Practical Wanderlust

Off-Beat Couple's Travel Blog

The Valle de Cocora hike is as beautiful as it is treacherous. Know what to expect before you hike the Valle de Cocora hike in Salento, Colombia.
Hiking & Outdoor Adventure, Latin America, Travel Stories & Fails

Hiking Valle de Cocora in Salento, Colombia: What You Need to Know

The Valle de Cocora hike in Salento, Colombia is famous for its 200 foot tall wax palms. What people don’t tell you is that the hike also includes a difficult & dangerous uphill trek through deep, thick mud in a rainy cloud forest! Know what to expect. Tips for hiking Valle de Cocora, what to pack for the Valle de Cocora hike, and more information.

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Hiking & Outdoor Adventure, Latin America

The Complete Guide to Minca, Colombia’s Sleepy Hidden Gem

The town town of Minca, Colombia isn’t on the typical Colombian backpacker trail. Perched on a mountain in the Colombian Sierra Nevadas, with a population of 800, Minca is if nothing else isolated. But at only 45 minutes away from the much more popular coastal town of Santa Marta, and only 5 hours away from bustling Cartagena, Colombia, it is well worth the detour.

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Meet Lia & Jeremy

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  • Just a few reindeer butts to brighten up your Saturday 🦌🤗⁣ .⁣ I'd love to show you more photos of these fluffy little snow muffins, but here's what it's like taking photos of reindeer in the Arctic:. . Step 1: Put on 78276 layers of protective clothing. You are now the little brother in A Christmas Story. You forgot to put on a balaclava. Maybe a wool scarf will work? . Step 2: Shuffle your way in the general direction of a sled hooked up to the back of a snowmobile. You can't see it because your goggles are completely iced over. Getting in it without full use of your appendages is a fun challenge. . Step 3: You're off! Hold on tight while your Sami host drives his snowmobile across the Arctic tundra towards his reindeer herd. The ride takes 1.5 incredibly bumpy hours. You spend most of your time being hit in the face by branches. Snow finds its way into the back of your collar. Your wool scarf is solid ice. You regret not wearing a balaclava with every fiber of your frozen being.⁣ .⁣ Step 4: YOU FOUND THE HERD! This is it, the moment you've been waiting for. Fluffy reindeer leap majestically through the snow next to your snowmobile, and you immediately forget about steps 1-3 because THIS. IS. AMAZING.⁣ .⁣ Step 5: Oh right, photos. You attempt to take out your camera, but you're wearing 3 pairs of gloves. OK, gloves off. Oh god it's so cold. Is your camera frozen?? WTF!? After struggling for ages, you realize that the reindeer are gone. Wait, where did the reindeer go?⁣ .⁣ Step 6: We found the reindeer again! OK, maybe a phone would be faster. Gloves off. Phone out. Hit record. .... CRASH! Suddenly you find yourself in a snowbank ,6 feet away from a crashed and broken sled.⁣ .⁣ Step 7: On the bright side, now you have all the time in the world to take reindeer photos! You attempt to move yourself through the hip-deep snow, wearing one billion layers of clothing. As you approach, the reindeer leap away majestically, laughing at you.⁣ .⁣ Step 8: F**k it. You take a few blurry pictures of distant reindeer butts and call it a day. . Needless to say, this non-blurry photo was actually taken by @alicesadventuresonearth 😂 . So, would you be up for the adventure? ⁣
  • The best and most economical way to get to Norway is by hopping a flight with Norwegian Airlines, which happens to be one of my favorite budget airlines AND one of the most sustainable airlines overall. They work hard to make their planes more fuel efficient, so the entire flight actually takes less time than normal - and it's better for the environment, too. Less fuel also = less $$, hence why their international flights are so affordable! ⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ I usually fly economy, but on this trip, I was invited to enjoy Norwegian Airlines’ Premium Class seats. In addition to perks like early boarding and access to an airport lounge where I loaded up on pre-flight wine and chocolate cake, my seat was roomy and comfortable, with a reclining seat and footrest that had me drifting off to sleep under a cozy blanket in no time. ⁣⁣ .