Plenty To Be Thankful For

On November 30, 2015 By Living The Q Life Travel AdventuresIn Travel Tips7 Comments

If you’re asking yourself “where do I want to travel next” instead of “where is my next meal coming from”, then, like us, you have an awful lot to be thankful about. Neither of our families travelled much when we were younger, which is probably the main reason that sharing travel experiences with our children was so important to us when the kids were younger. Now that we’re older and are fortunate enough to be in a position to travel, we often think back to the days when we struggled to take time off, let alone go anyplace for vacation. We’ve come a long way from the days when we worried about getting food on the table, but we’re well aware that life can change in a heartbeat, so we never want to forget how far we’ve come.

With the hectic day-to-day life as well as planning another trip, it is easy to forget how blessed we are to have the opportunity to see the places that we have. We often see other posts from sites that we enjoy and think to ourselves, “wow, I wish we could go there”. It is easy to get caught up in travel envy instead of simply being thankful for the experiences that you have been able to have. More importantly, for the opportunity to share those experiences with the ones that you love.

We recently purchased a digital picture frame where we’ve loaded pictures from places that we’ve travelled, concerts that we’ve been to, and special occasions and holidays with family. It was really eye-opening to see all of those memories in a single place. It really gave us the opportunity to look back and think about how fortunate we truly have been. And that only includes the places we’ve seen since we entered the digital age, there are still photo albums filled with pictures yet to be scanned and added to the library.

Hopefully we’ll do a better job throughout the year of being thankful for our opportunities. It is easy to be thankful during the holiday season when it is forefront on people’s minds, but it is something that we want to remember the whole year-long. Hopefully next year will provide as many travel opportunities for you as we hope to have for ourselves. We truly are a lucky couple.

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Cabo San Lucas

On November 23, 2015 By Living The Q Life Travel AdventuresIn Mexico1 Comment

We’ve been home from Cabo San Lucas for a little over a week now and we’re already going through withdrawal. We’ve had one blizzard since getting home and are expecting snow on Thanksgiving, so the sun and beach seem like a distant memory at this point. We truly had a wonderful time visiting Cabo and walking around town and through the marina.

As you walk through the marina, you’ll continuously be approached by sales people trying to get you to take a glass bottom boat, take you deep-sea fishing, go on a time share tour, or play golf at one of the many courses around the area. It is definitely worthwhile taking a glass bottom boat out to the arch and to go to lover’s beach. The marina is also where you board the different dinner cruises, party boats, and fishing boats. We’ve done many of the different dinner and sunset cruises, but haven’t gone deep-sea fishing as of yet, perhaps on our next trip to Cabo.

There are many wonderful restaurants in the marina as well, all of them offering fresh seafood and tasty drinks. On Sunday, while we were there, we came across a restaurant offering all you can eat oysters. Since we love oysters, we definitely took advantage of that opportunity. At night-time, the marina area really comes to life with plenty of things to do and opportunities to people watch.

The downtown area also has plenty of vendors where you can purchase local trinkets and bargain with the store owners to get the best price on you souvenirs. At first it might feel awkward haggling over the price, but it is expected and don’t feel intimidated. If you don’t want to go downtown, there are plenty of vendors walking up and down the beach bringing souvenirs to all of the resorts for you to purchase.

At the resorts themselves, you can arrange kayaking, paddle boarding, parasailing, jet skis, golf, and more. There are also people walking the beach with horses so that you can take a romantic horse back ride along the beach. Our favorite thing about Cabo is the size of the resorts. There aren’t huge resorts with thousands of rooms, so whether going into town, walking the beach, or sitting around the pool, you’re not overwhelmed by tremendous crowds. We can hardly wait for our next trip to the beach, but it is going to have to wait for a little while.

Lover's Beach in the Distance — Lover’s Beach in the Distance

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Give and You Will Receive

On November 20, 2015November 20, 2015 By Living The Q Life Travel AdventuresIn Travel Tips2 Comments

It definitely isn’t true all of the time, but generally speaking, if you’re willing to give, you will get just as much in return. This is true whether it is just about being nice to the people around you or whether it comes to tipping the staff who waits on you. We’re probably guilty of over tipping at times, but we try to get to know the people who take care of us, especially if we’re going to be in a place for several days or weeks, and we tend to truly care about them by the time we leave.

When we’re at a resort, we will leave a tip for the housekeeping crew that comes to clean our room. We do it because that we know the resorts don’t pay them too much money to begin with, but also because they will usually make an extra effort and do something special in our room. On our trip to Cabo, we once again left a nominal tip every day, 20 pesos, which is about a 1 US dollar. Every day, when we returned to our room, we were greeted with another swan or other creation made from the towels and bed linens.

The same is true when it came to the waiter who took care of us at the pool every day. First and foremost, we took time to talk with him, learn a little about him, and yes we tipped him at the end of the day as well. In return, Castillo was always taking caring of us, bringing us whatever we needed, finding us wherever we might be in the pool area to make sure we were taken care of.

First and foremost, don’t give with the expectation of getting something in return. If you do, you will likely end up disappointed. However, if you give of yourself, treat others as you’d like to be treated, and genuinely show compassion to your fellow life travelers, you will find happiness wherever you go. It doesn’t take any effort to show compassion and treat those around you with the respect that they deserve.

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