Trading the Colosseum for Dawn Departures

These pictures were taken on September 8, 2025.  Jay celebrated this birthday in the city of Rome, Italy.  Here's a peek at that day:

 

Jay and I always try to give ourselves the gift of travel whenever a birthday rolls around. Our recent Alaska cruise took care of my own 2026 milestone, but Jay’s upcoming celebration in September remains entirely unbooked. Our actual confidence in where or when we will fly is floating near rock bottom. Mexico City has surfaced as our primary idea for one simple reason: despite all our years of travel, Jay and I have never spent any time in the capital city. It remains a massive, unvisited five-century-deep megalopolis waiting on our map; it offers a full week of real exploration, provided we can accept the flight schedule.

A quick check of the flight options shows that the airlines make Vancouver-to-Mexico City travel feel like a test of patience. Reaching the city at a reasonable afternoon hour requires an 08:15 Aeroméxico departure, which demands a 05:30 alarm clock setting that borders on biological cruelty. The alternative is Air Canada, which burns an entire calendar day in transit only to deposit passengers at the terminal at 23:15. On top of that, even opting for budget carriers still guarantees a fairly expensive ticket for a trip that stays strictly within North America.

So our plans remain in limbo while Jay and I weigh the scheduling headaches against the thrill of brand new territory. Paying a hefty premium for terrible flight times rubs me the wrong way, yet staggering onto a tarmac before sunrise feels like the inevitable tax for diving headfirst into a premier cultural and culinary hub sitting practically in our continental backyard.

Life is Not a Vlog

I harbour a profound and absolute loathing for YouTube travel videos. If one must endure another painfully chipper "Hello, Guys" introduction, it might just be grounds to throw the router directly out the window. The atrocious planning and abysmal production values of these quote-influencers-unquote are truly staggering. They are perpetually unprepared, entirely winging their itineraries, and offering absolutely nothing of value to learn. Instead, one is subjected to interminable, overly long broadcasts featuring aimless walking or utterly inconsequential documentation of what they happened to eat for lunch. Attempting to unearth content that is both up-to-date and of acceptable quality is a complete and utter waste of precious time.

   

My own alternative for pre-trip preparation, however, is admittedly just as absurd. As the accompanying photograph of our television displaying the classic 1942 Casablanca title card indicates, we depart for the city tomorrow, and my cinematic research is a masterclass in irrelevance. The film was shot almost entirely on California soundstages, save for the local Van Nuys airport and one brief introductory snippet, and a World War II melodrama has absolutely nothing to do with the city in 2026. Do not be surprised if my forthcoming photographs are actually in colour! This is a recurring affliction of mine. I have previously discovered that West Side Story makes for a dreadful practical guide to New York City, and Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday is remarkably unhelpful before visiting the eternal city in the current century, especially if one's not a princess.

Summer Birthday Trips

2022 - Reykjavík, Iceland

 

2023 - Glacier Bay, Alaska, USA

2024 - Alaska, USA / Yukon, Canada Border

  2025 - Jasper, Alberta, Canada

Unknown - 2026

Our June Journeys

For the last three years we have travelled during the month of June. We wanted to visit places that are too cold to visit during our extended winters.  We noticed there were great unexplored parts of the globe that we wanted to see firsthand. 

• In 2023, Jay and I took our first June trip. We stayed in an Airbnb in Nice, France that year and explored the Côte d'Azur. 
•  In 2024, we flew into Berlin, Germany and travelled through Poland and Lithuania, returning from Riqa, Latvia. These were our travels in Northern Central Europe. 
•  In 2025, we flew into Venice, Italy and travelled through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and returned from Bucharest, Romania. This trip introduced us to Southern Central Europe.

Just before we left for last winter, at the end of October 2025, we made a decision for this June.  We got tickets on Air Canada to Casablanca, Morocco via Montreal.  We leave on May 27th and get back to Vancouver on June 24th.

 

Unlike past June journeys, in 2026 we will not visit any new countries.  Rather, we will just explore many new areas with a single country we briefly saw sixteen years ago.  Jay and I were both working in 2010 but we were fortunate to have jobs which provided us flexible scheduling. We remember Tangier, Marrakech, and Fes with fondness.  

We may well transfer through those cities but we're starting to get serious on picking a circle route that takes us to the famous, Blue City and into the Altas Mountains as well as the southern Atlantic coast.  A fun part of travel for Jay and me is doing research before putting feet on the ground.   We leave in about five weeks, so we're beginning to study in earnest.

