't need a second toaster. As we researched where we wanted to go, we stumbled across a similar story of a newly married couple who had turned their short-term honeymoon into an epic 500-day adventure spanning the globe. Why the hell couldn't that be us? We owned no property, had no pets or kids, we weren't in careers we loved. If this couple could do it, then so could we. Together, with guidance and advice from our new Internet obsession, HoneyTrek Zach and I began to build what would become the next decade of our lives. We watched the HT packing video over and over, we adopted their saving and budgeting plan, we took notes on every travel resource they provided, we even created our own travel moniker, heavily inspired by their brand name. Finally, in October of 2017, we left the USA on a one-way ticket to South America.

Since that first trip, we've spent over 25 months living and traveling abroad. We watched the Honeytrek brand grow and expand, continually inspiring us to travel with purpose and passion. Never in our wildest dreams did we think we'd meet Mike and Anne, in person... until this past weekend. We attended Camp Indie, a travel and networking conference disguised as an adult summer camp and guess who the keynote speakers were?! I tried so hard not to fangirl, as I shared our story and explained just how deeply their journey has impacted our own. We connected over mutual travel experiences and even made loose plans to meet up out in the world someday (Burning Man, anyone?).

Most days, we have no idea if we're on the paths that are meant for us. We don't know the road ahead or how we'll get there. But occasionally, in rich and wonderful, full-circle moments such as this, we know without a doubt that we are right where we're meant to be, trekking through life as part of the sweetest community around! Thank you Mike and Anne, from the bottom of our backpacks!

Location Indie

9 years ago, we had visions of having our wedding/honeymoon in Scotland or Ireland, but at th time, we opted for the mor...
24/04/2024

9 years ago, we had visions of having our wedding/honeymoon in Scotland or Ireland, but at th time, we opted for the more affordable route and got married locally. Well, today we spent our 9 year wedding anniversary in a place we have both dreamt about for a very long time.

Today, we depart the US on a trip unlike any we've taken to date! For the first time, we are taking a major internationa...
16/04/2024

Today, we depart the US on a trip unlike any we've taken to date! For the first time, we are taking a major international trip with a family member! We'll be exploring Ireland with my dad for the next 3 weeks! We are crazy excited to visit this dream location but we are more stoked to share our passion for the world and experience all its wild adventures with someone we love! See you tomorrow, Dublin! 🇮🇪☘️🍺

Well, we blinked and this leg of the adventure is now coming to a close. In minutes, we board a flight heading to NYC an...
25/03/2024

Well, we blinked and this leg of the adventure is now coming to a close. In minutes, we board a flight heading to NYC and will arrive back in Denver late this evening, after 264 days away. While we still want to share about dogsitting and our time in the UK (which we absolutely loved BTW), we are excited to spend time with loved ones and plan the next round of travel opportunities. Going "home" feels bittersweet, as even though our community holds us together, our desires for adventure draw us away. After all, it is through movement that we bloom. So, we strive for balance between the familiar and the unknown. It's all part of the journey, after all.

✌️, 💜 & ✈️s

"Ultimately, travel isn’t about creating a worldlier persona that you project on others; it’s about realigning your values through action, and rediscovering a fuller sense of self. Travel isn’t about embracing cutting-edge destination trends; it’s about embracing parts of your being that you didn’t previously know existed. Travel isn’t about fine-tuning your self-presentation; it’s about breaking open a more personal love of the world, and a deeper love of yourself."

366 days full of amazing experiences and a lot of challenges. So what’s next? On Tuesday, we travel to the UK, a pricey ...
02/03/2024

366 days full of amazing experiences and a lot of challenges.

So what’s next?

On Tuesday, we travel to the UK, a pricey destination not in our original plan. But, one of our 2024 goals was to join Trusted HouseSitters and within hours of finishing our profile, we accepted a job! We’ll spend a few weeks hanging out with two Spanish Podencos, who love to snuggle.

