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We began our Two Years of Travel in May, 2025 with a four-week trip to Portugal. Since then, we have returned to Europe twice, taken a Southeast Asia cruise, and visited New Zealand and Australia. Most of our trips lasted four weeks, and our New Zealand/Australia trip lasted an epic seven weeks!

In June, 2026, after completing one year of travel, we adjusted our plans. Going forward, we will travel less frequently and take 2-3 week trips. We have rejoined our musical ensembles, and we will squeeze trips in between concert cycles. At this rate, we’ll keep traveling beyond two years.

Our approach to travel is to visit less touristy cities and towns to experience the local culture, cuisine, and character. We like to explore local museums, parks, and architecture. We enjoy visiting places with natural scenic beauty or unique features. We spend several days in each place to better experience the local vibe, rather than rushing from one place to the next on a tight schedule.

We invite you to subscribe to our newsletter (below). Since we aren’t currently traveling, we aren’t sending out newsletters. When we resume, we’ll notify you of new content and keep you updated on our progress and plans. We share more information in the newsletter than we post publicly here.

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Medieval Yet Modern Montpellier: France’s Youthful Secret

After visiting five cities in Spain, we headed north into France to visit Montpellier. With a population of about 322,000 in the city proper and 813,000 in the metro area, it is France’s seventh-largest city. Since 1990, it has experienced strong economic and population growth. The University of Montpellier, not far from where we stayed, is one of the oldest universities in the world and is home to the oldest medical school still in operation. The 80,000 students there and at other local colleges comprise 25% of the city’s population, giving it a noticeable youthful vibe.

The Place de la Comédie is a large pedestrian plaza in the center of town, lined with restaurant tables and umbrellas. In contrast, most of the streets were very narrow, and many were inaccessible to cars.

Click or tap here to view a webcam of Place de la Comédie. You might spot trams coming or going along the left side, next to the row of plants.

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Valencia and Its Breathtaking City of Arts and Sciences

Our final destination in Spain was Valencia, a sunny city on Spain’s east coast. Besides being the birthplace of paella, it’s famous for the futuristic, jaw-dropping City of Arts and Sciences (Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències). The City of Arts and Sciences is devoted to scientific and cultural dissemination, and consists of six structures: the Science Museum, an innovative centre of interactive science; Oceanogràfic, the largest aquarium in Europe; the Palau de les Arts, a performing arts centre; Hemisfèric, a dome-shaped auditorium for IMAX cinema and digital projections; the Umbracle, a landscaped park above a parking garage; and the Ágora, which hosts the CaixaForum.

We devoted our first full day in the city to exploring the Science Museum, Oceanogràfic, Hemisfèric, and the Umbracle.

As interesting and enjoyable as the exhibits within these buildings were, the buildings themselves were the most impressive aspect of the experience. Hemisfèric, on the left, was designed to suggest a human eye. The Palau de les Arts is in the background.

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Memorable Moments in Majestic Madrid

Our next stop on our May 2026 Spain tour was the capital, Madrid. The architecture was beautiful, and we enjoyed some delicious food. We had mixed reactions to the art.

The weather was sunny and warm during our entire visit, which helped.

Retiro Park provides a lovely, serene green oasis in the middle of the city. Here’s Jeff at Retiro Park’s Large Pond with the Monument to Alfonso XII in the background.

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There’s Much To Do in Málaga

The third destination on our 2026 Spain tour was Málaga, the hub of Spain’s Costa del Sol. It felt vibrant and upbeat, a place where modern life lives comfortably among the old buildings. It’s very walkable and has a good mass transit system with buses and subways. There’s plenty to see and do, both modern and historic. Our apartment was especially nice, which always helps ensure an enjoyable visit.

We passed through Plaza de la Constitución several times.

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Inside Málaga’s Amazing Museo Automovilistico (Automobile Museum)

During our travels, we’ve learned that the most enjoyable places to visit are often local spots off the tourist radar. These are the attractions that don’t show up in travel blogs and videos touting the top 10 must-see sights in a given city. Besides being free from the large tourist crowds, these places offer a unique, interesting sample of local culture.

