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Travel Tips

After Years of Family Travel, We’re Dreaming of a Cruise for Two

Charles and I started traveling together back in 2003, when it was just the two of us with backpacks, a loose itinerary, and a whole lot of enthusiasm for seeing the world. Since then, we’ve explored more than 40 countries together, built a travel business, and spent nearly 18 years traveling with our two kids. […]

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Small Enough for Travel, Strong Enough for Home Backup

We’ve tested a few larger BLUETTI power stations over the years, and they’ve been useful when we wanted serious backup power. The tradeoff is pretty obvious, though. Bigger batteries take up more room, weigh more, and aren’t necessarily something you casually grab on the way out the door. That’s what made the BLUETTI Elite 100

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How to Prepare for the Unexpected While Traveling

After years of travel, we’ve learned one thing for sure: something unexpected will happen eventually. We’ve dealt with cancelled flights, lost luggage, buses that were supposedly air conditioned but very definitely were not, and even accidentally overstaying a visa. Some travel problems are annoying. Others can get expensive or stressful pretty quickly. You can’t plan

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Thinking About Living Abroad? 8 Questions to Ask Before You Make the Move

After more than 20 years of travel, Charles and I have spent a lot more time outside Canada than the average vacation allows. We spent about five months in Australia, months at a time in other countries, and long enough in places like Spain, Portugal and Costa Rica to settle into some pretty ordinary routines.

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How to Plan a Last-Minute Escape With Travel Apps

When we first started traveling together almost 20 years ago, spontaneous travel could be genuinely spontaneous. We sometimes arrived in a town without a hostel or hotel booked, partly because plenty of smaller places still didn’t have online booking. We’d print directions, call around, or simply show up and hope someone had a room. Today,

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Holafly Plans Review (2026): Best Global eSIM?

This post is sponsored by Holafly. As always, all opinions and experiences are my own. This post also contains affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through my links, at no additional cost to you. If there is one thing our year abroad has taught me, it’s that

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Could You Live Here? Portugal, Spain, Costa Rica or Panama

After more than 20 years of traveling, there’s one question Charles and I seem to ask ourselves over and over again. Could we actually live here? It’s a surprisingly different question from whether we like visiting somewhere. We’ve loved countries that would probably drive us a little crazy if we tried to live there full

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Why You Sleep Like a Log in Hotels but Terribly at Home

After more than 20 years of travel, Charles and I have slept in pretty much every kind of place you can imagine. We’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels, hostels, huts, Airbnbs and rental apartments, plus our fair share of cars, tents, vans, RVs, and other places that probably stretched the definition of accommodation. We’ve slept

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Serious Home Backup Power That Grows With You

BLUETTI provided the Apex 300 for us to test and review. As always, all opinions are our own. A few days before we began testing the BLUETTI Apex 300, nearby wildfire smoke pushed air quality in the B.C. Southern Interior to the worst in the world. The same smoke and ash were also causing flickering

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Power Banks in Checked Luggage? 2026 Airline Battery Rules

Most travellers now fly with several battery-powered items: a phone, laptop, tablet, camera, headphones, smartwatch, portable charger or vape. But packing one of them in the wrong bag can cause real problems at the airport. In 2026, aviation safety authorities are warning travellers to pay closer attention to lithium batteries after reports that millions of

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