Category: Travel Page 36 of 54
The view from the top of Cadillac Mountain
When visiting Acadia, the best place to start is the Park Loop Road. So, on our most recent trip, our first day in the park involved driving around and stopping at the many overlooks. Last year, we picked up an audio tour of the Park Loop Road at the Visitor’s Center. Luckily, we kept it because it came in handy taking my family around. We did get a few funny looks from other motorists when we stopped at several of the vantage points and sat, unspeaking, staring out the windshield, but it is a great way to learn more about the area than the signs tell you. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this audio tour is sold online, but I do recommend you purchase it at the visitor’s center when you arrive at the park.
The crowds are already gathering at Thunder Hole in the morning.
The Park Loop Road can get very congested, so I recommend you begin your drive early before the crowds arrive. Because the sun rises so early in Maine, my whole family was up most days before 6 AM (the house we were staying in could have used some blackout curtains, that is for sure!) so it wasn’t difficult to get an early start on our tour. Even with an early morning start, the popular stops were already brimming with people. By the time we got to Jordan Pond House for lunch, there was not a parking spot to be had. I think Chris circled for over 3o minutes trying to find a place to park. They told us it would be a 20 minute wait to be seated and he wasn’t back when our buzzer went off. If you are planning on stopping at Jordan Pond House at lunchtime, I recommend you park at Hull’s Cove and take the bus. Last year we didn’t have a problem parking, but we dined in the early afternoon.
Thanks for stopping by! Be sure to come back next week to read more about our Mainely Acadia trip! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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We have returned from our second trip to Maine and Acadia National Park. We were there for 7 full days, which is the longest I have stayed in one place on vacation in years. Luckily there is a lot to do on Mount Desert Island to keep a traveler busy. Here’s a run down of our itinerary.
Day 1: Drive from Manchester, New Hampshire to Southwest Harbor, Maine
Day 2: Acadia National Park – Park Loop Road and Wild Gardens of Acadia
Day 3: Hike South Bubble Mountain, Explore Bar Harbor, and Sunset Nature Cruise
Day 4: Explore Southwest Harbor and Asticou Azalea Gardens
Day 5: Drive to Schoodic Peninsula and rainy day shopping
Day 6: Bike the Carriage Roads
Day 7: Killing Time: Wendell Gilley Museum, Explore the Quietside, Return visit to Park Loop Road, Lunch and Tour at Atlantic Brewing Company
Day 8: Carriage Tour and Explore Cape Elizabeth Lighthouse on the way back to Manchester
As you can see, this was a busy trip without much down time. Chris did a lot of solo hikes on this trip that I didn’t mention. I will have to have him write up some of his experiences at some point during this trip report.
One of the things that made this trip different than any others was that we brought my mom and my grandmother along with us. They are definitely not used to our speed of travel which made things challenging, but we were able to go off on our own a few times and do things they would not have wanted to do.
Be sure to check back next week as I begin recounting our trip in detail! Until then, thanks for stopping by! To read about some of our previous trips, click here. If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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Coming back from vacation is hard! On vacation you’re relaxing, seeing new places, and sleeping in. Now, you’re home, you’re back to your regular schedule, and it feels like you never left. Here are some tips to get over that post-vacation slump!
- Edit your photos – Even if you don’t have professional editing software, it is a lot of fun to improve your vacation photos before sharing them online! A few minor tweaks can make a lot of difference in your pictures.
- Create a photo book – I do this for every trip we take! It is so much fun to put your pictures into print and tell the story of your trip! I’m not loyal to any photo book company. I just try to get the best deal. You can often find good deals on Groupon!
- Recreate a great meal from your trip – Food and memory are closely related so recreating your favorite meal will jog your memory and allow you to share your trip with friends and family at home in a way that’s less annoying than the stereotypical slideshow.
- Take a day trip – Can’t take another vacation this year? Don’t fret! Find someplace new nearby to explore. Be a tourist in your own town! Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about getting away, we miss the experiences that are close to us.
- Keep your eye on travel deals – You never know when the next airline sale will pop up with a deal that you just can’t beat! Airfarewatchdog is a great service that will let you know when a specific flight goes on sale.
- Start planning your next trip – Think about where you want to go next? Do you want to return to a favorite destination or find someplace new? Check out Pinterest for inspiration for your next getaway and follow blogs like this one for travel ideas!
Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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While our recent cruise wasn’t a photography-centric trip, I can’t travel without taking pictures. If I don’t have pictures, I don’t have content to share with you! Since we were planning on snorkeling and river tubing, I knew I wanted a camera that I could get wet. I considered getting one of those underwater cases for my iPhone, but those don’t protect against dropping it underwater and I really didn’t want to spend hundreds of dollars replacing my phone, I began searching for inexpensive waterproof cameras.
