Ripples and Ripple’s
travels

Hello, Ola, Hola, Ciao, Howdy…

Happy 2023, and now reflecting back on it all…trust yours was a good year!  We got more traveling in the last few years, 2020-2023, then we ever have before…and very, very grateful for that, along with staying safe and healthy.  Yes, still my favorite, highly recommend travels to Portugal.  After a month in Portugal at the end of 2019/start of 2020, then June, July, August in Portugal we played hard and worked hard.  Croatia was a great visit…loved swimming in the clear waters of the Adriatic Sea.  We landed in Mexico to wrap up some business and looking to see what 2021 might hold.  And, we had some nice surprises in 2021, as we traveled to Panama City and Bocas del Toro in Panama and then got to spend a lot of time in the towns of Ajijic and Chapala, Mexico.  We spent most of 2022 in Ecuador, the start of our Phase II…see below.  For 2023, we finally got over to S.E. Asia and basing in the Philippines, exploring areas here, in Singapore and Bangkok, along with getting the chance to get back to Arizona for T.C.’s wedding.  We have some interesting things brewing for 2024 that we’ve had on our list since we started our journey.  We’ll keep you posted on our travels…stay safe, stay healthy!

Philippines

Yes, we finally made it over to S.E. Asia, part of our original 2020 bucket list.  We’ve been here since January 2023 and 2024 may continue our exploring of S.E. Asia, basing out of the Philippines.  Singapore is like living in an arboretum.  Bangkok is…well, we want to get back and explore much more.  We want to get to a couple more beaches in the Philippines this year, stay healthy, live long and prosper!  More about our travels coming up.

Ecuador

Our longest stay to date, all part of our Phase II of travels.  We got to South America, arrived in Manta, Ecuador in May 2022, coming from Mexico, Guadalajara and Puerto Morelos along the Caribbean.  We will share lots more in our 2022 travel blogs.  And, as you have seen the whale on our pages, we were in full whale season in Manta seeing the whale migration from the south, from Antarctica.

Mexico

Some of our 2019 blogs include our travel stories and pictures.  We’ve found blogging on the website a nice way to “journal” or “diary” our travels and a way for family to check in with where we are and for them to catch up with us around the world.  So, we started 2019 with Valentine’s in Mexico, Playa del Carmen for a good 9, 10 days at an all inclusive resort…just awesome.  There was also a large theme type park adjacent, part wild zoo, part swimming areas, entertainment, food, easily one full day and could do another day or two there. We took the opp to tour bus a visit to Chichen Itza which is pretty wild.  On the way back we got to swim in a cenote, one of the deep sunken water holes in the region…very, very cool!

We got back to Mexico, end of 2020, and got to spend many fun months in Mexico in 2021.  We’ll be spending a few more months in Mexico, the first part of 2022, looking to explore some new areas to us.

Portugal

Upon our arrival to Arizona, January 2020, we started making plans to visit Portugal during the holidays, again for some four weeks.  We arrived in Lisboa for a few days before we set off to pet/home sit in central Portugal visiting nearby villages and town and celebrating Christmas and New Years.  From there we spent a few days in Porto, exploring that charming, bustling city and then made our way back on down to Lisboa.  Another awesome journey and highly recommend.  In fact, we are making plans to summer along the Mediterranean in Portugal, Spain and check out Croatia, as well.  So, definitely check back in with us as we’ll be adding our travel activities and pictures to the site.  Ciao…

As we noted above, after all said and done, we did arrive in Portugal in early June.  There was one obstacle after another, and after all that has been going down this past year, we feel very fortunate to be continuing with our plans from January.  We’ll be blogging, starting our vlogging, maybe even combining that with Joanie doing podcasts, so stick around, sign up, and we’ll share our travel experiences with you, along with health and wellness tips.  Ciao…