Travel Journal
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Kanazawa: Tea Ceremony & Geisha [Road Trip Japan #6]
Kanazawa is a major stop on our itinerary. That’s why we’re staying here for 2 nights. This travel diary is part of a series on our road trip in Japan. If you missed the previous episodes, here are the links: the itinerary, diary #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal Day 4 of the road trip (continued) We leave the thatched-roof villages and drive non-stop to KanazawaThis city is considered a “mini-Kyoto,” and it retains traces of samurai and geisha (called geiko in Kanazawa). It’s still too early to check in at the hotel, so we first stop at the samurai…
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Ogimachi, Suganuma, Ainokura, Thatched-Roof Villages and Washi Paper Workshop [Japan Road Trip #5]
We leave Takayama at 8 a.m. because we have a busy day of sightseeing ahead. We need to visit the villages with thatched-roof houses before arriving in Kanazawa for the afternoon. These mountain villages aren’t easy to reach, even though there are a few buses that go there. Most people go by car or on a guided tour. Even Lonely Planet thinks it’s wiser to rent a car. We followed that advice and ended up renting a car for the entire road trip, not just for these mountain villages. This travel diary is part of a series on our road trip in Japan. If you missed the previous episodes, here…
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Takayama & Cherry Blossoms [Japan Road Trip #4]
We wake up early to enjoy our ryokan’s onsen before breakfast. Indeed, the onsen is only open until 9 a.m., and breakfast is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. This travel diary is part of a series on our road trip in Japan. If you missed the previous episodes, here are the links: the itinerary, diary #1, #2, #3 Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal Day 3 of the road trip: After a hot spring bath, we’re hungry. But breakfast is right on time. As usual, it’s hearty and full of local specialties. In the middle is hoba miso, i.e., miso (fermented soybean paste) placed on a…
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Matsumoto Castle, Cherry Blossoms, Wasabi Farm & Ryokan [Japan Road Trip #3]
We woke up rather late today, checking out at 9:45 am. Our hotel in Matsumoto doesn’t offer breakfast, but there’s a large lounge where we can help ourselves to free hot drinks. My parents also bought and brought along plenty of pastries. This travel diary is part of a series on our road trip in Japan. If you missed the previous episodes, here are the links: the itinerary, diary #1, #2 Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal Day 2 of the road trip The hotel owner asks about our plans for the day. I mention Matsumoto Castle. She recommends a hill covered in cherry blossoms,…
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Mount Fuji by car [Japan Road Trip #2]
Now that my parents have arrived safely in Japan, the whole family is together, and we can start our road trip by car. This travel diary is part of a series on our road trip in Japan. If you missed the previous episodes, here are the links: the itinerary, diary #1 Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal Car rental We left bright and early to pick up our car from Sixt. Initially, we thought about doing part of the trip by train and part by car, but after seeing the reasonable rental rates, we figured it was worth doing the whole thing by car. We…
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3 days in Tokyo [Japan Road trip #1]
We were supposed to travel with my parents to Turkey, but our schedules didn’t match. So instead, we invited them to Japan, just after hanami and before the Japanese Golden Week (Japan’s big holidays). Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal We had to get to Japan from Chile, and the journey was very long: an 8-hour flight between Santiago & Atlanta (USA), a few hours of layover, then a 14-hour flight between Atlanta and Tokyo. Luckily, by choosing seats at the back of the plane, we each had an empty seat next to us, making the trip much more bearable. Those long hours on the…
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Back on Easter Island in 2024 (Chile)
We went to Easter Island during our first round-the-world trip (gap year), a few days’ stopover between Tahiti and Santiago. We never thought we’d go back a second time, and yet… this year, the opportunity came up, and to make the most of it, we spent a week on the island. Now, the official name of Easter Island is Rapa Nui, no longer “isla de pascua” or “easter island”. Part 1: Travel JournalPart 2: Practical Tips Part 1: Travel Journal Measures against overtourism Even though the island is in the middle of nowhere (between 5 and 6 hours by plane to the nearest destination), it suffered from overtourism in 2018-2019,…
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3 days in the Sud Lipez desert (Bolivia)
I usually write my articles “while the iron is hot.” In this case, I’m writing it three months late. Since I didn’t note down the name of each stop and my memory is far less reliable than Anh’s, this article won’t be very precise. Sorry 😀 While we’re in Uyuni, I finally decide to book a 3-day/2-night tour to discover Sud Lipez. I hesitated a bit because Anh, due to her sensitivity to altitude, doesn’t want to do this tour. So I leave her in Uyuni for 3 days. There’s no shortage of tour agencies in Uyuni; they all offer the same tours at a similar price. We chose one…
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Digital Nomads: A Month in Buenos Aires (Argentina)
After a few days of rest in Salta, we take a flight to Buenos Aires. It’s either the plane or a 30-hour bus ride, I think the choice is pretty obvious. We could have chosen Salta or Mendoza, but we really liked Buenos Aires, a city that bears a striking resemblance to Paris, so we wanted to spend a month there. It’s not relaxing at all; JB and I have quite demanding projects that require us to stay put for a while and have a fiber-optic connection. The city is massive, we took a hop-on hop-off bus ($30/person) and with the traffic, it took us forever just to do half…
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Rest in Salta (Argentina)
We finally arrive in Salta after a long trip by bus from La Quiaca. We’re no longer in the mountains, it’s very, very hot. We could have had time to explore the surroundings of Salta, but JB thinks we’ve been moving around too much lately and wouldn’t mind a few days of rest before our flight to Buenos Aires. There are 2 five-star hotels in Salta and we choose Alejandro I because it costs half as much as the other one. After a misunderstanding, we think we get a better rate by paying in cash, so we went to get a wad of bills from Western Union (JB explains this…
