Trails 2 Travel

Hiking to Machu Picchu Mountain Tips for visiting Purchase your entrance tickets at least a month in advance, 3 months if you want to hike Huayna Picchu during the high season. You can purchase them here for the best rate. (use Google translate if needed) Purchase your entrance tickets for a 6AM start so you can be among the first into the site. Purchase your BUS tickets for the ride up the night before your visit so that you can get in line at 4:30 AM the day of and be ready to go. Don’t hike up (unless you really want to) It is a very steep trail with BIG steps up and traverses the same path the bus takes (so you don’t get any different perspective) Even the most fit people in our group got to the top very out of breath and sweating.  DO get a mountain hike ticket! This ticket gets you 1 re-entrance (the normal MP ticket only gets you 1 so if you get hungry or need to pee… you’re outta luck)  Dress in layers. It is COLD in the morning but gets very hot...

Salkantay Trek Day 4 – Llactapata   Day 4 was our earliest start on the trail, with a wake up of 4:30 aiming to leave 30 minutes earlier. While we had electricity in camp the night before, the power was out for the area in the morning so it was DARK indeed. We ate breakfast using the collection of headlamps our group had ( I can’t imagine how they cooked stuff for us) and packed our stuff up as normal. This was our last morning with our chefs who we tipped and said goodbye to before hitting the trail at 5:30. The first few hours of the trail were steady uphill and we raced to be done with the uphill before the sun heated everything up. Watching sunrise over the valley was STUNNING and overhead flew parrots squawking and making a ruckus.

Salkantay Trek Day 3 –Through the Jungle Waterfalls, Coffee farms, and hot springs Looking at the town our camp had been in and back up the canyon we'd hiked down the day before Day 3- Supposedly the “easy” day I’d say it was really only easy in the fact that it was the shortest and at a lower altitude day. It probably had at least 1500 feet of up and down gain/loss through the jungle and after the previous hard day, it definitely didn’t feel all that easy. 

Hiking to Salkantay Pass-  Highpoint  of our trek If Day 1 was the warmup, Day 2 was certainly the main event, the big kahunas , the “challenging” day. It also set the precedent for our daily routines. We were woken up at 5 by our guide bringing us Coca tea in our beds. (room service as they called it) and with camp 1 being so cold, the tea was definitely a welcome wakeup. Ater that, we were in for QUITE a day.

Salkantay Trek – Humantay Lake The moment you’ve all been waiting for, and most definitely my main excuse for visiting Peru… I give you the Salkantay Trek. I’ll likely write up an overview of this trek/ tour to compare with the Inca trail tours but to start with you may just wonder why choose one over the other? Here’s my top reasons: Less Crowded (though that is becoming less so as word is getting out about the beauty of this trail) LESS MONEY - Salkantay treks are much more luxurious (I’ll get into that) for less money Let me emphasize LUXURIOUS . Our tour had enclosed domes/huts for 3 nights with actual BEDS, 3 course meals, snacks + “happy hour” (more on that later), electricity and showers some of the nights, and the use of horses if needed. More Flexible. Can be booked only a few months in advance instead of a whole year- plus you get more options for dates you like. Since this trail isn’t permitted like the Inca trail, you ...

Everyone knows I can't go on a vacation without checking out at least one hike and in this case, the Gordon Creek waterfall was calling my name.  Trail Stats: Distance: 2.5 miles RT if you go all the way to the top of the falls Elevation gain: 250 feet (there's one decent up and one down each direction) Kid friendly, dog friendly, ATV friendly.  

Day 5- our 2nd day on the mountain. We were both kind of waking up around 5:30 and noticed lights of people/ groups out hiking to a peak to watch sunrise. We both had rough sleeping, but felt good enough at least so we got dressed, gathered our small pack of things, and headed out to check out sunrise. In the interest of not getting up early enough and being hungry for breakfast, we only did the short walk back to the cloud dispelling pavilion where we’d watched the sunset. I wish however that we had just done the jaunt up to Purple Cloud Peak as that was probably the best/ closest peak to our hotel and was tall enough we would've been able to see the East side of the mountain. 

Day 4, part 2 continued: The hike to the Fairy Walking Bridge. Once we reached the bottom we took the Northern rail car back up to the top which spit us out near the Baiyun hotel. (where I would personally recommend staying for location and reviews) We debated going to check in at our hotel but the day was still young (it was only 11) and we were right at the top of the SOUTH trail around the Western Sea. This was the trail I originally planned on taking all the way down but was told it was closed half way. 

2nd best day of our trip (after the Great Wall) as the mountains and sites we saw this day were EPIC. but let's get things straight.. this day was a TONNNN of stairs. 

ok time for my last Connecticut post... the less historical visited sites and things to do. Starting with Mystic. As the weather decided to rain on my parade a large majority of the time, we decided to kill one evening by "happy hour hopping" in Mystic (one town over from Stonington) so first stop was:  1. The Oyster Club where they had oysters for 1/$1. Consequently I tried my 1st and last raw oyster. It was terrible but the cocktail sauce helped.  2. Pizzete were they have $1 slices of cheese or pepperoni pizza. You can go here if you're on a budget but still want some "Mystic pizza" haha 3. The last place we were able to squeeze in before 5:00, the Engine Room. Pretty delicious cheeseburgers for $5 and a very cool vibe. Probably my favorite of the 3 we went to. And of course happy hour being what it is, there were select beverages available for decent prices at each place also if you're looking for that. 

Greece Day 5: Boating day We booked a super ridiculously long 10 hour tour with King Thira boat tours through our hostel for $45 to take us to the Volcano, Hot springs, Thirassia, and Oia. They weren't picking us up until 10 so we got up early to head to the market for some food for the day. I ended up with sandwich making materials, chips, water, 1 soda, and yogurt for breakfast for around 11 euros.

Greece Day 4: Santorini. As our flight didn't get us in until well after midnight and we still had to get settled, we slept well into the next day only leaving our hotel, Villa Manos to walk into the main town Thira around 1. The walk was about 20 minutes (with 10 minutes on a narrow road with no sidewalk and almost no shoulder) but we did stop by a market and pick up cheap waters (1.5 liters for 35 cents!!! WHAT!?)

Greece Day 3: One of my most highly anticipated days of the trip!!!! METEORA Not even kidding guys, I have been wanting to experience Meteora FOREVER. It'a short and steep climb ( on a bus! hehe) from the town to the first monastery St. Stephens which is.. by far the most accessible as there are NO STAIRS to reach this one, only a narrow foot bridge.

Let's talk about one of my new favorite hikes! Diamond Fork Hot Springs in Spanish Fork. (now that I'm about to go again tomorrow night lol) My friend over at Katiewanders.com and I went a week before the road opened hoping to have the place less busy and to catch the hot springs while it was still chilly! And we chose a gorgeous day to do it! When the road is closed, it's about 13 miles RT to the springs which made for a pretty long day but I have to say I'm grateful we did it this way. The road is gorgeous and hiking along that was honestly one of my favorite parts (of course until the way back that is..) The dogs ran free in the wide open space where we didn't have to worry about cars coming and could keep an eye on them.. and we really did have it pretty much to ourselves on the way there! Plus there's this cool little pit stop area (pitured below) where the bathrooms were already open and the scenery was so different! Awesome! We were ...