I was there last year. The weather throughout the entire country hardly ever changes. Quito doesn't even have a real forecast; it's always 55 degrees with like a 60% chance of rain. The beaches are always sunny with a small chance of rain. Must-dos: -Quito - enjoyed it although my expectations weren't high -Banos - entrance to the jungle -Montanita - crazy party scene. Awesome surfing. -Galapagos - self explanatory I had pretty low expectations; just found a super cheap flight and booked it. Highly recommend, cool country.
Only like 8-9 days, a short one over NYE. I was back in Alabama for the holidays and found a super cheap JetBlue flight out of New Orleans. Not sure out of Seattle, honestly. Was originally going to do Galapagos, but I'm not certified so it got real expensive real quick when I looked into that. Did Quito, short 2 days/1 night to Banos, then off to Montanita. Montanita was insane, but I probably spent too long there. Surfing was incredible, though. Wish I could've spent more time in Banos.
https://www.nhongosafaris.com/ Cannot recommend enough. They're #1 or 2 on TripAdvisor. We did the 3 day "budget beater" for a little over $500: https://www.nhongosafaris.com/wildl...ris/budget-safaris/3-day-budget-beater-safari Accommodations, food, everything was great.
I've played Gold and Emerald courses at Wailea, Emerald was way more fun in my opinion. If Makena is an option that one's not bad either, the views are great from the north course. It may be all resort only now, not sure that was in 2009.
Has anyone been to Punta Mika in Mexico? Staying at a condo for a few nights and ending our trip at the St Regis.
After much discussion (hey you wanna go to South Africa?) I have now booked tickets to South Africa for December. Thank you for you help on Peru and other unrelated Spanish speaking countries
Flying two new airlines for me as well, so that's cool. Ethiopian there and Etihad home. Never been to either of those hub airports
Very nice. Gonna be a little spicy, Kruger will be well into triple digits. What's your route? Dubai --> Seattle yesterday was one of my worst flight experiences ever. Don't think I'll ever do that distance in economy again. Also, be forewarned that great white shark diving is largely dead in South Africa. We got lucky as shit and saw one juvenile, like 6-7 feet long, but they have like 1 siting a week. A few years ago some killer whales moved into the bay and scared all of them away. Still an awesome experience. Apparently Guadalupe, Mexico is the hot-spot for great whites now. I'll get a write-up in a few days.
I was molded by the heat so it's hard to find somewhere people actually want to visit that will bother me. Dulles to add, add to jburg Jburg to Abu Dhabi, Abu to Dulles Was booking them on points and all the Capetown shit went through lhr at some points and added like 450 bucks in fees, so I'll just book a couple 80 buck flights back to jburg for the return trip
Girlfriends from just south of Annapolis and we have a wedding the Saturday before the Monday we depart so I'll be up there already
Just got back from Seychelles, South Africa, Kenya/Tanzania, and Belize. Ill share some thoughts in the next few days.
Thats why I didn't go shark diving while in cape town. It seemed like a decent chunk of change, early rise and effort for a low percentage gamble. Instead I went diving with seals out of simons town. And yea Guadalupe island is the new hot spot for shark viewing, clearer waters, costs about 3k? my coworker did it in November said it was incredible.
It was only like $200, so not very bad. We still saw a shit load of 7-10 foot copper sharks, got some awesome gopro footage. And still got to see a great white, which has been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember. But yea, water is not clear and cold AF. We took a day and drove all around the cape, into Simon's Town/Boulder's Beach/Cape Point. That's one of the most beautiful areas of the world I've ever seen.
Renting a car and exploring the southern cape for a day was amazing shit. The west coast drive is stunning
That whale watching shit I did was 50 bucks and it's not cage diving with great whites but it definitely wasnt 60 times less cool
Arkadin you're going the "bad" time of the year for sharks and water visibility. I went in November and it was still awesome. Had a few 7-8 foot sharks around the boat all day
it was mainly Africa for a month, then a stop over in NY/Boston for 10 days, saw flights to Belize were $170 to Belize one way and just decided to take a detour heading home for another 10 days.
Yea its not terrible but I was just spending alot as it was, didn't feel like spending $200 on something that was real hit or miss. It is significantly cheaper than a 3 grand trip to guadalupe though
Green Point. Downtown can get pretty sketchy. We stayed in Obs ("Observatory"), which is kind of hipster area, but a pretty young crowd.
If you want to spend some dough, do this. Would probably be worth it for just one or two nights. I'd try Green Point when in the city, but would also try to do 2-3 nights in Simon's Town or in the beautiful towns south of Cape Town
Anywhere here really, I stayed at a bnb in sea point. Uber is stupid cheap to get around (think I paid consistently around 2$).
If you need a hostel, stayed at 91 Loop in Cape Town as well. Good central location, good amount of people interacting, clean.
The bang for your buck there is pretty great. Walking out of a decently nice bar having 3 drinks and walking out spending 6$ including tip is fantastic. Granted it was happy hour but still. Also be prepared to eat, some really good restaurants there.
Well shit guys. South Africa has always been high on my bucket list but y'all are really making me feel like I need to do something asap.
Anybody have any advice or thoughts on a Scandinavian trip? Thinking next May or June and want to do 3 cities/countries. Maybe Oslo-Stockholm-Copenhagen or similar.
leave Monday for Copenhagen-Stockholm so will report back theres supposedly a cool ferry between Copenhagen/Oslo and can high speed train to Stockholm
If I had 3 to pick I’d go Copenhagen, Helsinki, Tallinn. Stockholm was ok, but I liked the other 3 better and I didn’t care for Oslo at all. I’d go to Bergen over Oslo if you are set on Norway.
Not set on anywhere at this point- just started researching. Want to do some hiking and outdoorsy type stuff for part of the trip and Norway seems like the spot to do it, so wherever is best for that will be the plan.