my travels in pixels

I have been doing a lot of planning for our upcoming north east USA trip. It can be very busy on the east coast and we will have to book RV sites in advance, something I really don't like doing. It locks you into a set itinerary, so you can't add on days when you want to or leave when you are bored or the weather is awful. The amount of time we have for this trip depends on what date the USA border control put in our passports. We got our five year US tourist visas six months before our first trip so that we could book our plane tickets early, which means they run out this coming September. With this in mind I have planned our trip with a 19 September exit date but I have read that as our visa will be current when we enter the US they could give us six months instead of five, which we would prefer. So I am working on two itineraries one for five months and one for six. When we crossed from Canada into the USA last October, we asked if they could put an exit date of 28th D...

Yelapa, Jalisco Mexico Yelapa beach Yelapa is a little seaside village about an hour's boat trip from Puerto Vallarta, there is no road access from the rest of the country. We had checked the day before and were told that we didn't need reservations, just turn up at least 10 minutes before 11am at the Los Muertos Pier. Not wanting to miss out we organised to meet up with Bill and Michele at the ticket booth at 10:30. There are numerous people selling these tickets so it makes you wonder how often they overbook. At the dock our ticket was torn in two and on the back of the return portion he wrote Jack. It turned out we were on Jack's taxi and therefore had to return on Jack's taxi at 4pm. Most of the people get a seat but if you are one of the last four on, three of you will have to sit on the bow and one at the stern, no cushions, with water splashing included! Being early, we got a seat on the right hand side and with the canopy this meant we were out of the s...

We booked two different places on Flipkey for our stay in Puerto Vallarta because I couldn't get into the one I wanted for the whole time. Our first place was in a condo complex of about 25, with two swimming pools and a heated spa. The condo had a slight Mexican feel inside and out, but so do a lot of places in California, we could have been anywhere. It was a 20 minute uphill walk from town that really got our hearts beating and our legs aching. We aren't being precious when we say it was a hard slog. The property agent's car can't make it up the hill, so she leaves it at the bottom, and walks up.  One day a gas truck was driving up the road and Lindsay was able to out walk it - that is how steep it was. I'm not going to miss that hill. Moving next door to the locals We have moved right into the heart of town, with all that comes with it. Kids playing in the street until 10.30pm, garbage trucks picking up rubbish around 8pm nearly every night from the corne...