Man Without A Passport

Well, I managed to get my passport submitted and put in the queue. Going to the consulate was like my previous trips to US Embassies, which is to say it was a very weird experience. First, the whole “appointment” thing was a total farce. It turns out the system ended up making my appointment at …

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Kakadu National Park

Kakadu National Park - UNESCO World Heritage Site, Australia

From the World Heritage inscription for Kakadu National Park: Kakadu National Park is a living cultural landscape with exceptional natural and cultural values. Kakadu has been home to Aboriginal people for more than 50,000 years, and many of the park’s extensive rock art sites date back thousands of years. Kakadu’s rock art provides a window …

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The Seven Wonders of New Zealand

Charlotte Harbor New Zealand Wonders of the World

Ladies, gentlemen and Kiwis of all ages, it’s time to dust off our categorization of the Seven Wonders of World series, inspired by the New 7 Wonders contest years back, and take a close look at all that New Zealand offers! It’s no secret we find it a fascinating country (enough that we profiled it …

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Wells Fargo Sucks as a Travel Card

I tried to think of another way to title this post other than Wells Fargo Sucks, but I couldn’t think of one that did it justice. This post is really only going to be for the American readers. The bank I use is Wells Fargo … and they suck. I encourage everyone to take their …

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Kakadu National Park

In the United States, there are three parks which are considered to be the crown jewels in the National Parks system: Yellowstone, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon. If you had to make a similar list for Australia, I don’t know what two of the parks would be, one one of them would have to be …

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My Day As An Underwater Photographer

There are lots of places in the world you can go SCUBA diving, but Cairns just might have the biggest concentration of dive shops and and the largest diving industry in the world. The size of the industry is big enough that it has dedicated businesses devoted to underwater photography. I figured this would be …

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ANZAC Day in Australia

Today is ANZAC* Day in Australia, New Zealand and several countries in the Pacific (Samoa, Tonga, and Fiji I think). It is the day which Australians and Kiwis remember their war dead. In the US it would be the equivalent of Memorial Day, or Remembrance Day in the UK. ANZAC Day, from what I’ve gathered, …

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Gary Swims With The Fishes (Big Fishes)

I saw some pretty cool things the last two days: sea snakes, sand sharks, humpback whales, and the grand whale shark. On Tuesday I did a dive on the navy pier. The pier is supposed to be one of the “Top 10 dives in the world”, a title which probably 100 different places on Earth …

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December in Australia

I’m happy to report that I’ll be spending most of the month of December in Australia! Starting in early December I’ll be embarking on a 3-week long tour of Australia with G Adventures. This tour will be the 5th continent I will have traveled to with G Adventures and my longest trip with them to …

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