Travel Blogger Relay – Our Top 3 Travel Memories
With the London 2012 Olympic Games officially in the history books, we’re keeping the Olympic spirit alive by participating in a travel blogger relay.
What the heck is a travel blogger relay you ask?
Well, basically it’s a campaign created by Lowcostholidays.com that has travel bloggers sharing their inspirational travel memories after being nominated by fellow travel bloggers (passing the proverbial baton). We are on Team Blue, a kick-ass group of bloggers coached by the lovely Christina Hegele of Jandal Road.
Waegook Tom has passed the baton to us, so its now our turn to share our top 3 travel memories, ranked by Gold, Silver and Bronze.
Choosing just 3 memories is a much harder task than you’d think. We can easily come up with a dozen travel memories worthy of the gold medal, but we have to narrow the field to just three.
Bronze medal – Discovering the Galapagos Islands
Where else in the world can humans come face to face with wildlife in their natural environment and not have them run away in fear?
The Galapagos Islands will always occupy a special place in our travel memory bank. We will always remember the morning we woke up on a motor yacht and witnessed three sharks circling our boat as we brushed our teeth. I had to do a double take – is this really happening?!
Hanging out with a giant Galapagos tortoise on Santa Cruz island, the largest living species of tortoise and one of the heaviest living reptiles on the planet
Nicole snorkeling with playful sea lions
Resident sea lions couldn’t care less about our presence – they have no fear of humans
Otherworldly volcanic landscapes from the Bartolome viewpoint
Silver medal – Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
When we reflect on our travels around the world there are a few moments that stand out from the rest. One of the greatest adventures we’ve had was hiking the Inca Trail to the Lost City of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes.
Reflecting back on our 4-day hike, it was an incredible accomplishment for us as a couple. It pushed us, it challenged us, and it rewarded us greatly!
Happy hikers as we finally reach the Sun Gate and see Machu Picchu for the first time
An architectural marvel surrounded by lush mountains and tranquility
Mission accomplished after 4 challenging days of hiking and personal discovery
Gold medal – Exploring the Mysterious Moai of Easter Island
There are many reasons why we’ve chosen Easter Island for the gold medal, but here are a few: (1) it’s a beautiful tropical island in the South Pacific, (2) it has a mysterious past that is quite fascinating, (3) it’s the most isolated and remote destination we’ve visited, and (4) there’s loads of outdoor adventure at your finger tips.
It’s a surreal feeling to be in the presence of the ancient Moai statues, alone and deserted on a volcanic island surrounded by wild horses and whispering trade winds.
At times we had to pinch ourselves to remind us that it wasn’t a dream, that we were actually exploring the unusual tropical island.
The remote island seems almost fictional, like something out of a childhood bedtime story. At times, it feels as if the island was never meant to be re-discovered by modern man, as if it has a dark history that it doesn’t want to reveal to the world.
Now that we’ve shared our top travel memories, it’s time to pass the baton and keep Team Blue in the race. We are thrilled to nominate Ashley and Carolyn, the Romantic and the Wino behind the Lazy Travelers.
Looking for more memorable travel moments? Check out the entries from other travel bloggers on Team BLUE:
- Christina Hegele of Jandal Road – Captain – My Top Travel Memories
- Laurel of Monkeys and Mountains – My Top 3 Travel Memories
- Cathy of Traveling With Sweeney -Three Favorite Travel Memories
- Leah of Leah Travels – Top three Travel Memories
- Dave and Deb of The Planet D – Favourite Adventure Travel Memories
- Aaron Cruz of Elatlboy – My Top Travel Memories
- Mark of Migrationology – 3 of My Favorite Travel Memories
- Henry Lee of Fotoeins Fotopress – 3 Travel Moments: New Zealand’s South Island
- Tom from Waegook Tom – My Top 3 Travel Memories
Still looking for more travel inspiration? You can follow the Travel Blogger Relay on Twitter using the hastags #BloggerRelay and #TeamBLUE. We always appreciate a little social media loving!
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We’d love to hear about your top 3 Travel Memories?
Share your experiences in the comments section below!
Cameron and Nicole Wears are a Canadian couple and newbie parents living in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. A passion for travel and outdoor adventure has taken them to over 65 countries & territories on 6 continents in the past 7 years. Consider following us via 
Hey, guys, great list!!! I can fail to notice these are part of three South American countries (Ecuador, Peru and Chile) – I like it! I lived for a year in Chile in 2010 due to work (with frequent trips home) and managed to see a lot of the country except Easter Is. But good to leave something to make me go back (a return trip to Patagonia will also get me back there – I loved Chilean Patagonia!). Cheers.
I didn’t even realize that all 3 picks were from South America, how weird is that?!
