****I had to edit this and make it 6 top travel memories after our trip to Guatemala with Beckham!
I am adding the most recent memory to the beginning of the list 🙂
1) Beckham Taking His First Picture of Us
Our first backpacking trip WITH Beckham was to Guatemala in August 2019.
It was really exhausting, and very difficult.
At one point we were trying to enjoy a beautiful view of Antigua while watching Beckham to make sure he didn’t throw himself over the balcony.
All of the sudden I had the idea to have him take a picture of us. Dan and I never have pictures anymore of just us and there was no one around to take it.
He. took. the. picture. and. we. flipped. He was so cute taking it and we were cracking up. When he finished, we looked at it and screamed because it was actually good and we spun him around and he laughed and laughed and laughed.
And I had a moment where I felt like traveling with children was better than anything else I had ever experienced before.
And it was a good feeling.
WOWZA it’s hard to narrow down to only 5 memories but these are truly my favorite and the ones I thought of first when I decided to make this list!
2) Salkantay Trek to Macchu Picchu
Peru was the first international trip Dan and I took together after being married. It is also one of my favorite countries. This was back in 2012 before social media had as strong of a presence and I had never heard of the Salkantay Trek. We were in Peru volunteering at a kindergarten and had an extra week before we headed back to Utah. We knew we wanted to see Macchu Picchu and after some research we decided on the Salkantay Trek, which is a 46 mike trek from Mollepata (north of Cusco) to Aguas Calientes).
What an experience. There was one other guy that was supposed to be on the trek with us but he ended up eating street food (llama heart….not joking) and getting super sick (BAD idea people!!!) so it was just us and our guide for 5 days. It. Was. Incredible.
The hike goes through various nature areas of the Andes with amazing scenery and wild life. One night we slept under the stars and it was like someone knocked over a salt shaker. The whole sky was dotted with billions of stars. We woke up the next morning to wild horses grazing around us and the sun coming up through the Salkantay Pass.
This was when I realized the mountains in Utah are actually not that big haha. I remember being in awe as we passed through the mountains and I felt like a tiny ant next to them!
Porteros took our things on horseback and met us at the campsite every evening with a cooked meal. We had a lot of lomo saltado (beef strips with onion, tomatoes, french fries and rice)! We would sit and scarf down our food, SO exhausted from hiking all day.
I’ll never forget arriving in Augas Calientes. The World Cup was going on at the time and every restaurant was packed with spectators. We hobbled into the town along the train tracks and crashed in our hostal beds, too tired to move.
The next morning we woke up before the sun rise to finish our hike to Macchu Picchu. We sat on the top of Huyana Picchu as the sun rose and the mist cleared. That was a sacred experience. There is no other place like it on earth.
3) Ancient Ruins in Cambodia
If you know me, you know I can NOT sit still when I travel. Also, Southeast Asia is one of my favorite places on earth. Dan and I rented a scooter when we were in Cambodia (another one of my favorite things to do while traveling) and I convinced him to wake up to see the ruins with me before sunrise.
When the alarm went off in the morning I was already awake. Too excited to sleep! We jumped on the scooter and I told Dan I would be the driver. We headed off to be the first people to see the ruins. It was pitch black and I hit a speed bump going so fast that we both got air! We laughed so hard. Okay maybe Dan actually was not laughing? I sure was!! Haha.
We made it to the famous Angkor What as the sun was coming up behind the ruins, but we decided we wanted a place more secluded and away from the crowds. We ended up just driving around and seeing a ton of smaller ruins that were not named all by ourselves. It was a cool feeling to be the only people out. There were no sounds except for the sound of our motor.
Get up early and beat the crowds for a really cool experience!
4) The Northern Lights in Alaska
Alaska is my spirit-state. If you love the outdoors, make sure to get to Alaska. It literally has everything. And for someone who hates to be hot and sticky, it was the absolute coziest trip ever. We went in September and it was the perfect month. I would definitely recommend going between June and September. The summer has long days and incredible fresh and sunny weather. I loved going in September because all of the fall leaves were out but the snow had not yet started to fall yet. This is also the time of year that it becomes possible to see the Northern Lights again and we were lucky enough to see them!