Time for a More Thorough Exploration

We're still not over jet lag.  Yet that doesn't seem to be keeping us from plans for our next big trip.  This will be the fourth June that we are travelling.  Jay and I have cut our winter trips a bit shorter so that we can visit places in the spring in the northern hemisphere.  

We originally considered heading to the South Caucasus region this year. That would have been new territory for us. However, we chose to take the good weather and see more of a country that we briefly visited in 2010. We will spend an entire four weeks seeing much more. Our last journey was so long ago, our town had a local newspaper! In this shot, we are holding an edition of the Royal City Record in Jemaa El Fnal.  It appeared in print sixteen years ago.

     

We've even started thinking more seriously about how we'll spend next winter and have made some important decisions.

Territorial Range

Day 105 of Our Winter: Some creatures never venture far from where they were born.

   

The monitor land lizard showed up on near the house today. It follows a creek that is mostly dry at this time of year. Although a land monitor can grow up to a meter and a half long and weight 10 kilograms, they have a remarkably small range. In a high-quality area like this neighbhourhood, this monitor will likely never travel more than a few hundred meters from where it was hatched. This is even though their lifespan is around 20 or 22 years!  So, I'm pretty sure this is the same one we have seen again and again.

On the other side of the wanderlust coin, Arctic terns are the undisputed champions of range.  The birds fly from Greenland and Iceland to the Antarctic ice pack and back.  As they don't fly in a straight line each has an annual round trip of 100,000 to 150,000 kms per year.  Arctic terns can live up to 30 years; so, you do the math!

 

Human vary greatly within their species.  Many folks may live quite close to their place of birth for their entire lives.  Whereas others, seem to have been wired to be on the go.  I'm adding this because Jay and I talked a little more about NEXT winter.  Our trips are to different places each year and that requires a lot of pre-planning.  Sometimes I say that the planning is half of the fun because there is a lot to learn if one is going to go someplace to live for three or four months!

Our Final Day in Chiang Mai

Day 091 of Our Winter: This was our final day in Chiang Mai on this trip. If we plan to return here for another visit, we'd best not wait as long as we did between our 1991 visit and this one! Tomorrow, we have an afternoon flight back to Bangkok and our final five nights in Thailand.

 

Our breakfast is inside but right next to the hotel's little pool.  The air is always pretty brisk in the mornings but by midday the heat returns.  As Jay's sisters didn't see Wat Phra Singh the other day, we took a Grab rideshare out to it again. Recovery from their particular flu is taking a long time.  So far, neither Jay nor I are coughing much.  Renuka's is persistent.  We returned from the temple to the gate in another Grab car and walked back to the hotel.

It really is quite amazing how many temples sit in Chiang Mai.  Walk a little in any direction, in the old city and out, and you'll find a temple every few hundred meters.

This evening, Jay and I walked back to the Night Bazaar area by making a large square loop.  It added a few more kilometers to my Fitbit data, but today we only added about 7.21 kms in total.  I lost count of how many temples we walked past outside the old city walls.

We were in Chiang Mai longer than in Pattaya.  Our total nights in Bangkok will be the most as we've already spent three nights plus the remainder of this trip.  Jay and I could definitely spend more time in SE Asia.  It is so easy to travel within the region once settled.  So whether based again in Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, or Indonesia, we could someday end up here again.

Interestingly though, we are thinking of re-visiting bits of South America next winter.  It takes just as much energy to plan as it does to hope.  So, why bother with the latter?

 

A World of Bananas

Day 078 of Our Winer: It didn't particularly feel like a Saturday. Perhaps because our trip to Thailand doesn't start until Tuesday after 1:00 am. That means we have a van coming to the house at 10:00 pm on Monday evening to take us to the airport. So it seems like the weekend is coming rather than already here.  That is the immediate travel destination.

 

This morning started out with the discovery of a new bunch of bananas that were ready to cut.  One other plant was in front of the ready fruit at the back.  A papaya tree was in front of both.  Some of the bunch was already yellow.  If we'd not picked today, animals would've started to have a feast on them.  Squirrels and many types of birds in Sri Lanka enjoy bananas.  In the picture below, Jay and his sister are looking for any others ready for harvest.  You have to look for them mid-frame under the leaves.

We did enjoy the warm weather today.  It might be a tad cooler in parts of Thailand but not for the immediate stay in Bangkok and Pattaya.  When we head to Chiang Mai in the north, the elevation will ensure the evenings are cooler.  We will be away for a total of sixteen nights.  

