myretroperspective

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them."  - Mark Twain Thankfully through traveling to three continents and eleven different countries together, my husband and I have fallen more in love with each other (and traveling) than the dreaded latter of the quote above. But through our world galavanting, we've not only learned more about ourselves, but we've also learned some priceless lessons about each other.  So I've compiled a list of five things that you can expect to learn when traveling with your man. 1.  Bathroom language just can't be avoided . Especially when you spend every day for two weeks chowing down on some Thai green curry and a bathroom break is required within 10 minutes of finishing. Check out this  post to see what are must haves in your medicine kit .  2.  Hanger is real ...and ugly. I truly believe that all things said out of hunger should immediately be f...

Phnom Bok Temple If you've been following along for awhile, you know that Jeremy and I love to experience out of the ordinary destinations while on vacation. Whether it's swimming with whale sharks , road tripping across the country , or zip lining through the jungle , one of our favorite parts of traveling is finding places or activities not commonly stumbled upon.  That's why we knew that once we saw all of the temples at Angkor, we also wanted to travel outside of the city to the 'Lost Temples'. These temples give a true Indiana Jones feel as most of it has ben left in ruins, the forest taking back claim to what was once theirs. The first temple we visited was about an hour ride outside the city of Siem Reap called Beng Malea. It was a massive complex that was almost completely destroyed and overgrown with moss and trees. You had to crawl under and climb over the rubble at certain points to make it back to the clear path that was made just for tourists such as ou...

There are so many different types of travelers and traveling styles. There are people who go all out on vacation and do not spare any expense. There are the budget travelers that try to get the most bang for their buck. And there are the backpackers who try to stretch their dollar as far as it will possibly go. There's absolutely no wrong way to travel, it's all simply based on preference and budget. Without a doubt, Jeremy and I fall into the budget traveler category. We like to enjoy ourselves, will splurge from time to time, and try to overall travel comfortably. But for the most part we try to just get the best deal we can and save as much as we can. We figure that the cheaper we can go, the more we can see, longer we can go for and the more often we can go. Win win right?  I have talked before how Jeremy and I have somewhat specific roles while traveling . He books everything from hotels to airline tickets, and I plan what we are going to do and keep track of the budget. ...

One of the most nerve wracking parts of traveling for me is finding a hotel. I have a friend  who has a similar hate and faces buyers remorse every time she books. It's hard not to when there's literally hundreds of choices in each area. So my solution? Let my husband do the dirty work. Thank goodness he's happy and willing to take it off my hands for me. And this time he was able to find the Villa Langka  hotel in Phnom Penh, a gem among the hundreds of choices in the city. When we travel we always look for the same things in our hotels. And thankfully Villa Langka filled all of these requirements. 1. Locally owned and operated aka no chains (only one location in the heart of Phnom Penh) 2. Small in size (48 rooms in total in two different buildings) 3. Budget friendly  ($55 a night with an included buffet breakfast. A deal breaker when we look for hotels) 4. Location location location (just a short walk away from tons of bars, restaurants, and shops) Thankfully in Phnom...

Our time in Chengdu was great. It's a city that is decidedly Chinese and yet with all the development that's happened there in the last 5-10 years, I believe it's finding its own place amongst the international cities of the world. Chengdu folks enjoying a morning cup of tea Some of the hard things about China (for Westerners) are actually more pronounced there when compared with our home in northeast China. There are more people and each of those people seem louder and more boisterous. They're known to have "spicy" tempers. The taxi drivers are CRAZY. They drive much faster than in Shenyang and have less adherence to the rules of the road. I honestly believe that the car horns in Chengdu are audibly louder than in the northeast. The pollution in Chengdu is consistently not good. In Shenyang we will have 2 days with off the chart terrible pollution followed by a couple days of mediocre and then it clears for a day or two. In Chengdu, the pollution level doesn...

SOLD OUT I can't tell you how excited I am for this! When I saw these elephant wallets for sale in a market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I just knew that I had to bring some back. I bought some for gifts, one for myself and I gave one away last week. If anyone searched my bag at the airport they probably thought I was crazy for having so many wallets tucked away in my bag. But then ask me if I care and you'll get a big fat nope . Well here's the great news guys, if you entered the giveaway last week but didn't win, you can still get your hands on one! I have six of these bad boys to sell, in two different designs and you can buy them through my sponsor page . These wallets are well made from recycled concrete bags in Cambodia (how cool is that?!). So if you want your own souvenir from Cambodia, be sure to head over to my sponsor page and snag one up for yourself!

This has to be my favorite videos that Jeremy has made (well besides our wedding video obviously). Swimming with whale sharks was one of the most unique and exciting travel experiences I have ever had and the fact that we have it all on video makes it even better (even if I do make weird expressions when I'm under water). If you want to read more about it, click here . Swimming with GIANTS from Lost.in.Travels on Vimeo . Oh and I've received several questions through comments and emails about what equipment we use for our underwater shots and what was used for our rappelling video . We use a Go Pro Hero 2 (which has now been replaced by the Go Pro Hero 3  on their website) which is a great addition to any travel equipment and we have loved using it on our trips. We mostly use it for video but it has great photo capabilities as well. We also have a few add ons to it which enhance our capabilities even further. We use a dive housing which allows us to take it under water to...

On the last few trips it's become a sort of unintentional tradition to rent a motorbike and take a road trip (you can check out our one in the Philippines and Thailand ). We love it because not only it is a cheaper method of transportation versus taxis or tuk tuks since it's less than $10 a day for a rental, but I feel like we are also able to see parts of the country that would have whizzed by the bus window. In total we rode over 900 km (that's 560 miles for you USers), or the width of Cambodia and almost back again and I have the bruises on my butt to prove it. We went through cities and back country roads where the farmers were steering their ox through the rice paddies. We drove through the blazing heat, dusty roads and pouring down rain. We met farmers, school children, business owners and our guardian angel; a stranger who drove slowly in front of us with their hazards on so we could see the road through the downpour of rain. But no matter where we traveled, we were...

Well, I made it back from Chengdu. I'll have another post or two about my two weeks there but I couldn't pass up a chance to mention all the baby pandas being born all over the world! chengdu panda statues! A few weeks ago, I was so excited to hear that our very own Zoo Atlanta was surprised with panda TWINS. They're about a month old and the panda cam is SO fun to watch these days:  http://www.zooatlanta.org/home/panda_cam . Ok, truthfully, pandas DO sleep a lot of the time but now it looks like a panda and it's mini-stuffed animal panda cuddled up together. Then this past weekend, I heard that Mei Xiang at the National Zoo in D.C. had a panda cub again herself.  If you remember last year Mei Xiang had a baby panda but 6 days after birth he died of lung & liver problems. This article made me laugh talking about the possibility of panda mamas faking pregnancies (drama queens) and the fact that they aren't sure who the father of Mei Xiang's cub is:  http://w...