We spent 9 days driving from Anchorage up to Denali National Park and then all around the southern Kenai Peninsula. What an experience. I felt like it was the freshest air I had ever breathed and the most uncharted land. We spent the week kayaking, fishing the Kenai, learning about huskies in Denali, eating amazing seafood, hiking and just breathing in the scenery.
My favorite thing about our whole trip was renting a camper van. It gave us the flexibility of staying longer in places we loved and we were able to chase the Northern Lights!
A lot of things have to align for the Northern Lights to be visible (I’ll write another post about that). Factors such as time of year, solar flares, how clear the night sky is, etc. And predictions can be wrong, too. There is no way to guarentee with 100% certainty that you will see them. We followed
https://www.gi.alaska.edu/monitors/aurora-forecast religiously and talked to all of the locals. One night we apparently drove away from the spot where the Northern Lights shone brighter than they had in a long time. We stayed up most of the night scanning the sky and saw nothing!
Our last night, however, we parked our camper van. We had made some friends that had a cabin in Seward and they said we could stay there. We were leaving for the airport in the morning and I was really bummed because Dan had never seen the Northern Lights and I wanted to experience it with him. He had fallen asleep on the couch and sat scanning the sky, looking out the giant back window of the cabin past the woods and the lake into the vast Alaskan night.
All of the sudden I saw a streak of green. I didn’t want to wake Dan up until I knew it was for real but I also knew sometimes they only last a few minutes. I got up and ran FULL SPEED outside to check it out. I ran STRAIGHT into the glass sliding doors and was thrown back onto the ground. It knocked me out hahaha. Guess I was a little over excited haha.
Dan woke up and both of us half out of it ran to the back yard to see. The greens and yellows snaked across the sky and I felt like I was on another planet. Sometimes they hid behind the pine trees surrounding the lake we were on and then they would pop back out.
After a while we got cold so we went inside and wrapped up in a blanket to continue watching the show from the warm leather couch in the cabin. It was the perfect end to our time in Alaska.
5) Waterfall Hopping in Australia
Australia is THE coolest place. It feels like a super diverse version of Canada with really dangerous animals haha. I chose to Cairns, Australia on a girls trip and we had a BLAST. Australia is a great easy start for people who are not used to traveling. It is clean, friendly, and really easy to navigate. It’s also HUGE and there are so many different types of ecosystems. I can’t wait to go back.
I had to add Australia to my list not only because I LOVE Australia but because Uncle Brian’s Tours is possibly the best tour I have ever been on! It is specifically geared toward young backpackers and we had an absolute blast. We were packed in a van all day with other backpackers from all over the world. Uncle Brian blasted Australian music and taught us some fun songs. We stopped at waterfalls all over the Athernon Tablelands and slid down rocks, jumped off cliffs and even tried swimming under and behind the falls.
The trip included an amazing lunch at a farm with fresh produce and ended with a search for platypus and a didgeridoo performance. We also snorkeled the Great Barrier Reef on this trip but Uncle Brian’s Tours won by a landslide. Here’s a link to the website. https://unclebrians.com.au/
6) Snorkeling in The Galapagos Islands
My girlfriend Kayleigh agreed to come with me to the Galapagos Islands and it was MAGIC. I feel like a lot of times you see things on TV/Instagram/Pinterest and then you get there and it’s nothing like how you imagined it. The Galapagos Islands were the opposite. Everything was even BETTER than I imagined. And I am someone with really high hopes so that’s saying something haha.
We decided to do a land-based vacation (best option if you want to experience the islands on a budget) and based our time doing day trips out of Santa Cruz and Isabela.
We literally felt like we were being filmed on episodes of National Geographic. There was one point on our Tuneles tour that I teared up in my snorkel mask because I was swimming in the center of 6 giant seat turtles and a few Galapagos Penguins. It was incredible.
You really feel like you are on another planet there because the animals have no fear of humans. They are treated with complete respect and appreciation, which is really cool to see. We saw blue footed boobies, a ton of sea lions and even a cave full of sharks. It was just something else.
If you are a photographer or love animals, Galapagos is your PLACE! And there is a misconception that it costs $$$ to go there. I’m planning on writing a future post with all of the tips to save money there!