People think that you need to book a tour if you want to climb Mosor Mountain. You don’t (especially since you can get here by city bus). Besides which, most organized hikes up Mosor Mountain only make it up as far as the Umberto Girometta Mountain house. The best hiking is done behind that, up the steep slopes of the mountain. [Read more…]
In Part 1 of our experience in obtaining a 1-year Temporary Stay in Croatia, I covered: 1) the conditions for getting a prolonged stay, 2) finding an apartment in Split, 3) having a proper lease and getting it notarized, 4) obtaining your Croatian Identification Numbers.
Knowing and having all the above, you are now ready for filing the paperwork required for your Temporary Stay. [Read more…]
It started as a simple enquiry: “How can we stay longer in Croatia?”. Now, a few months later, we have a leased apartment in Split and have been granted a 1 one-year “temporary stay” in Croatia.
We’ve had a few of our readers ask us about the process here in Croatia so I decided to write about our experience. [Read more…]
If there’s one thing that we’ll never forget from our time in Japan it’s the people. Always helpful and friendly, they go out of their way to make you feel welcome as a visitor.
This photo essay covers the many friendly faces we met along the way. You’ll also see some dogs and cats. I don’t think we’ve ever seen pets as spoiled as Japanese pets. [Read more…]
Many years ago I had a blog on one those shared hosting websites. It didn’t get any traffic or comments but I enjoyed writing and putting down my thoughts (my biggest blogging mistake was not getting my own website until 2013). Recently, out of curiosity, I went back to that blog. I found this old post, written in 2008, that made me reflect on where we were at that time, where we are now (9 years later), and how life sometimes throws you curveballs. You have ideas about the future, about how you want to live and travel. Sometimes things don’t work out how you expected or even wanted.
Klis fortress has become known the last few years as an obligatory ‘Game of Thrones Tour’ stop. But it is much more than that.
The first time we came to this part of Croatia (that’s a few years ago now), I remember having looked up at the huge impenetrable wall of mountains lining the coast. I had been amazed, I had never seen that kind of geography. The mountain range has always been a natural defense between the Mediterranean belt and, beyond those mountains, the rest of the Balkans. Approaching Split you see one gap in that wall of defense, a pass between the mountains into the interior. And right there, right in that gap, is a high mass of rock with a huge stone fortress sitting on top of it. That’s Klis fortress. [Read more…]
We’ve had a very interesting and busy last 3 months, doing almost everything but travelling. We haven’t had a Newsletter in a little while: this one covers what’s been going on in our lives, how we’ve found ourselves a new base for the next year, as well as our travel plans over the next little while.
We spent 7 weeks in Japan and one of the things that never bored us were Japanese signs. Japanese signs are unique in their design, often using cartoon figures and sometimes incorporating elements of anime (the animation used in Japanese comic books). They’re cute, colourful and often pretty funny. They’re also a reflection of modern Japanese society and culture. [Read more…]
We spent 7 weeks in Japan and my favorite memories were of our 1 day in the town of Nara. Why? There are a few reasons: the most impressive temple we’ve seen in Japan (the Todaiji Temple), one of the most famous Shinto shrines (the Kasuga Taisha shrine) and lastly – tons and tons of deer wandering around everywhere. If you’ve never had a chance to get close to deer then you have to come to Nara. That alone makes Nara a very different kind of place. [Read more…]
A couple of weeks ago I did a wrap-up of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) places visited in 2016. We took so many photos in 2016 that we decided to go through them and choose our favorites from the year.
“Favorite” photos doesn’t necessarily mean “best” photos. “Favorite” can mean a place that holds a special memory (like that dog lying at Lissette’s feet) or a place that was just overall a special place (Cape Town was for me “that special place”). [Read more…]
We're Frank and Lissette, also known as BBQboy and Spanky. We left Canada in July 2014 to travel the world. We write about the places we visit and our lives as full-time travellers.
About Us
Photo Essay on Lisbon, Portugal. And why we were happy to leave… 
Wild, Wacky Skopje (Macedonia). One of the Strangest Places we’ve been 
Why I won’t be going back to Brazil 
Belgrade – Visiting Serbia, the Bad Boys of the Balkans 
Falling for the Bangkok Gem Scam 
Why we didn’t like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 
Reasons why I don’t visit your blog 
Bashing on full time travellers – and why ‘we’ bring it on ourselves 
What you can expect applying for a Thai Visa in Vientiane, Laos 
Travel Bloggers on Tourist Traps and Disappointing Places – and where you should go Instead. 