⁣⁣ On my non-stop flight from Los Angeles to Norway, I slept most of the way, curled up in a blanket with my favorite travel pillow, feet propped up on the footrest. But on the flight back, I spent the entire 10 hours blissfully editing photos, watching Lord of the Rings on my private TV screen, gorging myself on the yummy provided 3-course dinner (complete with wine!) and diving into my long-haul flight essentials kit to perform various acts of sorely needed self-care.. . It was honestly the best 10-hour flight I've ever taken - and I don't typically make a habit of staying awake on 10-hour flights..⁣⁣ Not only was my flight incredibly cozy, but Norwegian Airlines does this crazy thing with the lighting and air on their intercontinental Dreamliners which makes you feel more awake and well rested, so I didn't experience any jetlag whatsoever after either leg of my flight. What kind of futuristic airplane science gets rid of jet lag?! Norwegian Airlines’, apparently. And here I thought I was just taking Norwegian Flights because they're my favorite budget-friendly international airline! I'm definitely a new fan. . The only downside? Now that I've had a taste of Premium, I'm not looking forward to heading back to economy class 😭 . What's your favorite airline? Do you usually fly economy or do you live that premium life? ✈Drop me a comment below!
  • Have you ever been dog sledding? 🐶 I tried it for the first time ever in Alta, Norway, north of the Arctic Circle. I wasn't sure what to expect: would the dogs be happy and healthy? How fast would we be going? Would there be like, a seatbelt? (Answers: yes, very, no.) . The first thing we did upon arriving at Trasti & Trine was suit up. I'd dutifully layered on my 53 wool base layers and 16 sweaters and pants, thinking that would be plenty. Lol, no. Norway Lesson #1: there's cold, and then there's ARCTIC cold - with wind chill. Yikes. So I zipped a snowsuit on over all 7276 of my layers - and added an extra pair of boots for good measure. Lia - 1, Frostbite - 0. . Next we harnessed up our dogs. I was given the names of my team and 4 harnesses and awkwardly crunched through the snow in my staypuft marshmallow man suit towards the holding pens, feeling nervous. Like, what if the dogs didn't WANT to wear their harnesses? Would I have to wrassle them? I am NOT the wrassling type. Luckily, the dogs were like "you put this paw in this strap, duh" and pretty much just dressed themselves. . By the time I had my 4 dogs suited, they were DYING to get out into the snow. If you've ever uttered the words "go for a walk" to a dog, you can imagine the scene - except these were muscular AF snow dogs. I think I saw one of them jump like 5 feet into the air and do a backflip. . My host stepped up onto the back of my sled to steer, I grabbed on to absolutely anything and everything I could, and we were off. Instantly, the barking and howling of the dogs gave way to quiet concentration. We whipped through trees and past mountains and ice rivers as the blue light of Polar Night reflected off the snow. If we had arrived later in the day, we might have been riding underneath the Northern Lights! . You can see a video of my dog sledding adventure in my Story Highlights, AND I've just published a new post with 35 jaw-dropping photos from my trip! The link is in my bio. . Would you like to try dog sledding? Would you be nervous like I was? Drop me a comment below!
  • Happy Valentine's Day! 🌹💗Today is my FAVORITE holiday. I love pink and hearts and a good excuse for crafts and unapologetically expressing love and affection. Jeremy and I are mush-tastic year round, but we take Valentine's Day as an opportunity to shamelessly shower everyone and everything around us in love and affection, too. Here are some of the different kinds of love that we'll be feeling sappy about today: . 💕Love for ourselves. We choose to put ourselves first and our relationship/each other second - that's the foundation of our happiness and the core foundation of our whole marriage. Today, we are feelin' all kinds of obsessed with our awesome selves! I hope you spend some time today doing sweet lil' things for yourself that bring you happiness. . 💕Love for each other. This is not new - we shower each other in disgusting mushy compliments all day, every day - but we ARE going out on a date tonight ... and then heading to a store to compete to see who can find the lamest, grossest, sappiest Valentine's Day card. We will then pay too much money for that card and then inflict the worst romantic poetry that we can come up with, exquisite corpse style. Stoked. . 