Such was the case with Málaga’s Museo Automovilistico (Automobile Museum). It’s located a kilometer or so outside of the city center/tourist zone, but it’s easily accessible by bus. There were only a few other visitors near us at any given time, so we could snap plenty of photos, read the description placards, and enjoy the museum at our own pace. And we did, indeed, snap plenty of photos! There were so many interesting automobiles from across the decades that we felt this museum should have a dedicated post.

This is a 1937 Mercedes, one of the most expensive cars of its time. It became a standard for elegance in automobiles.

While we haven’t been to that many auto museums, it’s difficult for us to imagine a museum more complete, well-curated, and well-presented than this.

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We Visited Seville, But Not Its Notorious Barber

Our first stop on Spain’s mainland was Seville (Sevilla). We visited Seville once before on a one-day cruise stop, so we had seen the cathedral and several other points of interest before. We budgeted four nights and three days, which proved to be about right.

We visited the Plaza de España on our previous trip, but since we were nearby, we stopped again and took a few pictures and a video (below). It was worth a repeat!

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Gran Canaria: Magnificent Mountains, Beautiful Beaches, and More

In May 2026, we spent a month exploring Spain. Our first stop was Gran Canaria, the third-largest and second-most-populous of the Canary Islands. Last year, at the end of our Portugal trip, we visited Tenerife, the largest and most populous Canary Island. We loved it! After hearing about Gran Canaria for many years (especially the gay vacation hotspot, Maspalomas), we were eager to check it out.

We stayed in the capital, Las Palmas. We decided we’d rather stay there to experience a more authentic view of what Gran Canaria is like for the people who live there, rather than stay in Maspalomas or one of the other beach resort towns on the south coast. As it turns out, we made the right choice. 

Our rental apartment was only two blocks from Playa de las Conteras, the beach that runs along the north shore of Las Palmas. While there were some tourists, we got the impression that at least half of the people we saw were locals. Here’s Jeff next to the beach.

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Palmitos Park: A World-class Zoo/Botanical Garden on Gran Canaria

During our stay in Gran Canaria, Spain, we visited Palmitos Park. It’s a zoo/botanical garden located in the southern part of the island, several miles into a wooded canyon. It was well worth the trip! It had an impressive array of exotic birds, exotic fish, butterflies, monkeys, lemurs, tortoises, and many other animals. And… dolphins!

In this post, we’ll share photos of some of the beautiful animals that live in Palmitos Park.

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How (and Why) We Travel the World with Only Carry-on Bags + 15 Items We Pack

If you’ve been following our travels, you know that we have done a lot of traveling over the past year! Since we began our “Two Years of Travel” in May 2025 and including our upcoming trip to Spain, we have taken 30 airplane flights (counting itineraries with connections as one), 28 train or metro rides (counting only the trips with luggage), 33 bus rides, and 5 cab rides. These statistics cover two one-week trips, four four-week trips, and one epic seven-week trip, for a total of 25 weeks.

We have learned some good packing tips along the way, which we would like to share with you in this post. Our single biggest recommendation is…

Pack Light!

At first, Jeff was skeptical that we could take four-week trips with only carry-on luggage. But after our first trip, he was bought in!

We travel with one rolling carry-on bag that will fit in the overhead compartment on almost all planes, and one “personal item” that fits under the seat in front of us. This allows us the luxury of carrying our bags on the plane to avoid lost luggage. Sometimes, if it’s a direct flight and we arrive at the airport early (which we almost always do), and the airline offers one checked bag for free, we might check our carry-on suitcases. Or if we’re carrying a wine bottle or two, we’ll check them. But otherwise, we always have the option of carrying our luggage onto the plane, and we often do. Plus, we don’t risk damage from rough baggage handling and we don’t have to wait at the baggage carousel.

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The Sights of Sydney

We concluded our seven-week trip to New Zealand and Australia with a five-night, four-day stay in Sydney. We toured the iconic Opera House, strolled through the Royal Botanic Garden, and visited three museums. One day, we took a tour to the Blue Mountains National Park and the Featherdale Wildlife Park, which we covered in this post.

In December, 2025, we visited Perth and Adelaide after taking a cruise from Hong Kong to Singapore. On this trip, we visited Hobart, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney to complete our tour of Australia’s six state capitals. All of these cities were interesting, enjoyable, and livable, with plenty of things to see and do. 

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