After, we fly back to the US, circumnavigating the globe over the last 264 days abroad. We’ll be home for birthdays, graduations, even a family trip; we’re so excited to spend as much time as possible with our people!

In June, we attend Camp Indie again, to dig deeper within ourselves and strengthen another facet of our community.

After that… well, we don’t know. Maybe we’ll house-sit in Europe. Or head back to South America. We want to travel with purpose and while we aren’t sure what that will be yet, we’re excited for the possibilities!

Stress over our bank balance is high, as we’ve yet to find the recipe for location-independent financial freedom. We also lack the confidence to hustle our way into a paycheck. But we’re working to flex that muscle daily, dabbling in photo & video editing, voice-overs, logo & text animations. We’re creating some YouTube videos for a friend launching her coaching business and soon, I’ll be teaching English online. We don’t know where we’ll find success but we're ready to try it all until something sticks.

We’re looking for our voices, determining what kind of stories we want to tell, where social media and travel content fall on our scale of priorities, if anywhere. Are we even up for “long-term” travel as the reality of being “away” for so long wears on us, our marriage, and our families?

Currently, we’re made of questions but what keeps us grounded is the here and now, not wanting to waste this moment. We’ve got no clue what the future holds, but Ryan Holiday sums it up, “There is always a countermove, always an escape or a way through, so there is no reason to get worked up. No one said it would be easy and, of course, the stakes are high, but the path is there for those who are ready to take it.” Our path is out there and when we find it, who knows where we’ll go!

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Thanks for following along as we recapped our year of travel! We're excited to see what's next!

Zach & Amanda 💜

India, February to March 2024 GoaZach has always wanted to visit India. His excitement for any challenges it might prese...
01/03/2024

India, February to March 2024

Goa

Zach has always wanted to visit India. His excitement for any challenges it might present and his curiosity about its cultures have been growing for years. It was a rite of passage that his traveler’s heart desired as his own. As the trip planner, I hesitated at the idea of navigating weeks of chaos across a vast landmass, encountering 22 official languages, while finishing my TEFL cert and trying to work on a few location-independent business ideas. To compromise, we settled on Goa, India’s smallest state. Known for world-class beaches along the Arabian Sea, this popular destination was an easy entry point to the larger and more enigmatic subcontinent, “India Lite”. But now, approaching the end of our month here, we realize how unfair that thought was. It wasn't just a disservice to our travel capabilities but to Goa itself – a place with such a unique history, unlike anywhere else in the world.

Highlights: Staying in Borim, a small village in central Goa, where we’ve been the only visitors for weeks, spending mornings and evenings on the veranda of our cottage in a 12-acre plant nursery, listening to endless birdsong and watching for monkeys, chatting with our gracious hosts, and receiving their unending hospitality (fresh coconuts and local breakfast treats, samosas, and fried fish, these people know how to treat their guests!), the food (another country with colossal culinary cuisine!), learning about Goa’s complicated history as a Portuguese colony for 450 years, only becoming part of independent India in 1961, attending a Carnival parade, wandering the streets of the only Latin Quarter in Asia with a tour guide all to ourselves, admiring the Indo-Portuguese architecture, and eating our way through the history of Panjim (the capital city).

Challenges: Getting around (local buses are crowded and take forever to cover any distance, Uber is nonexistent, and the cab drivers only offer round-trip fares, so essentially you hire a car for the day), the stray dog situation (while most are homeless and hungry but not suffering, there are two injured dogs that we are attempting to have rescued by a local shelter).

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Does the thought of traveling to India intimidate you? Why or why not? Would you come here if given the chance?

