Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from 2018

Panama Getaway. Recommending Bocas Del Toro

Over the last few years, we have been lucky for the kids to have the week of Thanksgiving off and we have taken advantage of the break to go to a warm place as temperatures cool down in California. We often leave at the beginning of that week, returning on Thanksgiving day, when fares are cheaper. After a few years visiting Hawaii, we found out that going to Central America is a great idea. Flights are convenient (red eyes), time differences are 1 or 2 hours max, and the ocean temperature on the Caribbean side is much warmer. After a successful trip to Roatan, Honduras in 2017, we decided to try Panama in 2018. We picked a nice hotel, Red Frog Beach resort, on a small island in the Bocas del Toro province. We had picked this region for the weather, the combination of jungle in the island and proximity to the ocean for snorkeling and diving, and the promise of a nice little fishing village. We were not disappointed.  The resort was nice, with individual villas and bungalows, a nice ac

Italy and Malta with kids

2018 was the year when we finally went back to Italy after a 10-year break. We were so excited to show Italy to the kids. We spent a good part of the last few months telling the kids about Italy and getting them very excited! (I was concerned they might get disappointed after we had built so much anticipation!) But we had a great time, visiting old buildings, learning about history and eating our way through Italy. We had planned to visit Italy from North to South (mostly traveling by train), with a final stretch to Malta, which was a new and interesting destination for us adults. We started out in Venice, where we had planned to spend the first 3 days, to recover from the trip and enjoy and easy transition to the more active part of our stay. It worked out pretty well because our flight to Frankfurt got delayed and we missed our connection... so we lost 1/2 day on the way there (although we enjoyed a nice evening in Frankfurt too).  In Venice, we kept activities pretty low key. When w