As if we hadn't spoiled ourselves enough over the last year, we decided to take a trip to London. This allowed us to combine a meeting for potential jobs with some sightseeing! It had been years since Mike had visited our nation's capital & a good opportunity for Sarah to show him the London she knows from all her visits over the years. As we had left our backpacks at home, we decided to check into the very swish "Howard Hotel" with views of the Thames river and a short walk to Covent Garden, the perfect place to pamper ourselves. After [View Full Entry]

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We were unsure about doing an “and finally” blog with our “best bits” from the last year. Truth is we have had such an amazing time and really liked keeping our blog, so we’re going to continue writing it for all the new places we visit. We’ll start that in just a moment, but first we just want to say thank you to all of you who have touched our lives in different ways over the last year. You have inspired and comforted us, made us laugh and helped open our eyes to new cultures. Thank you all….. So onto our [View Full Entry]

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So here’s the deal, we’ve made a list of things we wanted to tell you in this entry about San Francisco, our last American city on this trip. It ended up being sixteen “points of interest,” (normally there are around eight) so not only has San Francisco been another fabulous time in our travelling lives, but we have so much to share with you. Now, do we let this become one of those mammoth entries that takes you a while to read or keep it short and sweet!? (We do understand some of you have lots of “internet research time in [View Full Entry]

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Our welcome to British Columbia came from beautiful Vancouver Island, a short hop on the ferry from Horseshoe Bay on the mainland. The island gave us not only great views but also a very friendly welcome. We want to share with you a few of our highlights from the island and Vancouver city, our reasons to enjoy this wonderful part of the world. ON THE ISLAND: Tofino & Whale Watching We drove to Tofino, arriving at dusk we quickly realised why this is a top place to visit if you are on the island. It is surrounded by islands and lush [View Full Entry]

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What do you think about when you imagine Canada? For us it is mountains, rivers, bears & maple leaves! Well coming to Jasper and Banff National Parks certainly ticked all the boxes on our ideas of what Canada is like. Known as the Rockies, they stretch over Alberta and British Columbia. To see them properly we decided to rent a car from Calgary and drive to the nearest mountain resort of Banff a two hour drive. Staying in Banff overnight before heading up to Jasper, the furthest point on our trip. We took a full day to drive the 350kms, stopping [View Full Entry]

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“The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth” Known as the Calgary Stampede is simply an excuse for cowboys to have a great party! Nine days in July, it culminates in $1.8 million prize money being given away for the best cowboys in various disciplines. Of course it is also a great opportunity for the people of Alberta and Calgary in particular to show off their own brand of ‘something special.’ We are now recovering from our week of non stop partying and look back at our time filled with lots of Yahoo’s, Yeeha’s, dancing, laughing and meeting some [View Full Entry]

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And what a night it was!!! Leaving mum, Carolyn & Josh at Washington DC airport for their flight back to Dublin, we had to take the Dodge V8 monster car back to Toronto. My plan has always been to visit New York with friends to enjoy all the girlie things I'd love like the "Sex & the City" tour & cocktails!! Plus, I'd have a good budget instead of being in backpacker mode! However being so close (only a five hour drive) I'd told Mike how much I'd love to see the Statue of Liberty, so he planned the route down [View Full Entry]

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It’s hard to know where to start with this entry for Washington DC. We seem to have done so much in this understated US capital city. We arrived pretty fresh, considering the long drive from Niagara, across the unfriendly, lengthy checkpoint at the Canada/US border crossing. Leaving Llanore, Carolyn & Josh at their hotel, we went to check in at ours, a ten minute walk away. Not for the first time on this trip, we arrived to find that the hotel didn’t have our reservation. We had used vipbackpackers.com to reserve a room a few months prior and, despite our confirmation [View Full Entry]

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A very special meeting was taking place in Toronto! My mum, sister & nephew were coming across from Belfast to spend some time with us in Canada & the United States. I was very excited to be seeing my family after ten months of travelling. After a short wait at arrivals, the three of them came through the shiny white doors of the gate at terminal one in Toronto International Airport and a pack of wild horses couldn’t hold me back. Hugs from your mum truly are priceless! Travel to the airport for Mike & I involved getting two trams, two [View Full Entry]

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Well, we had zero preconceptions about Chicago! The reality of why we ended up in the windy city was because the flight from Dallas to Chicago was much cheaper than the one to Toronto, so we decided to stopover for a couple of days and then get the bus to Toronto to meet my mum. On arrival in Chicago we had a mini-drama when one of our bags wasn't delivered on the same flight. We were told it would arrive on the next flight so we decided to wait for it. Once all was in order, we took the train to [View Full Entry]

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