Amanda

Indonesia, January to February 2024 LombokDid you know that Indonesia is the world’s largest island country with over 17...
29/02/2024

Indonesia, January to February 2024

Lombok

Did you know that Indonesia is the world’s largest island country with over 17,500 within its boundary waters? When you have such a wide variety of beautiful and unique options to choose from, where exactly should you go? Oh right… Bali. Everyone ALWAYS goes to Bali. And while we too would like to buddy up to Ubud or get cozy with Kuta someday, our aversion to overcrowding took us to the island next door, instead. Lombok has beautiful beaches, rocky volcanoes, and lush tropical rain forests but with a few million fewer tourists per year. Plus, we had reached the point in our journey where we were choosing to see less in order to travel longer. So, we found a good price for a 30-day cottage rental (book for a month and get a discount!) and settled into Senggigi Beach, intent on getting to know a very small part of a very large archipelago.

Highlights: Connecting with our host at her family-run warung and using it as a home base, befriending an expat from the US and a retired bloke from Australia over dinner at that warung, then spending many subsequent dinners there, drinking and laughing well past closing time, accompanying our Aussie friend, Drew, on a journey to the heart of the island chasing waterfalls, listening to live music at Happy Cafe before moving on to the local nightclub and partying in the dark during a power outage, spending most evenings watching the sunset over the Lombok Straight, surrounded by locals doing the same, temporarily adopting a group of stray dogs and cats on our street and after some unexpected donations from our kind-hearted friends back home, being able to provide our wild bunch with a good meal every night.

Challenges: Leaving that ragtag crew – Shy (aka Shia LaWoof), Jose (aka No Way Jose), Chad, Lady, Baby Girl, Pretty Kitty, Little Kitty, and all our other no-name pals – broke our hearts. I could still cry thinking about them; we did see other residents leaving food out occasionally and they were a resourceful lot so we’re pretty sure they’ll be ok but helping to provide permanent care for many of the creatures we encounter on the road is emerging as a calling we plan to pursue further.

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Which Indonesian island would you prefer to visit - laid-back Lombok or busy Bali?

Zach & Amanda

Taiwan, December 7 to December 11, 2023TaipeiBy going to Cambodia to see friends, we achieved one of our longest-held tr...
28/02/2024

Taiwan, December 7 to December 11, 2023

Taipei

By going to Cambodia to see friends, we achieved one of our longest-held travel goals: exploring a new place with familiar faces. We love roaming around as a pair but boy, was it fun to add some fresh faces to the mix. We could order more food to try, had people to take photos of us, and got to consider two different and unique perspectives as we learned about an unfamiliar culture. We were stoked to have had one friend trip in 2023, never did we think it would happen again. Enter Helen and Tim Travel, who just so happened to be visiting family in Taiwan at the same time we were hanging out in Vietnam. They had a few empty days at the end of their stay before continuing on their own epic year-long travel journey, so we found cheap tickets out of Hanoi and flew to Taipei, for another nomadic couple meet-up!

Highlights: Traveling with friends (it’s the most fun way to experience a place); it’s even better when those friends speak the native language, already know the city you’re visiting and enjoy planning meals and activities (you get your own private tour full of insider knowledge from the world’s nicest guides!), the ease of getting around Taiwan (the buses and trains are super clean, safe and reliable!), Taipei as a whole (with great energy, orderly neighborhoods, and extremely friendly people!), the cuisine of another country known for it’s night markets and street food (some of our favorites were the Beef Noodle Soup, Black Pepper Buns, Scallion Pancakes, Xiao Long Bao, Lu Rou Fan, Pineapple Cakes, Bubble Tea… another out of this world eating opportunity), taking the train to Jiufen, a former gold mining town now home to winding alleyways, picturesque tea houses and traditional restaurants, spending a “girl’s day” and “guy’s afternoon” without our partners because a little distance is needed when you’re together every damn day!

Challenges: Saying “see you later” to Helen and Tim when Monday rolled around; fortunately for us all, they have a fantastic YouTube channel where they detail their on-the-road escapades and much more, so we can binge-watch their adventures any time we need a dose of their smiling faces!

