Why I Want To Go On An Eight-Day Emerald Waterways River Cruise Through Europe

Dürnstein | Photo Courtesy Emerald Waterways

Remember when I shared how much I want to take a river cruise?  Sadly that wasn't a contest I won, so here I am with a European river cruise still on my travel wish list.  Lo and behold, Johnny Jet is running another blogger contest, this time with Emerald Waterways, and the prize is an eight-day European river cruise for two.  I might be a glutton for punishment, but here I go again in hopes I will finally be able to take that European river cruise of my dreams. 

The Austria Trip That Never Happened

You know the saying “all dressed up and nowhere to go?”  I kind of feel that way about our trip to Austria that never happened.  My dream of traveling to Austria began at an early age because of my love of the movie The Sound of Music.  Who wouldn’t want to visit Austria after seeing Julie Andrews twirling on verdant hilltops?  Are the hills really alive with the sound of music?  I need to know.  And the only way to truly find out is to travel to Austria.

Once we decided upon a trip to Austria, I bought two guidebooks as I always do and started reading up on Austria and highlighting all the places we would visit in Vienna, Salzburg, and beyond.  But as I started researching flights I found a trip to Austria that year was out of our financial reach.  So now I have two out-of-date guidebooks, one of which is partially highlighted with a sad little page corner turned down halfway through where my research abruptly ended.

The folded page is a sad reminder of the abrupt end of my Austria trip planning.

We have taken many trips since and as we travel the world I always feel a little regret for the trip that never happened.  So when I learned about the GowithOh Guest Tester contest, I had visions of my wished for trip to Austria that could becoming the trip to Austria that did.

5 Reasons to Take a River Cruise with Scenic Cruises

Scenic Cruises and Johnny Jet have created a blogger contest with an eight-day European River Cruise for two as the prize! A river cruise has been on my travel wish list for some time, so of course I’m entering.  Wish me luck!  Here are my five reasons to take a river cruise with Scenic Cruises.

1. Rooms With A View

Unlike large ships with internal cabins, all Scenic Cruises’ rooms have a view.  While there are a few rooms with just windows, the vast majority have private balconies.  These aren’t just French balconies, where the doors slide open but you can’t go anywhere.  They’re full balconies with a table and chairs so you can sit outside and sip a glass of wine while enjoying the scenery.  Not only do the rooms have real balconies, those balconies have “Sun-Lounge” technology which encloses the balcony behind glass in case of inclement weather, or a slight hair-tossing breeze.

I LOVE balconies!

Capture the Colour 2013

Capture the Colour is a photo blogging challenge launched by Travel Supermarket.  The challenge is to publish a blog featuring five of the blogger’s favorite travel photographs which best capture the five color categories: red, blue, green, yellow and white.  Bloggers who enter the Capture the Colour contest also nominate five other bloggers to enter as well. 

Thank you so much to Ari of Beyond Blighty for nominating me.  I have been following Ari’s adventurous escapades, and am honored she has been reading about my travels as well.  Ari’s entry includes some fabulous pictures.  Her yellow entry, a woman in yellow as seen through a bed of reeds in Lake Titcaca, seems to be the favorite, but I also love her red entry, a colorful crab from the Galapagos Islands.

Here are some of my favorite photographs from my travels around the world.  I hope you enjoy them!

Red

Finding My Soul Mate (Again)

I very recently learned of a travel blog contest sponsored by Expedia and the National Film Festival for Talented Youth (NFFTY).  The contest offers a travel blogger the opportunity to travel to Australia, Paris, Morocco, London, or Seattle and star in a short travel film as part of Expedia’s “Find Yours” campaign.  It sounded like such an exciting contest, but I thought I had found out about it too late to put something together worth considering.  I read the entry by Dave and Deb of The Planet D, one of the travel blogs I follow, and left a comment.  When they replied and said I should enter too, I realized I had to try. 

I would love to travel to any of the locations offered, and have been to all but Australia.  I tried to think of what riveting idea I could come up with of what I would find in one of the locations, but my mind kept drifting back to one place, London, where my husband and I went on our honeymoon and where the rest of my life with my soul mate began.

Tower Bridge

What I Would Do in Five Days in Queensland

I have not yet been to Australia, but I am longing to go.  I would love to experience its cities, nature, culture, adventures, and, of course, its people and their lovely accents.  What better place for a first trip to Australia than Queensland, the location of the Great Barrier Reef?

If I had five days in Queensland, I would start in the south in Brisbane, Queensland’s metropolis, and then travel up to Far North Queensland.