June 16-18 Exchange rate: 1.3 Singapore dollars (SD) to 1 US dollar. Singapore is an independent city-state that sits at the tip of the Malay peninsula. It’s demographic make-up is 74% Chinese, 14% Malay, 9% Indian, and 3% “other”. All the signs, and announcements, are in English. The city, a …
May 18-21, 2023 Currency conversion – 34 Baht to each $1 US. Thailand has long been a destination for travelers – tropical beaches, friendly locals, and very inexpensive food and housing. When we stayed in 1999, we had a beach bungalow with western toilet (not as common at the time) …
There were a number of options for tours in Belize – more snorkeling, a city and food tour, a day sail – but the most popular is a day trip to the Mayan Ruins at Altun Ha (a little over an hour drive, should have taken longer but our driver …
Alaska Cruise on the Nieuw Amsterdam August 2022 I realized in reviewing my prior posts about the Yukon/ Klondike Gold Rush, I had failed to relay the story of how it all began – which is interesting in and of itself. The Klondike Gold Rush National Park (entry is free) …
Holland America Nieuw Amsterstam Cruise 2022, Part I We’d said adieu to our tour guide Bridget when we arrived in Anchorage, so we had to be responsible adults and get ourselves to the bus outside the hotel at the appointed time to transfer us to the train to Whittier, where …
Pacific Northwest and Alaska 2022 We definitely had the best day to see Denali – the day before had been misty and spitting rain, and the day after, on the Wilderness Train to Anchorage, it was flat out raining for the first half of the 8-hour trip. We sat in …
Denali! Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) National Park and Preserve was established in 1917 (though not the first area designated as a National Park – that goes to Sitka National Historic Park in 1910) and now covers 6 million acres (7,408 square miles) – the 5th largest National Park in the US. …
Yukon Ho! We began our Yukon expedition with the White Pass Railroad tour to follow in the footsteps of the 1897 Klondike Gold Rush. The initial “Stampeders” as the prospectors heading into the Yukon were called, would take a steamship from Seattle to Skagway. Due to the number of those …
Friends and Family II: Philadelphia Flower Show & Memphis The Philadelphia Flower Show started in 1829 and is the oldest and longest running flower show in the world, and remains the biggest in the US (the largest in the world is the Hampton Court Garden Festival in Surrey, England in …