Glamping for Foodies: the Vinha da Manta experience
The Vinha da Manta experience starts with the drive there. Skirting Guarda*, you head to the Mondego Valley which hugs the Serra de Estrela mountain (a natural park and the only place you can go skiing in Portugal). Through a few picturesque villages – including Chaos! – that boast a gorgeous view of a dammed (not damned) lake, you then turn towards Faia before finally seeing a sign for Vinha da Manta that takes you up a dirt track lined by old stone walls. Arriving at Vinha da Manta,
30+ Reasons why we love Portugal
and why you should plan a visit This is an ever-growing list about why we love Portugal, a reminder to ourselves and an invitation for you to come and visit to see what we mean and why we love our adoptive country so much. We love Portugal because of… 1. Its truly cosmopolitan population stemming from a rich (if relatively unknown) history mixing cultures in a very open-minded way. Quite the contrast from their neighbors coughcough-spanishinquisitionanyone 2. Vinho Verde, a type of white wine made with very young grapes, often slightly fizzy and
Costa Rica: More Bark than Bite
The last official stop on our around-the-world honeymoon was Costa Rica, the country so renowned for its breathtaking nature and a government that manages to stay at peace with its neighbors in spite of not having an army. Having been there however, Costa Rica to me is a bit like prom – or a high school dance for those who did not grow up in the US. It’s something you hear so many stories about, see in movies, and have such high expectations for that when the day comes
Going “Wild” in rural Colombia: the B&B life and Chasing Waterfalls
While in Colombia, we spent two weeks volunteering on yet another great project we found through Workaway: an eco-tourism Bed & Breakfast (B&B) called “Finca Agrreste”. The name is inspired from the word “agreste” with one “r” which means “savage” or “wild” in Spanish. The property lies a few hours North of Bogota, between the towns of Nemocon – known for its salt mine – and Suesca. The manager, Felipe Galindo, used to work in petrochemical engineering. Today, he manages six B&B properties in the general region of the
Building muscles in Uruguay, one smile at a time
Up in the hills outside of Rocha, a small town North East of Uruguay’s capital Montevideo, sits what looks like a hobbit house. Three geodesic domes built of wood, mud, and thatch sit overlooking a gently sloping piece of land called “Tierra Alegre” or “Happy Earth”. This is Juli and Libre’s little piece of paradise. They moved here a few years ago when Juli was pregnant with their son Indi – who has the longest eyelashes I have ever seen and is now two years old. Also a part
For the love of Avocado!
Fact: avocados are delicious. I am not sure it is possible to get tired of eating avocado – its versatility as a food is limited only by our imagination. I have heard of replacing butter with avocado in baking recipes as well as breading and frying slices of avocado as fries. All that to say, we would love to have avocados on our future farm. So as we perused Workaway, we decided to look for an avocado farm to go spend some time on and learn what growing avocados
Tasmaniac Campervan Adventures
Itinerary Hobart – Paradise – Cradle Mountain – Launceston-ish – Bay of Fires – Wineglass Bay – Hobart Our Campervan Adventure Tasmania blew our minds, and we did not even see half the things there were to see on the island. After our two week stay at Tiger Hill Farm in Buckland, we spent a few days in the quaint city of Hobart – with more second hand bookstores than pubs, and a lot of pubs – before heading off to explore the North of the island. The challenge was
Working the land in Tasmania
One of the first projects we got really excited on Workaway, when we started looking for places to volunteer during our around-the-world belated and extended honeymoon trip, was Tiger Hill Farm. Paul Kean, the owner of the property, was a little surprised at our email as it came more than a year ahead of time (we might have been slightly over-eager). However, that gave us the opportunity to Skype once or twice and confirm that our time in Australia would include a few weeks in Tasmania. All thanks
Reflections from halfway around the world
Can a year of travel and experiences change a person? Or maybe I should ask how could it not? Being at the “halfway mark” of our one year around-the-world belated honeymoon “sabbatical”, both geographically and time-wise, it seemed like a propitious time to pause and reflect on our adventures so far. To date, we have visited a selection of countries in Europe, East and South Africa, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Next is South and Central America. We have narrowly missed bombings (Thailand, August 2016) and two earthquakes
Free-range is eggxactly where it’s at
Sometimes when you get to a destination it feels like you are coming home, usually a combination of the how you respond to the physical space and most importantly the people. That’s what Kenilworth Free Range Farm was to us. We arrived in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast on a dark and rainy night (yes, the irony was not lost on us), having taken a bus for a few hours from Brisbane airport. We spent one night in the McWilliams’ home “in town” before heading to Kenilworth Free Range