In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, takes his first step on the much-lauded and unique Unorthodox Istanbul - Via Egnatia Style. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Turkey.

This is my first post of many from the recently completed Adventures Abroad Via Egnatia tour led by our good friend Victor Romagnoli. This was a unique tour designed by yours truly and Victor on Malta just after travel resumed post-Covid. I described my expectations for this tour in this post and I can say without question that it exceeded them in every way. The name for the tour was Victor's idea. We would retrace the steps of an ancient Roman road that connected Constantinople to the Adriatic coast and allowed for rapid transport between the eastern and western capitals of the empire. The tour was also meant to include a number of natural history sites such as the Evros Delta and Mount Olympus, alternating with visits to places associated with Alexander the Great and St. Paul among others. The starting place for the tour was Istanbul, but rather than turning south and crossing into Asia as Alison and I had done three times before, we would pass through European Turkey on the way to Greece. For the Istanbul itinerary, we wanted something other than the standard Sultanahmet tour of Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque and Topkapi. As important as those sites are, Alison and I had seen them only recently for the second or third time and wanted to see more of this ancient city. Our first stop on this unorthodox Istanbul tour will be at the Golden Gate of the Walls of Constantinople.

Read more

In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, offers up an overview of his very first visit to Southeast Asia starting in Laos with Adventures Abroad. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Southeast Asia.

This is the first of many posts to come reporting on a trip to Southeast Asia last March with Adventures Abroad. The trip started in Laos and ended in Cambodia with two weeks in Vietnam in the middle. It was our first trip to this area of the world so we started a bit early and spent five days in Bangkok before joining the AA group in Laos. If you are going on a similar tour and haven't been to Bangkok before I highly recommend spending some time there. In order to get to Laos you very well might have to go through Bangkok anyway.

In this post, I am going to give the reader an overview of this country that sees few tourists and frankly can pose some real challenges to even the most seasoned of travellers. But I'll also spell out why Laos should be on any intrepid explorer's bucket list. So let's start with a very brief history of this former French colony.

Read more

In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, catches some fantastic sights of Cuenca – Ecuador’s Fantastic Third City. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Ecuador.

When most people think of Ecuadorean cities, Quito and Guayaquil usually come to mind, but not the country’s third largest city, Cuenca. I confess that even though I am supposed to be a geography buff it was not on my radar screen until I started planning our itinerary for after we had concluded the Adventures Abroad portion of our trip. As mentioned in the last post, I knew that Adventures Abroad did have a tour that included the Avenue of the Volcanoes and three nights in Cuenca, but it did not include the Galapagos which is why we did not take it. Instead Alison and I were largely going to follow the same itinerary that AA did, but with our own private guide.

Read more

In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, catches sight of some fantastic and rare wildlife while visiting the Napo Cultural Center - Exploring Amazonia. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Ecuador.

In my last post from this Adventures Abroad tour of Ecuador, we flew from the Galapagos to the city of Coca via Quito and then travelled down the Napo River to the Napo Cultural Center where we will spend three days. In this post, I will give the highlights of that stay which include multiple wildlife viewing sessions both on foot and by boat. The center is located in Yasuni National Park which has arguably the greatest biodiversity per square metre of any place on the planet. It is also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve which recognizes that 99.73% of its vegetation is original native forest. If you are concerned about deforestation in the Amazon region and want to see what the true tropical rainforest looks like, then you can come to no better place than the Napo Cultural Center to witness and experience it firsthand. With that brief introduction, let's start exploring Amazonia.

Read more

In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, checks off another one of his travel to-dos as he begins his travels in the Amazon and starts at the Napo River - Journey Into Amazonia. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Ecuador.

We have now reached the final leg of our Adventures Abroad Ecuador trip. In the first part, we discovered the wonders of the capital city Quito and the surrounding area. We then spent a week exploring three of the islands of the Galapagos archipelago ending with Santa Cruz. Now we are about to depart on an entirely different experience, Amazonia where we will travel down the Napo River, the longest in Ecuador, to spend three days at an Indigenous camp in the world's largest rainforest. I've never been to the Amazon and have been looking forward to this for a very long time.

Read more

In his latest blog post, Dale Dunlop, The Maritime Explorer, travels to an outer-worldly landscape here on earth, Exploring Isabela - A Natural Wonderland. If you are interested in what Adventures Abroad has to offer, please check out our Small Group Tours to Ecuador.

This is my third post from the largest of the Galapagos Islands, Isabela. In the first one we marvelled at the unique Galapagos wildlife found both on and below the surface of the waters of Tintoreras Islet. In the second we sought out the famous giant tortoises for which the islands are known. In this one, we will continue exploring Isabela by visiting a landscape so unearthly that it positively makes one shake your head in amazement. Join this Adventures Abroad group as we snorkel with sharks and sea turtles and then hike to the rim of an enormous volcano seeking new species along the way.

Read more