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Follow Helen and Tim on IG & FB, subscribe to their YouTube channel, sign up for their newsletter, support their Patreon, DO ALL THE THINGS! They are the travel content creators we set out to be but they do it so incredibly well! Follow along on their amazing journey!

https://linktr.ee/helenandtimtravel?fbclid=PAAabuFDm4JA6BJ0aGR7CJaFrOdl1iEjDoWDjsh8g3W2pQ4i4mN5U0cwvjtsM

Zach & Amanda

Vietnam, October 2023 to January 2024Hanoi – Sapa – Ninh Binh – Cat Ba Perhaps you were curious why we were traveling at...
27/02/2024

Vietnam, October 2023 to January 2024

Hanoi – Sapa – Ninh Binh – Cat Ba

Perhaps you were curious why we were traveling at breakneck speeds down the Malay Peninsula in Monday's post... Well, back in Thailand, I decided to pursue my TEFL (teaching English as a foreign language) certificate and enrolled in an 11-week, online course, beginning October 16th. Taking advantage of Vietnam’s new 90-day tourist visa, which happened to be the same length as my class, would allow for a consistent home base. And opting to stay in the northern part of the country brought the stability I needed to focus on schoolwork (something I haven’t done in 16+ years) while still providing countless adventures and so much incredible food. Though we spent three months there, we felt like we barely scratched Vietnam’s surface, with so much left to return for!

Highlights: Staying in four different areas of Hanoi, one being Times City, an urban complex featuring a subterranean mall and swimming pool with few other tourists around, adjusting to the chaos that is Vietnamese traffic and eventually crossing the street safely ourselves (you just gotta go for it and walk directly into traffic because that’s the only way across), discovering the best restaurants at the end of the most sketchy alleyways all over the Old Quarter and eating things like Pho, Bun Cha, spring rolls, Bun bo nam bo and broken rice, busing to Sapa, a mountain town 20 miles from the Chinese border and spending a month in the most densely foggy conditions we’ve ever seen, hanging out on the summit of Fansipan, Vietnam’s tallest mountain, comparing the karst mountains, deep green valleys and winding rivers of Ninh Binh to the karst limestone pillars, jagged cliff faces and turquoise waters of Ha Long Bay, getting my first hair cut in a foreign country!

Challenges: Dealing with the relentless onslaught of vendors in Sapa, insistent on selling you a bag, a bracelet, or a tour of their village; we're used to politely refusing goods for sale (instead using the exchange to conversate with a local) but a few of these women became aggressive when they heard no and one even threw a “Pho you!” in our direction.

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If you could stay for three months in a foreign country, where would you go? Would you settle down in one place or move around frequently?

Singapore, October 10, 2023Singapore holds the distinction of being the smallest country we've ever visited as well as t...
26/02/2024

Singapore, October 10, 2023

Singapore holds the distinction of being the smallest country we've ever visited as well as the country where we've spent the least amount of time. In total, we were in this tiny city-state for 36 hours (two sleeps and one very full day of sightseeing) and initially, we were sad about that. But after paying Singapore prices for the day, we quickly accepted that our short stay was for the best. It is just as clean, efficient, modern, innovative and expensive a place as its reputation leads you to believe and visiting is a must. Even if you only pick one high-price attraction to splurge on and then spend the rest of your time inhaling every famous dish at every hawker center possible!

Highlights: Seeing one of the world's most iconic skylines with our own eyes (structures like the Esplanade, Singapore Flyer, Helix Bridge and Marina Bay Sands hotel to name a few), eating a traditional Singaporean breakfast of Kaya toast, soft-cooked eggs and Gu Yu Kopi (coffee with butter) at Heap Seng Leong, spending a few hours wandering around Gardens by the Bay, admiring the sprawling displays of perfectly manicured vegetation and staring up at the grove of surreal Supertrees, eating Char Kway Teow, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Curry Puffs, steamed Bao, Youtiao and fried sweet potato balls at Michelin rated food stalls made famous by the GOAT of culinary adventure travel, Anthony Bourdain, at two different hawker centers, stealing free AC in a mall so fancy it had its own canal offering boat rides, trying our first Singapore Sling cocktail while dining on Chili Crab, a dish voted one of the "world's 50 most delicious foods" at a fancy restaurant, spending the evening digesting a marathon food day while watching the light and water show in Marina Bay.