💕Love for what we do. Jeremy loves his school and his co-teachers, but especially, he loves his students. Today he's celebrating his love for them with a party (they wanted wings, so we made them cookies too, because 18 year olds are the unhealthiest people on earth and can handle that sort of thing). . And as for me ... today I'm writing about a trip that I loved, and pouring my heart into my storytelling. It's reminding me both why I love travel, and why I feel so strongly about sharing that love with all of you! (It'll be up tomorrow, and I'm so excited to share it.) . 💕Oh, and one last mushy shout-out: LOVE FOR YOU! Yes, that's right: we truly love you all. Your DM's and support and comments and the fact that there are people out there who think we're as funny as we do (lol jk nobody thinks we're as funny as we do, that's impossible) all means the world to us, and we're so appreciative for you. So happy, happy Valentine's Day! What kinds of love are you celebrating today? 💋
  • Blogging has changed the way that I travel, for better and for worse. And one of the biggest changes is taking photos. Before blogging, I didn't really see a point in taking photos on my trips - nobody on my Facebook cared about my trip as much as I did, so why bother? Instead, Jeremy and I recorded special memories in journals and diaries, writing descriptions of the places we visited together. But we stopped writing in the journal as soon as we started the blog, mostly because I type a LOT faster than I write and get fewer hand cramps. Writing has always been my storytelling tool of choice, but I've learned in the past 3 years of blogging that visual storytelling can be just as captivating. exciting, and challenging. And the actual act of taking photos has made a huge difference in our travel style. These days, our trips include "taking photos" as an actual activity. We research a list of photo-worthy spots and then go out of our way just to see them. We spend hours standing at just the right spot at just the right time, waiting for crowds to clear or the family in the matching neon tracksuits to f**k off (there is somehow always a family wearing neon in the back of every photo we've ever taken). This is something I would NEVER have done if I didn't have a reason to or a platform to share them on. In fact, I probably would have scoffed haughtily at the very idea, probably while nursing a hand cramp from aggressive journalling. But these days, I've learned to appreciate the way that photography changes the way we travel. We take our time to stop and really LOOK. We see more little details, peer down more streets. We stand still, watching, while crowds pass us by. We take our time. We tell stories in snapshots. And we visit places we likely never would have before, like the top of Sulphur Mountain in Banff. We took the Banff Gondola up to the summit to catch the last rays of the sun sinking over the Canadian Rockies, watching clouds of snow roll into the valley below us, breathing in the frigid winter air and standing perfectly still. Snapping photos. And it was beautiful. Do you prioritize photos on your trips? Drop us a comment below!
  • "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing," says some quote that I heard once. I have no idea who said it, but it's 100% accurate! I've been frolicking in freezing (& below freezing) cold weather all month long, and even though California has made me soft, I've nailed my strategy for cold weather dressing. Allow me to take out my cobweb-covered college degree in Fashion Design, dust it off, and share some next-level cold weather apparel tips with you. 🎓🧣 . My first tip for dressing for the cold is to carefully choose the closest layer of clothing to your skin (because that insulating layer of chub only goes so far). My favorite insulating base layer is merino wool. It's is a naturally high performance textile that keeps you warm when it's cold out and keeps you cool when it's hot out. It also stays warm when wet, so even if you get sweaty under your coat or snow falls down your collar (ugh), you'll still be toasty warm! Merino wool is super soft (NOT scratchy) and naturally anti-bacterial, so you can wear it for 2 weeks straight and nobody will ever know (we uh, tested this... for science). My base layer is a merino wool shirt, leggings, 2 pairs of socks, and 2 pairs of gloves.🧤 . If you're not into feeling like you're being hugged by a sheep for whatever reason, hemp has similar properties and is incredibly environmentally friendly. Silk is also a great insulator. Natural textiles are some of the most high tech fabrics on the planet! But make sure you DO NOT wear a fabric like cotton that won't keep you warm if it gets wet.👎 . Once you've got a nice warm base layer, you'll need 1-2 more layers on top and bottom. On top of your 2-3 layers of clothing is the next most important piece: your coat! 🧥 I love packable goose down: it's lightweight, travel friendly, and insanely warm. Add a pair of warm, weatherproof boots, a hat & scarf, and you're ready for the snow!.We've got a comprehensive guide to cold weather packing (and how to pack it all in a carry-on) on the blog, including the specific items we wear and recommend. The link is in our bio! . Do you have any questions about dressing for the cold? How about tips? Drop 'em below!
