Welcome to Isabelle's Blog

We had the most wonderful trip in Roatan. In the last few years, we had spent Thanksgiving in Hawaii and we enjoyed the quick getaway to warmer weather and beach. However, this year, we decided to try something new after researching the best beaches to be in Central America. The reviews were correct and we were not disappointed. We had the best time there: great beach, warm water, amazing snorkeling, jungle access. Flight there was convenient and affordable (red eye through El Salvador). You leave home one evening on a cold rainy night and by mid-morning the next day, you are in paradise. So convenient! We stayed at the  Grand Roatan Resort , which was very convenient for snorkeling. We went to a natural park closeby for a day, where we hung out with parrots, monkeys and enjoyed a nice and beautiful ziplining tour. For another afternoon, we went to a rescue center on the other side of the island where we hung out with sloths. It was a good opportunity to see the rest of the island and

At the tail end of our trip to South Africa , we spent 3 days in Zimbabwe, visiting Victoria Falls and surroundings. We had heard of Victoria Falls for a long time, and we figured that we wouldn't come back to Africa for a while, so it was now or never. The flight from Johannesburg was quite convenient, so we were able to tag on a few days at the end of our trip. Victoria Falls didn't disappoint. Actually, after a somewhat disappointing safari experience in South Africa, we loved seeing the wild life in Zimbabwe. We stayed at the beautiful hotel Victoria Falls Safari Lodge . It was Amazing! The hotel has a beautiful view of the savanna below it, with a nice water hole, and you could spend all day watching the wild animals coming and going to the water hole. It was such a nice show right in front of us. View form the terrace at Victoria Falls Safari Lodge The lodge also organized a very traditional evening of local food and dances. It was interesting to say the least. We got to

We had been remembering fondly our safari in Tanzania in 2005, and had just been talking about going back there with the kids, discussing when our youngest would be old enough to enjoy a safari. Right at that moment, the opportunity came to us in the form of an auction, where we won a 5-day stay at a beautiful safari lodge in South Africa. The deal was sealed: we were going to go to South Africa, with a 9, 7 and 4 years old. Gulp! We figured that, if we wanted to make it worth it flying around the world, we should stay in South Africa for longer than just 5 days of Safari, so we included a few stops along the way and an extension of our trip into Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls), which was a very nice surprise and exceeded our expectations. The below is our itinerary and experience. A few tips for anyone interested in visiting South Africa. 1. Summer in the Northern Hemisphere means winter in South Africa. While this wasn't an issue for the safari portion of the trip (the days were short

We had been talking about visiting South East Asia for a while; my husband had amazing memories of visiting some 20-odd years back. We finally found a week where the timing was perfect and we had the most amazing week discovering Singapore, the Malaysian jungle and Bangkok. It was definitely a short trip and I found out I loved Bangkok, so we hope we will come back soon and continue our exploration of Thailand. After an overnight flight with layover in Taipei, we landing in Singapore in the early afternoon. We were tired but excited; and happy to have left the cold winter weather behind to find warm temperatures. We checked into our hotel, the Marina Bay Sands , which was nicely located right by the Gardens by the Bay, an attraction we had planned to visit. (By the way, the view of the gardens from the hotel at night is amazing!) We changed to shorts and t-shirts, and went out for our first sight-seeing of the trip. We enjoyed the Gardens a lot. It was a good first introduction to trop