"Welcome to diver-x's HomePage" diver-x's Profile

Hi! Welcome to my home page! I love to travel and am always scheming to take off on my next trip, even before I get home from one!

Our other dive buddy!

Feb. 2008: Diving in Grand Cayman! Well, I've been hankering to get back to Europe, and thought we'd go in the Fall of 2007, but it was just too expensive. So instead, we decided to take a week at home in Sept 2007 to work on the house project. But I insisted on taking a winter vacation to get a break from the winter gloom here in New England. The Caribbean beckoned and we decided to go where we knew the diving would be fantastic: Grand Cayman. This was our 4th trip so we knew the drill. It was kind of relaxing to go someplace familiar, despite the fact that we got 3 dives every day and came home exhausted every night! It was just what the doctor ordered. And the place that we stayed was perfect. We got a condo at vrbo.com and managed to negotiate the price down a bit, which was nice. US Airways had a fantastic deal on a non-stop flight out of Boston for less than $300, so this turned out to be a pretty affordable vacation despite the usual inflated Cayman costs. I'm still updating my Cayman tips so please bear with me!

Waipio Valley, Big Island of Hawai'i

April 2007: Our 3rd trip to Hawai'i! This time we went only to the Big Island. There is so much to see & do on the BI, we decided not to try to spread ourselves too thin over more than one island this time. We only had a week anyway and the BI is our favorite. We revisited our favorite diving spot at Honaunau. What a wonderful place! And we did a whole bunch of hiking on the back side of the Pu'u O'o vent and got wet up to our necks hiking at Waipio Valley. We visited several black and green sand beaches and finally made it to the summit of Mauna Kea and drove the Saddle Road to Hilo, stopping for a hike in a mile long lava tube on the way. Would I go back again? You bet!

Papantla flyers, Playa del Carmen

Sept 2006: Hurricane season brings good sales on airfare and hotels in the Caribbean! So the Fall vacation in 2006 was in Playa del Carmen, Estado Quintana Roo, Mexico. Got a great deal on air & hotel combo on Orbitz. We actually stayed at an all-inclusive this time. It was fine, but probably won't do it on a regular basis because we like to have more options for dining out. Although, we did enjoy the grounds of our resort and the nighly entertainment quite a bit. And our resort included a day pass to Xcaret Eco-Park, which was a lot of fun. The highlights of the trip were Xcaret, the ruins at Tulum & Chichen Itza and diving in a cenote, which is an underwater cavern!

Aruba's Natural Bridge. Or what's left of it

April 2006: Priceline came through for us this time! Got a great deal on air & hotel. Sometimes the name your own price thing really does work! We weren't expecting much from Aruba. Just some great weather and diving in warm water, as opposed to ice water like we dive in at home. But Aruba surprised us. We really loved it! And the diving was actually very good! Lots of interesting wrecks and the reef was very healthy too. Loved driving the Jeep on the dirt roads on the windward side of the island! The rugged desert on the northern coast was absolutely enchanting! Other highlights were swimming in the natural pool at Conchi (and finding it in the first place), exploring caves, visiting an ostrich farm, watching the sunset on a hilltop in the National Park, and oh yeah, did I mention the diving? We'll definitely go back to Aruba!

Our new house in Medford

Oct. 2005: A new home! We left our tiny apartment (finally!) in the City of Boston's neighborhood of West Roxbury for a house in Medford, a small city just north of Boston. The house is a fixer-upper, so we'll be a lot busier now. That, on top of the fact that Cliff doesn't work for the airline anymore and I'm sad to say, we won't be travelling quite as much anymore. But we still hope to make at least a couple of major trips every year. Well, we'll see how the budget goes in the coming year!

Granada, Spain

From 1998 to 2005, I was fortunate enough to travel around with my husband, who worked for an airline at the time (free tickets!!!). Since we had to fly standby, we would usually just show up somewhere with no reservations and wewould only spend a couple of days in any one spot, so my experiences are fairly hit-and-miss. Mainly our travels took us to Europe and the Caribbean, since those were the destinations my husband's employer specialized in. But occasionally we'd head for places on other airlines, like Baja California Sur, Mexico, Hawai'i, and South Africa! Luckily, airline employees get special rates even on other airlines. Who knew?

For the most part, we are BUDGET TRAVELERS. Most of my hotel recommendations (especially in Europe) are for smaller, family-owned hotels, pensions or guest-houses. Often these places have shared toilets, showers, or both. We find shared facilities hardly an inconvenience at all and have only had one issue with hygiene in many, many stays. It's definitely worth the money saved! I'd rather spend my money on daytime activities rather than on sleeping.

For some reason we tend to plan our Caribbean trips a little more. Probably because we like to scuba dive and we need to make sure we are near good facilities for diving, which means we're usually staying at a resort. But we try to shop around and scour the discount web sites looking for good travel deals.

My top 10 favorite destinations:
1. South Africa: Kruger National Park, Sodwana Bay, Cape Town
2. Hawai'i: Big Island, Kauai, Maui, Oahu
3. Cayman Islands: Grand Cayman
4. Belize: San Ignacio, Hopkins, Placencia, Ambergris
5. San Francisco & Napa Valley
6. Germany: Munich, Bamberg, Rothenburg
7. Austria: Salzburg, Vienna
8. Italy: Cinque Terre, Tuscany, Rome, Venice
9. Spain: Seville, Madrid, Granada
10. Netherlands Antilles: Aruba, Bonaire

Boston on the Charles

Over the last 16 years, I've lived in and around Boston, Massachusetts. I hope you find my Boston page useful. I grew up in New Hampshire and will continue to update my NH page as I return home to visit Mom. Feel free to email me with any questions about Boston, Massachusetts, New Hampshire or New England.