We completed the new, online Thailand Digital Arrival Cards.  We filled in the passport and hotel information for all four of us.  Immediately we got the PDF with the QR Codes that must be shown to immigration when entering.  Thailand has a lot of tourists and works pretty hard to make it easy.  The last time we were there with Jay's sisters, we saw Bangkok only.  A couple of years ago Sri Lankans required an official visa but the rules have changed.  The print out today is all we need for our journey.

In other travel news, Jay and I have a whole lot of logs on the fire.  We have our return trip that is pretty well planned with flights to Hong Kong and a cruise to Japan.  We fly back to Vancouver from Tokyo.  It will mark the 100th nation we've visited.

Then, we have scheduled another one of our June trips.  We were undecided at first about where we'd head but have ultimately decided on four weeks in Morocco.  We visited once by ferry from Spain but really only saw Marrakech and Fes.  A month will give us a chance to see more of the coast and the Atlas mountains.

Lastly, and most importantly, we decided today that it is definitely not too soon to start discussing the winter of 2026-27.   We had only one day in Rio de Janeiro as a cruise port during the winter we spent in Argentina. We've been wanting to return.  It is a phenomenally beautiful location. Brazil now allows a tourist stay of only 90 days in a calendar year, so we have a chance to do some new exploration before landing to match our usual total of 4.5 months.  We have been looking into Guyana and Suriname.  Yet the initial search shows they are very difficult countries from which to connect to Brazil.   The planning stages are fun for us.  So, we'll keep at it until we find something that works.  We've sailed on the Nile and been on the Mekong. The Amazon River is a bucket list item but it's around 2850 km from Rio.  Anyway, planning ahead is our motto!

We Don't Sit Still for Long

Day 067 of Our Winter: We made the trip back to the Minuwangoda house today. So now, just the elder of Jay's sisters is at her home in Nugegoda. Jay's younger sister came back here several days ago. We witnessed the beginning of a new year on Galle Face Green in Colombo. So, we'd not seen this house since 2025. The traffic was pretty good on the Expressway today. It is so worth paying the US$ 1.25 for the four lane divided highway! The old route is full of such distractions and is constantly congested.

This winter is going quickly. Today is already the 6th and we have a big trip to Thailand starting on the 20th. The sisters will be coming to visit Bangkok, Pattaya, and Chiang Mai with us. We won't get back to Sri Lanka until well into February. 

Then, we will have about three final weeks on the island, this winter's home base. 

Before the end of February, we start our slow journey home. First, we fly to Hong Kong to spend a few nights. Then we board the Holland America MS Westerdam, again.  Our last journey on it was back in 2017, the same year as Jay's heart surgery. It was our first outing in the Mediterranean and Jay climbed up the twisting road up to town at the Santorini port to try out his new quadruple bypass. 

This time we will be heading from HK to Japan. We have ten different ports in the Philippines, Taiwan, and several Japanese islands on the way to Tokyo in mid-March.  Jay and I bought a five port excursions on the HAL website today.  If we were to wait for the last minute, they often sell out.

Japan will be the 100th country to which Jay and I have been.  It seems fitting to spend four nights in Tokyo.  From there, we finally fly to British Columbia ending our winter away. 

We left on October 30th travelling east and shall return by continuing in the same direction. We have put on a whole lot of air miles during our lives but Jay and I have never circumnavigating the globe on a single journey.

Preparing for Winter

The weather today was typical for October. It was 8°C when we got up. I could feel the cold tiles of the balcony right through my slippers when I snapped the photo.  It sort of set the stage for preparation of our winter departure.  We don't fly until Thursday.

We've not started packing yet but we've finished purchasing things that'll go into the bags.  On Turkish Air, we each get two, full-sized, checked bags for free.  When going back to Sri Lanka, we buy a whole lot of things that might be hard to find or more expensive there.  This contrasts day-to-day items like groceries which are much cheaper on the tropical island when compared to Canada.

Jay always manages to finish up the produce and food because we turn off all the apartment's power at the panel.  There's no need to keep an empty refrigerator running for four and a half months.  So, Jay's become a pro at provisioning so that the food has run out by the time we leave for a winter.

Leaving for the winter involves a lot of last-minute actions.  For example, I arranged to turn off our Internet the other week, but today, I downgraded the Netflix subscription.  I wrote the 'leaving letter' that we always leave in the apartment complex office.  

I even descaled, Kevin.  He's the coffee maker and that is his name on our home network.  Kevin would complain if he needed descaling but the water here is very very soft.  I just like having the coffee maker ready to go the morning following our return in March.  I gave Kevin a new charcoal water filter too.

