20+ fantastic Vancouver restaurants to satisfy every craving

Click here to see an interactive map of our favorite Vancouver restaurants.

We spent a lot of time in Vancouver when Mike was producing a TV show. Every night and every weekend (when he wasn’t working) we’d scour the city for the best places to eat in Vancouver, and found a little over twenty places we loved.

Here’s our list of our favorite Vancouver restaurants (in a vague order of preference)…
Continue reading “20+ fantastic Vancouver restaurants to satisfy every craving”

All the Tanzania safari tips we wish we knew before we left

We took a three-week Tanzania safari trip for our honeymoon. We did all the research, and perused every safari packing list, and yet we still found ourselves in the middle of the Serengeti wishing we had brought a few things.

So here are all the Tanzania safari tips we either were glad to have known or we wished someone had told us… Continue reading “All the Tanzania safari tips we wish we knew before we left”

3 unbelievable luxury safari lodges in Tanzania

If you’re looking for some amazing places to stay on your luxury safari, we’ve rounded up our favorites from our honeymoon in Tanzania. Some of these luxury safari lodges are places where you’ll definitely splurge, and some were sneaky deals.

Here are our recommendations for mind-blowing luxury safari lodges in Tanzania… Continue reading “3 unbelievable luxury safari lodges in Tanzania”

Wifi while you eat: Our favorite restaurants with wifi in LA

Restaurants with wifi in Los Angeles @thedashanddine

We’re both writers, so we spend most of our days eating and typing, and sometimes doing both at the same time. This means we are in need of great cafes and restaurants with wifi in LA.

Our needs are this: comfortable seating, free wifi, not so busy that we feel guilty for camping out at a table for a couple of hours, bonus points for access to outlets.

If your needs are similar, this is our list of the best LA restaurants with wifi… Continue reading “Wifi while you eat: Our favorite restaurants with wifi in LA”

Secretly amazing wine, famous local beers, and hugging giant trees: Things to do in Anderson Valley

Things to do in Anderson Valley - @thedashanddine

Northern California’s Anderson Valley is a very special place for us — it’s where Mike’s ancestral home is, it’s where we got married, and it’s where we go when we have time for a weekend getaway. As we’re prepping for an upcoming visit, we thought we’d share our best Anderson Valley travel tips. Because who doesn’t love awesome wines that’ll give you some major sommelier cred, popular local beers, and staggeringly giant trees!?

You may not have thought you’d ever visit this part of Northern California — it’s kept a bit of a secret for a reason — but you’re about to learn that there’s lots of stuff to do in Anderson Valley… Continue reading “Secretly amazing wine, famous local beers, and hugging giant trees: Things to do in Anderson Valley”

Pack for a Purpose: How to use your vacation to bring needed supplies to local communities

My favorite part of packing for our honeymoon safari in Tanzania were the toys and school supplies for Pack for a Purpose.

When we were planning our honeymoon safari, Courtney — the fantastic African Travel Resource agent who booked our trip for us — let us know about a charitable program called Pack for a Purpose. It’s a program that encourages travelers to Africa (and so many other destinations!) to bring much-needed school supplies with them.

We were really lucky to be able to do this for several reasons: One of our places to stay was Gibb’s Farm, and they’re one of the places that works with Pack for a Purpose. Plus it was our second stop on our trip. Which meant we wouldn’t be taking many vehicles that would force us to have weight limits on our bags. So unlike (perhaps) most people, we didn’t have skimp on the number of items we could bring based on weight.

Our bag on the way to Gibb’s Farm.

Gibb’s Farm provides a long list of the things that their nearby school needs, but I was getting overwhelmed with choices. So Mike suggested that I email them and ask if they know the top items the school REALLY needed. They got back to me and said, “We spoke with the teacher and they suggested pens and pencils, rubbers, sharpeners and a few netballs if you have space. Whatever you can manage to bring will be most appreciated by the school and the children.” So that’s what they got, plus some other items that our friends donated as well.

5 Easy Steps to using Pack for a Purpose

  1. Select your destination.
  2. Find an accommodation or tour company and a project it supports.
  3. Choose the supplies you wish to take from the specific items requested.
  4. Drop off the supplies at the accommodation or tour company.
  5. They will be delivered to the project; it’s that easy!

So if you’re heading to Africa, the Caribbean, Central or South America, Southeast Asia, or any of these places for your next trip, you should definitely add a little charitable action to your plans, and pack for a purpose!

Eat, Don’t be Prey, Love: Our top 10 favorite safari honeymoon moments

Best honeymoon EVAR!!!

You may have already heard all about the hardest parts of our “Eat, Don’t be Prey, Love” safari honeymoon. But there were far more amazing parts! So we broke them down into this easy-to-digest Top 10 moments (mostly in chronological order): Continue reading “Eat, Don’t be Prey, Love: Our top 10 favorite safari honeymoon moments”

How to stop tstetse flies from biting you

How to avoid tsetse flies - @thedashanddine
How many tstetse fly bites can you spot in this photo?

I just got back from a three-week safari trip in Tanzania. Everything was awesome, except for the dreaded tsetse flies. If you’ve googled how to avoid them and ended up here, you’ve probably already found out that they’re the large biting flies in Africa that hurt and can transmit disease and DEET does nothing to dissuade them. But you probably haven’t found any information on how to avoid them.

After a lot of painful trial and error, I finally found the trick that no one else mentioned on the interwebs… Continue reading “How to stop tstetse flies from biting you”

10 reasons a honeymoon safari isn’t as sexy as you think (and 1 reason it’s the MOST sexy)

10 reasons a honeymoon safari isn't sexy - @thedashanddine
This may look romantic, but really we were just too hot and tired to touch.

One afternoon on our honeymoon safari, while bundled up in the back of an open-aired Jeep, surrounded by biting flies, waiting for a cheetah to murder an impala before it started to rain, I realized: a safari honeymoon is nowhere near as sexy as I thought it would be.

Here are the top 10 reasons why: Continue reading “10 reasons a honeymoon safari isn’t as sexy as you think (and 1 reason it’s the MOST sexy)”

Snow, swan boats and sulfur: Our quick trip to Hakone

Our quick trip to Hakone - @thedashanddine

Mike: Megan gets a little overwhelmed in New York, so I thought she might get triggered in Tokyo, being surrounded by endless skyscrapers. When we booked our trip to Japan, I scheduled a night in the mountain town of Hakone as a brief respite from the city. Turned out that Megan was just fine in Tokyo, but we’re still glad we hit this charming resort spot.

Megan: After our six days in Tokyo, we jumped on the RomanceCar (the not-really-appropriate name for the very-ordinary train to Hakone) and left the city behind…
Continue reading “Snow, swan boats and sulfur: Our quick trip to Hakone”