  • Snow-topped mountains. Hot springs. Ski resorts and cozy lodges. Dog sledding and sleigh rides underneath the Northern Lights. Wait, hang on - where am I talking about now? (Pssst: it's CANADA!) 🇨🇦 . Most of the photos of Banff on Instagram are from warmer months. But Banff National Park is a winter wonderland for outdoor adventure lovers and snow sports enthusiasts (or just like, people who really like frolicking in the snow, eating poutine, and maybe befriending a caribou or moose). You can go ice-walking through river canyons with giant, frozen waterfalls looming over your year. You can play ice hockey on a lake in front of a castle. You can eat braised elk poutine and maple taffy EVERY SINGLE DAY (spoilers: this is exactly what we did). . Visiting during Banff’s winter season will show you a sparkling, icy, snow-dusted side of the Canadian Rockies – all with fewer crowds and cheaper prices! And I've just published a MASSIVE guide with everything you need to know to plan a winter trip to Banff, including what to pack, where to stay, where to eat, and 12 of the best things to do during your visit! The link is in my profile - grab a hot chocolate and get cozy, cuz it's a juicy guide! . I have been fortunate enough to visit a BUNCH of snowy, amazing destinations this month, and it makes my heart so happy. I'm writing this from a cozy cabin in Lake Tahoe as snow swirls outside, so I'm right where I'm meant to be.❄❤ Where are you this weekend? Drop me a comment below! . . . #thecanadacollective #explorecanada #travelcanada #canadasworld #banffnationalpark #canadianrockies #parkscanada #mybanff #explorebanff #roundtheworld #exploretheworld #instapassport#explorecanada #parkscanada #albertaviews #banffcanada #canadagram #discovercanada #canadaeh #beautifulcanada #livelovecanada #canada_true #MyTinyAtlas #TravelAwesome #travelstagram #liveoutdoors #MostDeserving #themountainsarecalling #adventurenthusiasts #best_streetview
  • Meet my friend, Johann. 🦌 Johann is a reindeer living in Norway's Arctic Tundra. Also, he definitely isn't named Johann, I just have a habit of naming every animal I meet and he gave off sort of a "Johann-esque" kind of vibe. . I'd love to tell you all about the magical time that I had hanging out with Johann, feeding him pellets and brushing his soft downy reindeer fur and laughing together about how my hair was frozen because it was -30 degrees outside. But that's not what happened. . You see, Johann is not yet domesticated, and as a result is very shy around people. A few days before I met him, was living a happy reindeer life in the wild, not realizing that his very existence was made possible by indigenous Sámi Reindeer Herders who spend countless hours moving his herd from place to place so that they stay safe from predators and well fed. . So Johann is still adapting to life as a domestic reindeer. His herders will spend a week or so getting to know him, walking him on a leash, and feeding him pellets while he learns that they mean him no harm. And so because Johann wasn't comfortable around me, I refrained from touching him, as pettable and adorable as he looked with his little face and his little horns and those big eyes. Instead, I left him some pellets and took a zillion photos of him from a reasonable distance. . The Sami people have been living in the arctic of modern-day Norway, Finland, Sweden and Russia for thousands of years, practicing reindeer husbandry and herding. Today, only about 2,800 Sami reindeer herders remain, working together to keep their traditions (and their herds) alive. On my trip to Norway, I was lucky enough to spend 3 days in the tundra getting to know a family of Sámi reindeer herders and learning about the choices they make every day to preserve their heritage and culture. Today (Feb 6) is Sami National Day, a holiday celebrated by all Sami people across their various country borders. Happy Sami National Day! . Did you know that there are still indigenous people living in the arctic tundra? Have you ever met a reindeer? Drop your comments and questions below! . #visitnatives #visitnorway #impacttravelalliance

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