Desert dwellers

Desertdwellers

Desert dwellers

We are a husband and wife who work full time but love to travel as often as our bosses will allow. We prefer minimalist backpacker style travel and rarely stay in the same location for more than a few nights (much to my husbands chagrin). I use credit miles and points to get free or almost free flights, and love helping and sharing tips and tricks to other travelers.
We prefer to go to far away and exotic locations outside of resort towns, preferably with a beach for some diving or mountains nearby for hiking. We enjoy immersing ourselves in what different cultures have to offer, doing it as simply and frugally as possible without sacrificing too much comfort. We equally love to travel around our home state of AZ and to our nations beautiful National Parks. 52 countries and counting so far.
Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. -Jack Kerouac

Final days

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Mount Cook National Park April 2nd 2024

Mt Cook swim

Desertdwellers

We drove to Mt. Cook National Park for Easter Day. This park is home to the largest peak in all of Australasia, Mt. Cook, and 72 glaciers. The park is equidistant between Christchurch and Queenstown, which we quickly learned means it's overrun by hordes of daytrip tourists. We hiked the busy main 3.5 mile trail on the Hooker Valley trail to Hooker lake. It was a warm and sunny day so the swim in the glacier lake I planned on was not entirely unpleasant. The water was a brisk 37 degrees but it felt like all of our cold plunge training culminated in this one moment to sit on some icebergs and to a crowd of 100+ spectators. We were traveling a bit ahead of schedule at this point so I decided to keep on cracking ... read more

The Southern Alps

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Fiordland National Park April 2nd 2024

Who runs bartertown?

Desertdwellers

After having some fish and chips and paua (abalone) fritters, a coastal Kiwi favorite, we drove several hours up and over the beautiful mountains running through the backbone of the country. We stopped at the alpine hamlet of Hanmer Springs before dropping down onto the desolate west coast. We were quickly finding there is more solitude to be found on South Island, with long stretches of uninhabited and inaccessible coast. It wasn't until the 1960s roads were built and these areas were even easily reachable. We spent the night boondocking outside of Hokitaka before moving on to the southern Alps and glacier country. We stopped at Franz Josef glacier for a quick hike through the rainforest to a viewpoint of the glacier, but the clouds and rain from that morning had socked in most of the ... read more

The South Island begins

Oceania » New Zealand » South Island » Kaikoura March 29th 2024

Desertdwellers

We flew early to Christchurch in the South Island from Auckland after a terrible night sleep in a beautiful boondock spot along the bay just minutes from the city center. Unfortunately some partygoers decided to get raging drunk and were smashing beer bottles during the night. There's always one night of idiots while boondocking, let's hope that was it for the trip. We picked up our beautiful 17 ft. Toyota campervan that would be our home for the next 11 days. It was a huge upgrade for us, our first van being functional but this being cozy and luxurious by comparison. We drove a few hours north up the coast ending at the seaside town of Kaikoura. This town is one of the best places on earth to snorkel with dolphins in the wild and the ... read more

The North Island

Oceania » New Zealand » North Island » Auckland March 24th 2024

Desertdwellers

Travel is not reward for working, it's education for living-Anthony Bourdain Back to the Pacific Ocean and following in the footsteps of Captain Cook. In the past year I have been tempted by some incredible airfare flash sales to the South Pacific, and here we are again, this time headed to New Zealand after a deal too good to pass up with some Delta miles I earned on a credit card. We, like so many others, have been enchanted with going to New Zealand ever since seeing the Lord of the Rings movies. This incredible country largely stayed off travelers radars before Peter Jackson showed the world the gorgeous expanses offered here. He recognized its the only place that could double as a fantasy world with little needed cgi. Our flight was a 13 hour non-stop ... read more

Tahiti

Oceania » French Polynesia » Tahiti September 23rd 2023

Desertdwellers

For those of you that know us, you are familiar with how we travel and why I select certain places over others at particular times. It's all about the points, miles and free travel because we surely can't afford travel like we do on our public safety salaries alone. Of course Tahiti has always been on our travel bucket list, but it quickly rose to #1 when I scored a 48 hr flash sale on United for about half the miles it would ordinarily cost (approximately 1 credit card sign-up bonus for two round-trip tickets). Tahiti, or more aptly called French Polynesia for it's collection of 118 islands and not just the one largest island of Tahiti, has enticed me not for the $2k a night over the water bungalows but rather one of the few ... read more

Fakarava atoll

Oceania » French Polynesia » Fakarava September 22nd 2023

Ummm?

