my travels in pixels

After four months in Canada it is time to move south. Before we even got fifteen minutes down the road Lindsay remembered that he had left the stone guard back at the house. Luckily we had factored in an extra half hour into our travel plans. Any further and we would have left it behind. The Visa system is flawed. When you have a five year visa for the USA it allows you to stay up to six months per year, even all at once. When we first came over we filled in an i94 with our details and this was stapled into our passports, when we left it was taken by the airport or the country you were entering and given back to border control. Now it's electronic. No bits of paper, but what that means is that they only track you when you come into the country, not when you leave. So if you change your mind and leave early, bad luck, your time was allocated and you don't get it back. The first night we stayed at Walmart, we do this for transit stops. No point in paying for an RV park whe...

Ever since we started going to Yellowstone, Lindsay has wanted to visit in winter. Fred from Seattle suggested that we look at snow mobile tours. There are a some from the west entrance and two from the north entrance. As we planned to camp in Mammoth campground, we chose the private company Yellowstone Year-Round Safaris as opposed to Xanterra who run all the government campgrounds. They run out of Gardiner and have two tours, one to Old Faithful and one to Canyon, we wanted to go to Canyon  which goes down the right hand side of Yellowstone. The last tour available when we rang was on the 27th February, so we made sure we got there a couple of days beforehand so that we could get over our travelling and therefore enjoy the experience more. Mammoth Campground When we arrived into the Mammoth campground, there was no-one else there. Surprise surprise. Only one block of restrooms were open, so we chose a campsite close to them as we had drained our fresh water tank and winteri...

Our house sitting on Vancouver Island is coming to a close. A big thank you to Cameron and Christine, we really have appreciated it. We met a lovely family next door who have taken us in like their own children and we have become friends with their children too. We even spent Christmas with them. We got to see some great renovation and property shows on HGTV which I am going to miss, it was the International relocation show gave us the idea to go to Mexico next winter! We have also seen some great movies and TV shows on Netflix, something we can't subscribe to on our measly 6GB per month of WiFi. The guys at the gate house said they are so glad we are leaving considering that we have been so much trouble! The weather is sort of starting to warm up, most days are around 10ºC. We have enjoyed our time here but have itchy feet to get back on the road again. I can't wait until I can complain about the sun waking us up early or it still being light when we go to bed, or that we are...

To go to a foreign country, buy a vehicle and travel can be a bit daunting and finding information on how to do it, can be difficult. So how do you do it? The first year we bought a Dodge van, fitted it out and travelled for six months, we loved it so much we decided that we wanted to do it more, but the Dodge was too small and we couldn't face it again. US Travel Visa A normal ESTA travel visa is only for three months, which is not long enough if you want to buy a vehicle and travel. Go to the US consulate in your country and apply for a five year visa, you will need bank and investment details to show you can support yourself and have an idea where you want to travel. A five year visa only cost us $50 more than a six month one and saves you going back each year. On a travel visa, not only can you not do any paid work,  you cannot do any volunteer work either such as being a camp host. How long can I stay in the country at a time? Okay, you have your five year vis...