Challenge: Price, price, price (while the hawker centers and small cafes can provide budget-friendly options for penny-pinching people like us, in general, Singapore is EXPENSIVE!), we struggled to choose just a few things to spend our money on, but food almost always comes first and lucky for us, you needn't be rolling in the dough to eat like a king here!

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Have you ever visited Singapore? If not, would you like to go, even knowing it's expensive. What foods would you eat? Which attractions would you see?

Malaysia, September 30 to October 9, 2023George Town, Penang – Kuala Lumpur If you haven't figured out by now, we like t...
25/02/2024

Malaysia, September 30 to October 9, 2023

George Town, Penang – Kuala Lumpur

If you haven't figured out by now, we like to travel slowly. The standard 30-day allowance in most countries feels like moving at warp speed for us. Often, we pick destinations that offer longer visa options because time is our most valuable resource (and moving at a snail’s pace helps ye old frugal finances). But last fall, we had a mission. We needed to bus through the southernmost point of the Asian continental mainland and cross into Singapore by the second week of October. Because of this itinerary, the rich cultural tapestry that is the country of Malaysia got the short end of our attention stick. The 10 days we did spend in two of its most popular locations, however, were full of exceptional eats and a vast mosaic of history! And seeing that it offers 90-day tourist stays for US citizens, you know we’ll be back there someday, traveling at a glacial pace and loving every minute of it!

Highlights: Walking around the UNESCO World Heritage city of George Town, on Penang Island, with its well-preserved grand mansions, colorful shophouses, historic jetties, and neighborhoods full of diversity (in just a few blocks you can expect to see a Muslim mosque, a Catholic church, and many temples from Chinese Taosist to Hindu), reaping the culinary benefits of that multicultural heritage (the food scene here is a legendary melting pot of flavors, ingredients and techniques), exploring an interactive ghost museum (think haunted house but with more educational plaques and less jump scares), getting lost in an enormous shopping complex featuring four different malls connected by over-street pedestrian bridges with its own 68 story tall building, discovering captivating street art around every corner, viewing some of the most famous buildings in the world from the lofty heights of our apartment's rooftop pool in Kuala Lumpur, climbing 272 brightly painted stairs, past the world’s second tallest statue of Hindu god Murugan to access Batu Cave and the ornate temples tucked into its caverns.

Challenges: Simply not having enough time in this dynamic, hospitable, and affordable country!

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What is a city or country that you'd love to visit a second even third time? Is there a place you always find yourself returning to again and again? What aspects keep you coming back to a particular location?

Cambodia, August 2023Siem Reap – Phnom Pehn – Kampong ChamCambodia has long been on our travel list but it shot to "up n...
24/02/2024

Cambodia, August 2023

Siem Reap – Phnom Pehn – Kampong Cham

Cambodia has long been on our travel list but it shot to "up next" shortly after arriving in Bangkok. Per our Thai visas, we could only stay for 30 days so we knew a border run (stamping in and out of a neighboring country and then re-entering Thailand on a new 30-day stamp) would have to happen at some point. However, the stars aligned, when we learned that new friends from Camp Indie, Jeff and Mauree, would be visiting Siem Reap, at the beginning of August. They were arriving the exact day we needed to leave Thailand. So, our visa run became an impromptu nomad couple meet-up! We spent the month of August nurturing friendships bred in the US and Cambodia alike!