Desertdwellers

Our final stop for this trip was to the atoll of Fakarva, an hour and a half flight out of Tahiti. Fakarava has only been accessible by plane since the mid 1990s, being nothing more than a long circular strip of coral surrounding a lagoon in the middle of the South Pacific. What brings anyone here is not over the water bungalows, white soft sand beaches, five star dining, but rather the sharks, and tons of them. So many so that in one area to dive its earned the nickname "wall of sharks." So why would any reasonable person seek this place out then? Because scuba divers love sharks and understand they really aren't the mindless man eaters Peter Benchley would have us believe. As we arrived in the grass hut that is considered the airport, ... read more

The island of Moorea

Oceania » French Polynesia » Moorea September 19th 2023

hawksbill turtle

Desertdwellers

The following morning we took the ferry to the island of Moorea, a short 45 minute ride across the channel. By all accounts Moorea is just as beautiful, if not moreso than Bora Bora, but for a fraction of the cost and only an inexpensive ferry away. We thought the mountains plunged straight into the sea on Tahiti, well the landscape was even more extreme here. Sheer jagged peaks and spires leap vertically from the lagoons here in a postcard perfect landscape. We stayed at Residence Vainau ($83), one of the last beds on the island despite my booking months in advance. Not necessarily out of popularity but just because there is not much tourism here at all either. In the 1960s there was less than a dozen hotel rooms on the entire island, and by ... read more

Ireland

Europe » Ireland » County Kerry March 24th 2023

Desertdwellers

We arrived in Dublin, Ireland by ferry at 12:30 on S. Patrick's Day. Truth be told this was never the intent of this trip, but once I started planning the trip I saw we'd be in the area for the holiday so I made sure we'd be in the capital for the celebration. We arrived in time to catch the end of the parade with our luggage still on our backs amidst hordes of green clad tourists from across the globe. We ventured out later in the evening and it seemed as thought the crowds had grown and you could scarcely move in the Temple Bar area. In hindsight a smaller city would have been a better and more genuine place to spend the day. The following morning we picked up our rental car and headed ... read more

Wales

Europe » United Kingdom » Wales March 17th 2023

Desertdwellers

We picked up our camper van, Art, from Bangor, Wales after a gorgeous and easy ride through the rolling English countryside. Train travel is really the way to go here. I found the van hire on quirky campers.com, which rents out privately owned vehicles all over the UK and elsewhere. Art is lovingly owned by a couple who designed and built it themselves and who travel all throughout Europe, and it is easily our favorite van we've rented yet as far as the design and space goes. The owners left a perfect cd collection of British rock, and Dennis was delighted to be driving through the harrowing narrow winding roadways driving a large manual shift box van whilst listening to Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Iron Maiden. We were lucky to have arrived with no rain, ... read more

London to Wales

Europe » United Kingdom » England March 16th 2023

Sherlocks office

Desertdwellers

We spent our last full day in London trying to cram in as much as possible, as is usual with us. We again took the "Uber boat" down the Thames all the way to Greenwich, which is an approximate one hour ride through downtown London, and where the meridian line as in Greenwich mean time comes from. The tide was very low in the mornings on the river so we decided to go beach combing in the tidal flats like we had seen others doing. I found a piece of glazed green painted pottery, which according to a sign stated it might be medieval era pottery. I can only imagine the treasures you could find in the muck here! In Greenwich we took a tour of the Cutty Sark and went to the maritime museum. The ... read more

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