Category: Travel

London by the Numbers

On By Chris BuddIn DINK Diaries, General, TravelLeave a comment

London. I have been dreaming about visiting London for a very long time. I knew that I would eventually make my way to the UK, but we had never quite prioritized this destination. Even this trip was not a long-planned one. Originally we had planned on a trip to California with my brother and his wife later in the fall, but given the political climate, the wildfires that ravaged LA last year, and the horrendous exchange rate between the US and Canada, we pivoted. Isabelle and I found a good deal on flights to London, so off we went.

When looking back at the trip to London that Isabelle and I took just about a month ago, a lot of different numbers presented themselves to me. I thought this would make for an interesting take on my traditional back-from-vacation post. With that in mind, here’s my London by the Numbers.

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The Obligatory Egypt Post

On By Chris BuddIn Travel1 Comment

One week ago today, I returned from my epic trip to Egypt. I’m still processing everything about the trip, which explains why I have yet to publish a new blog post on this topic. I tried to start writing it during some of my downtime at the end of the trip, but it just wouldn’t come. I thought about it over the past week, but it still would not flow. Maybe I was trying to hard to summarize everything that I experienced, everything that I saw, everything that I felt over the course of my 17 day trip.

Today, I will try to put a few words down. It will not be an in-depth, detailed tour summary. I just want to summarize the trip high-level(-ish), and talk about how and why the trip was important to me. So here we go.

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Hawaiian Adventures Part 1: Lemurian Huna

On By Chris BuddIn Travel2 Comments

One week ago today, my wife and I returned home after a 16-day trip of a lifetime to Hawaii. For the sake of simplicity on my part, and for ease of you the reader, I have broken this into three separate blog posts – one for each segment of our trip. First, an overview.

We had been anticipating this trip for nearly a year. While we had long dreamt of traveling to Hawaii, it was about a year ago that the dreams began to form into a reality. Isabelle had embarked on a journey with a new mentor and coach, Anne Bérubé. Based in Nova Scotia, Canada, Anne has been holding retreats in Hawaii for a few years now. We had actually looked into going on said retreat a few years prior, but we couldn’t justify the expense at the time. My how the times have changed.

Largely due to COVID-19, we have had a major shift in our priorities. No more would we stand back and hesitate when opportunities presented themselves to us; who knows if we end up with some other global pandemic or other event that prevents us from doing anything for the better part of two years. As avid readers of my blog will know, Isabelle and I had been planning our 10th anniversary trip for about 7 years, putting away money monthly to allow us to have an extravagant, fun-filled trip to Walt Disney World for October 1, 2021. This would be the convergence of our 10th wedding anniversary as well as the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World. But thanks to the aforementioned pandemic, our plans were canceled. Unable to travel, we decided to repurpose our savings from Disney 2021 to Hawaii 2026. We would finally take our long talked of trip for our 15th anniversary.

Cut to Isabelle’s program with Anne Bérubé in 2023. She was again holding a Lemurian Huna retreat in Hawaii in 2024. We had money this time. We had motivation. So we booked two spots on the retreat and started planning for our big adventure.

Since we were going all the way to Hawaii, we thought we would take the opportunity to extend our trip beyond the retreat. We decided that we would stick to two islands for this visit. Anne’s retreat would be on Kaua’i, so that was island #1. We opted to choose O’ahu for our second island so that we could visit Honolulu and Disney’s Aulani resort. But more on those in the second and third parts of this series of posts.

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Making Magical Memories

On By Chris BuddIn Disney, Travel4 Comments

I am now a week removed from my long-awaited Disney World vacation. I can hardly believe that a week has passed, but that is what the calendar is telling me. While out on our daily walk yesterday, the realization came to me that I am now fully into my post-Disney blues. It happens inevitably after every trip. Once you’ve been away from that magic bubble and reintegrated into the “real” world, it’s only a matter of time before the Disney Blues settle in.

So what better time for me to revisit some of those memories via a blog post? Maybe looking back will help me get over the blues. (added bonus: I’ve added a bunch of pictures!)

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Vacation Interruptus

On By Chris BuddIn Travel1 Comment

Following up on my most recent blog post, here’s another slice of true life in the world of Chris.

Today is my wedding anniversary. Eleven years ago today, Isabelle and I tied the knot and have lived truly blessed lives since that day. I am very recognizant of the privileged life that I live, and I am eternally grateful for all of the abundance that I have in my life. But even a privileged life like mine isn’t always perfect, despite what social media may tell you. Here’s the brief rundown of our long-simmering trip to Cape Breton.

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