Highlights: Spending a week getting to know another nomad couple (Jeff and Mauree are the best and our 7 days together FLEW by!), touring 26 temples and religious sites around Siem Reap, from world-famous Angkor Wat at sunrise to lesser known but still impressive Beng Mealea, learning as much as possible about the area’s connection to the roots of the Khmer people, Hinduism, Buddism and French Colonialism, marveling at the craftsmanship these incredible structures required to build and decorate (walls of impeccably carved reliefs that would take weeks alone to appreciate fully), the cuisine around the country, with delicious Khmer and international dishes available (Fish Amok and Beef Lok Lak one night, tacos or Georgian food the next, a regular foodie paradise), finding the Khmer people to be the warmest and friendliest we have ever met while traveling – So Phal, Chork Heng, and Bunthy who invited us home, fed us fruit from his garden and even introduced us to his family!

Challenges: Keeping it together, emotionally, while paying tribute to the victims of the Cambodian genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge (visiting sites like Tuol Sleng prison and the killing fields at Choeung Ek was absolutely heartbreaking but so necessary), the stifling heat and humidity (109 degrees Fahrenheit for days in a row), spraining my ankle in Kampong Cham, putting me out of commission for weeks and effectively ending our Cambodian adventure.

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Have you ever hurt yourself while traveling? Did it ruin your plans or change the course of your trip? We would love to hear any advice you may have about remaining positive when faced with an injury...

Zach & Amanda Groney

Thailand, July & September, 2023Bangkok – Chiang Mai – Koh Phayam – Ao Nang – Koh Phi Phi – Koh Tao – Hat YaiThailand, w...
23/02/2024

Thailand, July & September, 2023

Bangkok – Chiang Mai – Koh Phayam – Ao Nang – Koh Phi Phi – Koh Tao – Hat Yai

Thailand, with its chill vibe and cheap reputation, seemed like a great entry point for two Asia newbs on a tight budget (due to that cruise we just HAD to take). After our month at home, we left Denver and headed to our 4th continent, flying first to Dallas, then to Tokyo then Osaka, before finally arriving in Bangkok 34.5 hours later. Dirt-bag travel tip: the worse the route, the better the price. Damn you, tight budget. But after just a few short hours in that bustling and vibrant capital city, our worries melted away (in the 90-degree, 90% humidity heat) and we spent the following month (and another month after that) busing and boating from north to south, becoming completely smitten with this jewel of a country!

HIGHlights: Legal access to certain herbal supplements safely sold here (iykyk), experiencing our first taste of Asia’s 7/11 culture (long live the cheese toastie!), eating – just the straight up joy of eating – at street stalls on Bangkok’s backpacker boulevard Khaosan Road to world famous night markets with Michelin star food courts in Chiang Mai, we enjoyed every dish we wolfed down, the hospitality we felt from almost everyone we encountered – “The Land of Smiles!” nickname rings true, finding the island of Koh Phayam almost entirely to ourselves during a monsoon month, swimming in the most fantastic pool we’ve ever had the pleasure to be all up in, hanging out on Koh Phi Phi long enough to befriend the performers at the beach bar fire show and return multiple nights to photograph them, sleeping over at Elephant Nature Park and falling in love with Asian elephants and all the other creatures this animal sanctuary cares for. Click the link to check out their awesome facility and ALWAYS prioritize humane and compassionate animal tourism.

Challenges: The insane crowds we experienced in most places even during the “slow season”. It’s so freaking gorgeous and affordable, though, who can really blame the millions of people that flock here every year?! Not us, two cheap mother flockers, ourselves.

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Have you ever taken a tuk-tuk to try Tom Yum G*i or sipped Thai tea on a temple terrace? Type all your Thailand tourist tales below...

Zach & Amanda

USA, May 29 to July 5, 2023Florida – Colorado – Wyoming – New York – ConnecticutAt the end of May, we flew home for 37 d...
22/02/2024

USA, May 29 to July 5, 2023

Florida – Colorado – Wyoming – New York – Connecticut

At the end of May, we flew home for 37 days to hug our loved ones (and their kids and fur kids), attend an adult summer camp, drop off things we wouldn’t need for our upcoming SE Asia adventures, and eat all the food we’d been missing over the last few months. While back in our homeland, we visited 2 new states and made a bunch of new friends, explored up and down the Front Range with our family, and soaked in the first few weeks of summer in the Rockies. Traveling to beautiful locations around the world has made us more aware and more appreciative of the beautiful locations in our own backyard!