My journal allows me to keep track of the little things of life.  After all, they are what make up the majority of life.  It's interesting to look back on the commonplace things when life has moved on.

Travelling Further Westward Next June

 

Here Jay was standing in Constanța, Romania. Four months ago, we were visiting more of the Balkans of southeastern Europe. We looked across the Black Sea from Varna, Bulgaria too. In both cases, we were looking towards the Caucasus, the land between the Black and Caspian Seas. 

Near the end of last month, I wrote a journal entry about our recent June trips and offered a few of the options we were contemplating for June 2026.  We revisited that topic this morning.  

We might be leaning towards flying to Baku, Azerbaijan and return from Tbilisi, Georgia.  A land trip has to proceed from west to east as one can only leave at land borders from Azerbaijan.  One has to fly into the country. That helped set our search parameters for multicity air tickets today. We decided to start checking the options because we often purchase our June air tickets during the prior October.  And hey, that's now!  But it's not a done deal until the plastic is warm, at least virtually.

 

Whither Come June?

Jay and I have been travelling during winters since we retired early in the autumn of 2014. As I've said in this space, at least a thousand times, we go somewhere warm and sunny. In doing so, we've covered a whole lot of ground. Yet more recently, we found that meant we were constantly missing out on most of Europe. We devised an annual plan to start taking the entire month of June to try and fix that sad realization. 

For only the last three years we've been doing Junes. 

In 2023, we rented an Airbnb in Nice, France and a finally explored the Côte d'Azur. It was delightful and rewarding. Twelve months later, more ambitiously, we explored some of northeastern Europe. We flew into Berlin and took trains and busses seeing the whole of Poland, and some of Lithuania, returning from Latvia.  As a follow up in southeastern Europe, just four months ago, we flew into Venice, Italy and made our way through Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, to fly back from Belgrade, Romania.

During our lifetime, we'd experienced a taste of much of western Europe and bits of central and northern Europe on trips and cruises.  It wasn't until my sixth decade of life and fourth as a team that we've finally got somewhat of a handle on the remainder.

Our pre-trip planning is always meticulous and generally starts months in advance.  We do it all ourselves and that takes time and lots of research.  Therefore, Jay and I have already started talking about June 2026.  We have already discussed possibilities of spending next June:

• re-exploring fascinating Morocco as our time there was brief and its mountains and seaside hold so much to see and do.  
• spending additional time on the eastern side of the Adriatic and perhaps going up to explore Bosnia and Herzegovina.
• heading to the Caucasus. We've talked about Georgia and Azerbaijan for a few years now but have a friend who's flying back from Tbilisi in a few days!

     

However, if I stare for just a few minutes at this image cut from Google Maps, all sorts of other itineraries seem to pop off this screen into my head.  Where to next?

Ricoh Pentax Papilio II (8.5x21)

For years, we've had small binoculars for travel even though they didn't often leave home.  I also once bought a large pair for the apartment that we never use.  They're good for watching things go by on the Fraser but they're big and awkward.  After opening their case, taking off four lens caps, and adjusting them, whatever we'd wanted to spy on would be far up or down the river.

We have a couple of small ones, one set dating back to our days in Saudi Arabia in the mid 1980s.  The most used set have the brand Samsung on them.  They're easy to carry but even though infrequently used are just about worn out.  Even the plastic parts have deteriorated.

I was thinking about what to pack for our one-month trip to the Balkans that begins when we fly on Sunday.  The idea of new binoculars popped into my head.  I did a little research and decided against buying cheap Chinese-branded ones on Amazon.

I settled on this Pentax model because they're a perfect size for travel.  As well as zoom, they have a close up field of view for studying the details of objects in macro.  I can't say whether this will turn out handy but it seemed like a positive bonus possibility.  Oh, and I got them because they reminded me of the cute CGI robot in WALL-E.

Another for the Road

The old, white, lightweight HP laptop was named, Little-Traveller. I guess I'll call this new one Little-Traveller-2 under the device's Windows system info.

   

This aluminum 14" replacement arrived by Canada Post yesterday afternoon. I ordered it directly from the HP Canada website.  For the most part, it's completely set up.  That's not quite the chore it used to be.  However, I certainly have generated a whole lot of notifications and emails about 'logins from a new device'

This will be our primary laptop now.  The former one did a whole lot of travelling over its four years of use.  This one feels a bit sturdier but also is a bit heavier.  We leave for a short break in Las Vegas on Friday.  I'm not sure which one will accompany us to Sin City.

