Tag Archives: rural villages

This post will show you a scenic drive in New Zealand, down the South Island West Coast. We will take the State Highway 6 from the Pancake Rocks and drive south towards Lake Matheson and the glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox. Further south on our 370 km drive we will come to Haast, the place where to turn inland.  ...

This post on the scenic route from Christchurch to Greymouth begins a series of posts on our campervan trip around the New Zealand South Island. We bought flights to Christchurch, rented a campervan at the airport and set off from Christchurch to Greymouth and down the West Coast.  The Alpine road from Christchurch to Greymouth takes you across the Southern ...

Curral das Freiras, the Valley of the Nuns, is a hidden valley in the mountains north of Funchal, Madeira. You can easily visit this stunning valley by car from Funchal, it’s just a half and hour’s drive.  The nuns found the place in 1566 and lived there in isolation. The only connection to the outer world was a winding footpath ...

This post will show you a drive through the green island of Madeira as we are making a Santana day trip from Funchal. We will first take the steep road up to Monte and visit Monte Palace Tropical Gardens from where we will continue to the top of Madeira, Pico de Arieiro, 1818 m.  Pico de Arieiro is a fantastic ...

This post will show you a road trip to Western Madeira along good Madeira roads and through many tunnels. Madeira’s west is very much worth visiting. It’s a dramatic area with high sea cliffs and terraced banana plantations on mountainsides. West Madeira is a less touristic area and has always been hard to reach – until the new Via Rapida ...

The beginning of the year is the time to start planning your vacations and trips the coming year. Where would you like to go this year? Where should you go for new, fresh trip ideas?   Should it be sun and beach this year, or should it be nature travel and hiking? Or a short city break including city life, art and culture? ...

California is famous for its giant redwoods but redwood forests have almost disappeared from Californian shores. To see giant trees I made a day trip to Muir Woods Redwood Forest that is the only remaining redwood forest in San Francisco bay area.   The trip was a half day self drive tour and I was traveling with my husband. Muir Woods ...

This post will show you our Melbourne to Sydney drive along coast. To travel from Melbourne to Sydney we rented a campervan and spent more than a week on this scenic coastal route.  We followed the Pacific coastline all the way from Melbourne to Sydney, first south to Phillips Island and on to Wilsons Promontory, then north towards Sydney. That ...

The Santa Ynez Valley Wine Country is one of the new wine regions of California. In addition to vineyards and wine tasting the valley offers pretty small towns like Solvang, Los Olivos and Los Alamos.  The Santa Ynez Valley is in the Central Coast of California between San Francisco and Los Angeles. We toured this new wine region on our road trip ...

We were exploring Southern France and made a list of the Top 10 places in the French Riviera. Our Top 10 list will help you discover the best places near Nice and Monaco, most of which are easy to get to by train. For centuries, the French Riviera has been the Number 1 destination for millionaires, movie stars and royals ...