Highlights: A 2-day layover in the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area to hang with a few of our Florida friends, attending lots of barbeques and get-togethers alongside the people we cherish most, strolling the footpaths in the green space of our old neighborhood, visiting New York City for the first time and walking all over Midtown Manhattan, eating hot dogs in Central Park, pizza from Joe’s and cheesecake at Junior’s, taking a train out of Union Station up to Connecticut, spending 2 and a half days at Camp Indie where we laughed until our faces hurt and cried (Amanda) until we felt unburdened, while making so many incredible friends and memories in the process, exploring NYC with 2 such new friends the afternoon before our flight home, driving over the mountains of the Snowy Range in southern Wyoming, returning to the insanely kooky engineering marvel that is Bishop’s Castle in southern Colorado, relishing every meal and moment with our people in our home place.

Challenges: Figuring out the logistics of where to stay and how to get there since we no longer have a full-time residence or vehicle of our own (it must be mentioned, though, that our community has always offered up their houses, cars and especially their time to make our stateside transitions as stress-free as can be), leaving that generous, loving community behind every time we set out on another trip abroad – Goodbyes always suck, that’s why we prefer see you laters!

What about home do you miss most while you're away?

Location Indie Helen and Tim Travel

Amanda Groney Zach Groney

Chile, April & May 2023Punta Arenas – Puerto Natales – Valparaíso – SantiagoI don’t know if you’ve looked at Chile on a ...
21/02/2024

Chile, April & May 2023

Punta Arenas – Puerto Natales – Valparaíso – Santiago

I don’t know if you’ve looked at Chile on a map recently but it’s one long-ass country! For that reason alone, we could only visit a few places in southern Chilean Patagonia and a few across its central region. However, what we did see, we thoroughly enjoyed. Few places boast world-class scenery like Parque Nacional Torres del Paine and the bohemian port city of Valparaíso is quirky, grungy, colorful, and perfect for getting lost with a camera and an empty stomach. Chile definitely deserves a return visit or two!

Highlights: taking a bus on a ferry across the Strait of Magellan, hiking to Lago Torres and the Mirador at the base of Torres del Paine, catching Parque Nacional Torres del Paine (and all of Patagonia, for that matter) bursting with fall color, discovering Viejo Lobo hot dog stand in Puerto Natales (a town full of expensive food) and returning almost every day for their loaded Papas Fritas, crossing one of the world’s highest road borders at 10,500 feet while driving past South America’s tallest peak Mount Aconcagua at 22,841 feet, eating empanadas as big as our faces, conquering a few of the 42 relentless hills of Valparaíso in search of the country’s best street art, walking to Viña del Mar and eating ceviche with a sea lion at the fisherman’s market along the way, seeing our first moai statue from Rapa Nui (Easter Island).

Challenges: Accepting that the distance between major sites would keep us from visiting as much as we wanted to, discovering the food and accommodation costs to be considerably higher than its neighbor Argentina (great for the Chilean economy, not so great for us dirt-bag travelers), not realizing that Chile participates in Daylight Savings which our cellphones did not auto-adjust to, resulting in our only missed bus of the entire year!

Are you a fan of cities with hidden murals and street art around every corner? Or are misty mountains and alpine views more your speed? What kind of attractions draw you to a particular place? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Zach Groney & Amanda Groney

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Once upon a time...

There lived a husband and a wife, who led a perfectly normal life. They had friends and family, careers and possessions, and yet they were not happy. They dreamt of a life much bigger than their own. So they sold their things, said goodbye to those they loved and headed out to see the world in all its wonder. This is their story...