Month 2: In Review (Travel Stats)

Sept 25-Oct 24^th, 2014

We made it through our second month, which means we’re no longer RTW ‘newbies’ right?! We started settling in to life on the road with ease, and really haven’t missed most of the amenities of a normal home life. After Portugal, this month turned into our cold stretch of the trip. We got our fill of fall and winter; incredible landscapes with leaves changing colors, crisp cool air, hot chocolate, and even some snow. It was a good month in all, the main highlights primarily being the incredible scenery of the countries we visited, and the awesome people we met along the way.

Month 2 Travel Stats

Countries Visited: 4

Cities Visited: 12

• Portugal –Lagos, Sagres, Sintra, Lisbon
• Ireland – Cork, Killarney, Dingle, Dublin
• Scotland – Edinburgh, Stirling, Inverness
• Iceland – Reykjavik, Outdoor Center

Transportation

# of Flights: 3 (Ryanair or EasyJet)

# of Bus trips: 8

# of Trains/Trams taken: 5

# of Rental Cars: 3 (Ireland, Scotland, Iceland)

# of Metros used (per city): 1

# of miles walked: hundreds!

Number of beds slept in: 11

Budget

Month 2= Under Budget, ThumbsUp!!

Our Most Expensive Country: Ireland

Our Most Expensive City: Dingle, Ireland

Our Cheapest Country: Iceland (only because of workaway)

Our Cheapest City: Lagos, Portugal

Favorites

Favorite Foods: Seafood Chowder (Dingle, Ireland), Piri Piri Chicken (Portugal)

Favorite AirBnB: Dublin (awesome location and the best host we could ask for)

Favorite Destination: Dingle (incredible music and cute small town atmosphere)

Favorite Activities: Lagos sea kayaking, day trip to Sintra, Dingle roadtrip, Scotland hike in Loch Lomond

Best Nightlife: Dingle music sessions, Lagos

Fun Facts

Biggest Suitcase Lifesaver: Our Under Armour 4.0 (we wore these daily!)

Items Purchased:

• 2 pair wool socks
• 1 flannel (for Josh)
• Salvation Army Iceland: 1 pair bogus hiking boots, a scarf and 3 warmer sweatshirts

Marissa’s shoe disaster for hiking glaciers.

Biggest Bummers: Reykjavik rental car disaster- Josh running through the snow to get the SUV (see post here).

Marissa made the mistake of letting Ryan Air check her baggage for free to Dublin, and her bag came back with the chest strap on her pack missing, making travel much more difficult on her shoulders. Thumbs DOWN!

Biggest Win: Being able to stay with friends in Ireland & Scotland- A great time and a huge cost saver. Our workaway in Iceland was also a great cost saver and turned out to be fun.

Craziest thing seen: Or not seen? Iceland losing 8min of daylight each day we were there.

Current level of Candy Crush: 100 Splendid Days!

Books read (other than travel guides):

• Marissa: 2 (The Outlander, The Best American Travel Writing)
• Josh: 1 (Tales of a Nomad)

Health: Healthy despite the change to cold, score!

Coming Up…

Month 3 is a chaotic mash-up between freezing cold Nordic temps and tropical jungle climate. Get ready!