Tuesday, October 5 - Istanbul, Turkey: Istanbul became my favorite port before we even docked. We didn't dock until noon so it gave us plenty of time to sleep in and watch us sail through Bosphorus, the Istanbul Strait that connects the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea with the Black Sea. It is the world's narrowest [...]

Our first port off the Holland America Westerdam was Kusadasi, Turkey. We headed to Ephesus, the best-preserved ancient classical city in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was founded in the 10th century B.C. and during Roman times was the second largest Roman city, ranking just behind Rome. There were [...]

Each of the last few years Jay and I have been lucky enough to take a big family vacation with my family. We are spread out across the world and all busy with our jobs, so it feels like a small miracle we've been able to make it happen. This year we met up in Athens, Greece for a cruise across the Black Sea visiting cities in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia. For Jay and I, the vacation started a day [...]

Ryan Air, one of Europe's popular discount airlines, gets a bad reputation for poor customer service and ridiculous fees, but I love them. Even with their outlandish fees (everything from luggage fees to processing and credit card fees), we've gotten some amazing deals making short weekend trips affordable. [...]