We have yet to make it to Patagonia but would love to do some hiking in that part of the world.
Great travel memories guys! Love the photos too, especially the tortoise and sea lions ones. Had the chance to see the sea lions in San Francisco the other day, so cute to watch. A sunset, on a tropical, remote, historic, mysterious island, unreal. Have even a bigger urge to visit the South American content now.
Thanks Aaron! Hopefully you’ll get a chance to visit Easter Island soon. It’s an incredible place
Interesting choices. I’d concur with the Galapagos. It’s hard to beat a place where you interact with nature so much. I know little about the Easter Islands so obviously need to give them some more thought. And for whatever reason Machu Picchu has never called me but perhaps if I did the trek I would enjoy it as much as you did.
The Inca Trail hike definitely made the experience for us. It felt so much more rewarding to see the site after 4 days of hiking, we earned that view!
Go South America!
Yeah!
All three choices deserving of your medals! I haven’t visited any of these places, but your stories and photos are keeping my dreams alive. I know what you mean about needing to pinch yourselves to know that you’re actually in such awesome places. Go Team BLUE! Thanks for the mention, too.
Go team Blue!
All three are on my wish list. Never been to South America. The closes I ever got was Cuba! Easter Island would be my first choice – so impressive!
Cheers Christina – Easter Island is certainly a special place!
Your entries are definitely medal-worthy. I can’t wait to see Machu Picchu myself someday.
My gold medal would be walking on the Great Wall of China. It sounds so simple, but is something I never expected to do in my lifetime. And I had a long length of it to myself. I felt alone in the world, halfway around the world from anyone I knew. It was magical.
We have not yet visited the Great Wall of China. I can only imagine how impressive it is up close. It sounds like you had a very memorable experience!
Your top three memories are so awesome and on my bucket list. I think Easter Island will be the first of these to get checked off. Go team BLUE!
Yeah Team Blue!
Get Easter Island on your travel bucket list ASAP!
I’m glad your time in South America left such deep impressions! And I see you “sneaking” in a Canucks’ cap into the photos, too! I’d have more shots of me wearing a similar cap, but I don’t really like having photos with me in them …
Thanks for your post, Cameron & Nicole!
You like that Canucks hat Henry!
great choices, and we can’t help but be jealous of all three! it’s going to be hard to follow this up, but we’ll try our best… xo!
We’re looking forward to it!
Awesome site! This site will come in handy for my customers to reference. (I own an online travel agency) You are being bookmarked now…Chris
Glad you like our site Chris!
Great memories! Machu picchu and Galapagos are among our favorite places as well and Moai is in our list. I bet it was hard to choose only 3 memories, there are so many beautiful places. Good luck you guys!
It was really hard to narrow the field to just 3! These were certainly wonderful travel experiences, though I could easily add another 5 to the list…
Thanks for the kind words!
This is a great post, guys! Although I gotta admit, you can keep the Inca Trail for yourself (phobia of heights here). Easter Island and the Galapagos sound amazing, though! I can’t believe that you’re able to get so close to the animals on the islands. I think I’d try to hug one of the sea lions.
Hah! Yeah, you’re probably best to NOT hug the sealions… especially the males!
Really amazing place. The turtle is huge, I have not seen anything like that one before and might be scared to go near it. Beautiful photo of the sunset.
Thanks for stopping by Sahlu! Glad you enjoyed the post
Neat list. Ali went to Easter Island as a part of her RTW trip. She has so many neat stories to tell about her week there. Neat to see your perspective.
It’s an incredible place. Our only regret was not spending enough time there. I could easily spend a couple weeks just taking in the views!
My gold would go to the Galapagos. For me nothing can be better than being so close to such wildlife. Though I appreciate your list. All three are amazing places. Thanks for the great post
The Galapagos is definitely on our list of top travel memories as well! Went on a fantastic National Geographic / Lindblad Expeditions cruise there with great hiking among iguanas, blue footed boobies, sea lions, Galapagos tortoises (we got to see lonesome George, who sadly recently passed away) and snorkeling with sea lions, turtles and Galapagos penguins. Truly incredible for us and our then almost 2-year old. While I enjoyed Easter Island and the moai are certainly impressive, it assumes a lower place on my list.
Great photos! Love the ones of Machu Picchu. Hope to get there one day!
Wow, the photo with the seal is amazing! I want!
I am very impressed with your photos particularly your encounter with sea lions and the Mysterious Moai of Easter Island. I myself would also like to experience every travel you did. You must have had so much fun travelling.
Amazing! You are really fortunate to see the giant Galapagos tortoise on Santa Cruz Island. It looks so large and heavy! How old is the reptile?