After hours of searching Amazon and technology review sites, I found the AKASO EK7000. It is a small, GoPro sized, action camera that came with more accessories than I know what to do with! I think one of them is supposed to be a helmet clip but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to put it together. It has wifi so it can connect to your phone to share your pictures/videos on social media and supposedly it shoots 4K video. This camera is ridiculously highly rated on Amazon so for less than $50 I decided to pull the trigger.
Once the camera arrived, I understood all of the 5 star reviews, and its not because of quality. In the box with the camera was a sheet with several accessory packages you can get for free if you show proof of a 5 star rating on Amazon. Right there, that made me incredibly skeptical of this tiny camera’s performance. I played with it in the house for a little bit before we left, but I wish I would’ve messed around with it a little more (this is a lesson for purchasing any new camera gear, really). While snorkeling, I couldn’t figure out how to put it in photo mode as opposed to video mode. Afterwards, I realized it had date stamped all of my photos with the factory date of June 2000, which really messed up Lightroom when I imported the photos when I got home. After getting back to the room, I was able to figure all of that out, but it would’ve been nice to focus on taking pictures while snorkeling as opposed to just working the camera.
Once I stopped panicking about getting out of video mode, I realized that I could pull still images out of the videos so I was able to get some usable shots. This camera did perform pretty well underwater (top), but when it came to taking daylight shots (above), it didn’t do so hot. And lets not even mention the photos that I took inside the cave. My iPhone 7 takes MUCH better pictures than this. The videos did seem to come out better, though. AKASO claims that with the waterproof housing, it doesn’t record sound, but if you watch these, you’ll see that that’s not exactly true. Is that sound 100% clear and articulate? No, but it is nice to capture some of ambient sound. Watch the videos below to see how this camera handles video. And just a reminder, I’m a photographer, not a videographer!
Overall, I think this camera is worth its $50 price tag. Does it perform like the GoPros that are priced 6x+ higher? Of course not! But for capturing vacation memories and not having to worry about accidentally damaging your phone, I think its worth it! Click here for more information about this camera.
Thanks for stopping by! If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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Looking back on our Spring Break cruise, I have to say that I really enjoyed my time on the Norwegian Breakaway. Even though it is a “mega ship” it didn’t feel much bigger or more crowded than the Gem. Of course, the bigger ships come with more amenities and more dining venues and it was fun to explore them all.
For some reason, the towel animals all had creepy, red eyes.
One of the biggest things that made me want to try out a bigger ship is the entertainment. For Norwegian, the Breakaway class ships are the ones with Broadway shows. On the Breakaway it was Rock of Ages and even though I saw the movie years ago, I didn’t really know anything about the show besides the fact that it was raunchy. And raunchy it was! I was surprised by the amount of children present! The story was okay (I liked it better than I remembered like the movie), the acting was fine, but the music was phenomenal! Which was a theme for this trip.
Every time we heard the musicians around this ship, we were blown away. Especially when compared to the music on the Gem which we lovingly described as a guitar, a drummer, and a computer. The music at Rock of Ages was great. The piano players at Howl at the Moon (the dueling piano bar onboard) were amazing! The addition of having a live band playing music at dinner in the Manhattan room every night was a great touch. We wanted to check out Syd Norman’s, the rock club, but it was so popular we could never actually get in!
The pool deck was huge and had plenty of deck chairs, but we tended to avoid the area and could typically be found hanging outside out on Deck 8, which is known as the Waterfront. Most of the specialty restaurants had outdoor seating available and several bars had outdoor bars with seats along the waterfront. Until the final sea day, this area was deserted during the day and was a great place to sit in the shade and watch the water. More cruise ships need to made use of the view like the Breakaway!
The Breakaway also had a lot of activities to keep you occupied during your time at sea. From the aqua park to the mini golf course to the ropes course the adventurous had lots of options! There was also shopping, the spa, and lots of other planned activities to keep cruisers busy.
With a large ship like the Breakaway comes a shocking number of dining options. We tried most of them and with one exception had great experiences. One thing that was great about this ship is that no matter what you were looking for, it was offered. From sushi to Spanish tapas to French food and pizza, there was a restaurant for your tastes. Even the buffets had theme nights that seemed to relate to our sailing. Since we sailed out of New Orleans there was a Creole night and another night was a Mexican night. They even had ice sculptures which I thought cruise lines get rid of years ago!
The one exception to the stellar food was a O’Sheehans, the 24 hour bar and grill located on NCL ships. It was really sad because we LOVED O’Sheehans on the Gem. But, after waiting almost an hour from when we sat down to when our food came after getting back on the ship in Belize City, I decided it just wasn’t worth it. I was telling someone about this and they responded “but you’re on vacation right?” Of course, but I wasn’t planning on spending all that time on a meal that was supposed to be quick. The next time we sail Norwegian, I would try O’Sheenhans again, but I wasn’t wasting my time on this sailing.
If you like my photos be sure to “like” my Facebook Page, follow me on Instagram, and Flickr! You can purchase prints on Etsy and Fine Art America. To see inside my camera bag, check out my Gear Page. For information about our new Guided Photography Tours, visit GuidedPhoto.com.
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