Not a Random Decision

I find I'm spending days trying to pick out a replacement laptop for travel. I'm picky. I find three things I like about a particular model and then one that totally negates those points. On to the next. And the same thing occurs. And ...

I am glad I enjoy doing this type of comparison and contrast. If and when I decide on something, I'll go on to describe it in a future journal entry.

The First Weekend in May

In exactly two weeks, we'll be on a short, three-hour flight down to Las Vegas.  We had a great time during Jay's birthday last September and figured we'd do it again.  We had a bit more time for planning this trip and have picked up tickets for three of the four nights in town.  We'll head to Freemont Street in downtown Vegas on our remaining evening.

Vegas (Again), Baby!

No sun could be seen here today. Outside continues to be cool and rainy. Even when we get back from winter in mid-March, we find that by the beginning of May we can use a long weekend with a change of scenery. 

During the past few years, we've grabbed tiny cruises out of Vancouver. Many ships return for the Alaskan cruise season but often don't really get into a routine until Mother's Day weekend. We took short, 4-night cruises in recent years, first going to Oregon and last year making a special stop in Prince Rupert, BC.  Earlier this year, we couldn't seem to find a repeat for what was becoming an annual event. So, I began to look elsewhere.

 

The night before Jay's birthday on September 7, 2024.

 

When we'd not decided last fall on a trip for Jay's birthday, we defaulted to taking a long weekend in Las Vegas. The flights are less than three hours and often deals can be had during off-peak weekends. Last September, we hadn't been to Vegas in over a decade.  We found it really fun for few days.

Recently, given our lack of cruise options this spring, we picked the first weekend in May as a time to rinse and repeat. This afternoon we purchased several tickets for the last of our three-day stay. We saw The Sphere only from the outside in 2024; however, we now have seat numbers for a standard sphere experience: Postcard from Earth.  We do have other show tickets for the first evenings too! Next month, we'll be doing this on our last night in town:

Thinking about June

This graphic was already used in the journal once. I added it in an entry on November 1, 2024.

 

That was before our winter away.  As I explained, now that we are shortening our snowbird journeys, we are saving the month of June for exploring new destinations.  These are places that share our Canadian winter and therefore cannot be included on our winter travel plans. 

Today, we got back to a little planning for June 2025.  We filled in some of the dates and made a few hotel reservations for a few of our intermediate destinations.  We will move from city to city by train or bus. Some of those details don't require immediate attention but the number of days in each city does require research and calculation.  A great deal of the education one gains from travelling, occurs before one even leaves home!

By protopopica - https://pixabay.com/en/dragon-statue-ljubljana-autumn-3906673/  Ljubljana, Slovenia

Slow Day in Durban / Future Travel Planning

Day 117: We were knackered today. Outside the weather is humid and with a grey haze. We stayed mostly inside puttering around and in the back of our minds, we're aware we will be heading to Johannesburg next Tuesday. 

However, we keep adding future travel plans for 2025.  One graphic I can include is a few of the places we will see during Jay's birthday this year.  There are plenty more journeys before the fall though.  You'll be able to read about those as they happen.  Remember, this journal as been active since the fall of 2003.  That adds up to a whole lot of pictures and words!

 

Plan, Click, and Explore

 

Day 108: Durban has been getting lots of rain. Last night, I bet more rain fell in a 12-hour period than I'd ever witnessed. It went on and on. This put tomorrow and Friday's safari trip into question. However after a morning Whatsapp messaging marathon, we agreed with our guide to be ready at 7:00 am in the lobby tomorrow morning.

We cannot be assured of the weather next week. More importantly, we will also arrange for a different overnight trip next week with the same tour company. We want to spend a night in the country of Lesotho too. We plan to see the Sani pass and spend a night in Mokhotlong.

So, we hope to see some animals in their natural environment which at the time happens to be fairly wet and muddy.  (I will not be taking along the laptop, so my daily updates here may be a bit late appearing online.)

 

We didn't accomplish a lot today and found ourselves sitting around a lot.  We did finalize some reservations for Jay's birthday week at the beginning of September.  We got air tickets to Barcelona the other day and yesterday got the 7-night MSC cruise we'd been eyeing.  Today, Jay added a one-night stay in Barcelona prior to our cruise departure.

When I first graduated from college, I thought a career as a travel agent would be interesting.  Little did I know that people would be able to arrange every detail of own their trips by the time I took early retirement.  We don't often stop to think how profoundly different the world is today than during the years when we were freshly-minted adults.