Just the words, “World Travel,” sound romantic. What’s it like to really chuck it all and travel around the world for a year? After visiting over a dozen countries on a shoestring-budget, I thought I’d do a little visual re-cap of some of the highlights. First stop, on my world travel adventure – Australia, including the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns, where I took a leap of faith as well as a leap in the ocean, and...

Tours, France is a great home base for touring the chateaux of the Loire Valley, but it’s also a nice city to visit in and of itself. It’s full of outdoor cafes, and amazing markets like Les Halles, with 10 million kinds of cheese (okay, I might exaggerate slightly) and the best cherries and raspberries I’ve ever tasted, along with everything else you need for a picnic. The cathedral, is magnificent, tall  and gothic and...

The Loire Valley is covered in castles, and after my inadvertent indentured servitude, I set out to see several. With dozens of castles, how do you choose?! 42 chateaux make up this UNESCO World Heritage area. Without a car, I was reliant on either a tour, trains, or buses, so for my first foray into fairytaleland, I opted for a tour. I usually avoid them, but this was a small tour of just 8 in a mini-bus, which stopped at 3 castles, or...