Travel cage match: Santiago, Chile vs. Buenos Aires, Argentina (part 2: Drink)

Posted on January 23, 2011 by ryan

2 cities enter. One city leaves.

Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?

or

Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?

We spent 6 months researching–4.5 months in Buenos Aires and 1.5 months in Santiago–in an attempt to answer this frequently asked and extremely difficult question: If you’re headed to the Southern Cone, which of these 2 great cities should you prioritize?

Last week we covered the food category and while Santiago had a strong showing and was far and away the winner on diversity of food options, we declared Buenos Aires the winner for the Food category overall – they may have limited menu options, but damn do they do them well. Check out the full review of Buenos Aires vs. Santiago food.

We’re ready to move on. Today’s category is…

2. Drink

This category is almost as important as food and despite bottles and bottles of intensive research, it is very difficult to declare a winner. Let’s start with wine.

Category 1) Wine: Winner – Buenos Aires/Argentina (though these are 2 of the best countries in the world to drink wine)

This is not really a Santiago vs. Buenos Aires thing, but rather a Chile vs. Argentina thing. Both Argentina and Chile are deservedly proud of their wine traditions and more and more, they are gaining attention internationally for the quality of the wines they produce. Both are pretty damn good and we had a rather fantastic (though for some reason, difficult to remember) time researching this category 🙂 By the way, if you are in Buenos Aires and like wine, you should do a wine tasting with Anuva – check out our original review on them for details: Review of Anuva Wine tasting in Buenos Aires: Do it, you’ll thank us

Argentine wine tasting research with Anuva image

We like research

In both countries, most wine is grown right along the Andes with the largest regions being almost directly across the mountains from one another (Mendoza, Argentina and the many regions surrounding Santiago). After visiting wineries in both of these regions and doing some additional research (Jen had to write a report for Spanish class on something…), we learned that while the regions are quite close geographically, being east vs. west of the mountains actually leads to some pretty significant differences in grape growing conditions – one of the largest differences being that on the Argentina side, the climate is quite a bit drier. This and other differences lead to different types of grapes being better suited to one side vs. the other. It’s why Argentina dominates global Malbec productions and is one of the only regions in the world to produces Torrontes and why Chile tends to export a broader array of both red and white varietals including the Carmenere which is largely exclusive to Chile. Before we get into our sub-sub-category ratings, let’s start with some context on both regions.

Context

Argentine Wine Industry:

Argentina is currently the world’s 5th largest wine producer. The vast majority of the wine produced in Argentina stays in Argentina – currently only somewhere between 20% and 30% is exported. Up until the 1970s, Argentina produced more wine than pretty much any other country in the world. They were apparently producing 22 tons per acre whereas most quality wine regions in France and California at the time were only producing ~2-5 tons per acre. How did they do it? Three words:

1) Super

2) low

3) quality

Everyone used to have a big jug that they would go fill up every couple of days in the middle of town at a big wine keg type thing. It was called “vino de mesa,” or “table wine.” Back then, Argentines were drinking more wine per capita than any other country in the world (seriously, they were drinking something like 24 gallons/year/person on average vs. less than 1 gallon/person in countries like the US and UK), but virtually none of it was exported because, you know, it sucked.

It wasn’t until the 1990s that international wine experts started taking a closer look at Argentina. After seeing the soil conditions, the lack of humidity, the lack of pests and the altitude, there began to be a lot of talk about the incredible potential Argentina had to produce top quality premium wines. Slowly over the last couple of decades more and more of the industry has changed their practices away from mass produced low quality table wine to export-ready premium wine. This has been largely driven by foreign investment. When we were in Mendoza, we were told that back in 2002-2003 after the most recent Argentine economic collapse, there was an average of something like 3 new wineries opening every day as foreigners took advantage of low prices and saw an opportunity to make great wine. This process still has a long way to go as they still only export a small fraction of the wine produced, but I think we can expect to see more and more Argentine wines in the international market in the years to come. It is also worth noting, that the days of jug-wine are for the most part gone in Argentina and now even most of the wine produced for domestic consumption is quite high quality.

That said, we did experience some pretty bad jug wine up in Salta

Chilean Wine Industry:

Chile produces only a little more than half of the total wine that Argentina does and drinks only a small fraction of the wine that they produce; they export the rest. In fact, they export 70+% of the wine that they produce which, despite the relatively small size and population of the country, makes them the 5th largest wine exporting country in the world (under France, Italy and Australia – Argentina is #8 at about 63% of the export volume of Chile). It wasn’t always this way. Similar to Argentina, the wine industry in Chile largely produced low quality wines for domestic consumption up until the 1980s. Once they solved some political and economic issues, they recognized that they had the potential to turn wine into a big business, and they did. Starting back in the 80s, they began using modern wine techniques from around the world and geared up their wineries to start producing great quality wines designed primarily for export. They rapidly climbed the export rankings and continue to be one of the biggest exporters in the world.

You may have seen our earlier post on our visit to the Concha y Toro winery in Santiago – it’s the largest winery in Latin America and the 8th largest in the world.

You may recognize these labels... they are sold all over the world

Why am I telling you all of this?

I’m not sure really. The important thing to remember is this… Chile is big in the business of exporting wine and Argentina is big on the tradition of making and drinking wine. They both make great wine, but this context leads to some different outcomes.

Enough information, onto our totally subjective opinions…

Sub-category 1) White wine – Winner: Chile (by a lot)

Argentina: Our experience was that Argentina focuses far more on red wine, and while we did find one Chardonnay that we liked, the vast majority of the whites that we tried there we thought were terrible. Obviously this is subjective, but I’ve yet to hear anyone rave about a white Argentine wine nor have I ever seen one for sale in the US – if you have a different opinion, please let us know. There is an exception to this… Northwestern Argentina is quite proud of their own unique white varietal known as Torrontes. Many people talk it up as being a fantastic alternative to the more traditional varietals and the Argentines from the region (Salta) beam with pride whenever it is discussed. We wanted to like Torrontes. We really did. Sadly, we could not. After tasting several versions of it at a few of the wineries in Cafayate, the best way we can describe it is that it smells like very sweet dessert wine, yet somehow tastes like water. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s just that it’s not good.

Chile: Chile has fantastic white wines. Virtually every white that we tried there we thought was excellent and if you are ever staring at the 100s of bottles of wine in a liquor store wondering what Chardonnay to buy, your odds of picking a good one are pretty good if you grab pretty much anything from Chile.

Sub-category 2) Red wine – Winner: Too close to call

This is too close to call. They both have fantastic red wines. Some of the Malbecs from Argentina are absolutely amazing (others taste like kool-aid) and Chile has some fantastic big Cabs, Syrahs and others. We are going to take a pass on this one. Suffice to say, you can acquire fantastic red wine in either country.

This is just a random yet classy picture of wine glasses that I thought fit well here

The difference is in how much you have to pay for it, which leads us to the next category…

Sub-category 3) Value for $ – Winner: Argentina

Value for the money is a pretty important dimension in determining what wine you’ll actually be able to try wherever you go and a big part of the reason why I provided so much context on the histories of the wine industries in each country up front.

Chile: Prices in general are a bit higher in Chile than Argentina for pretty much everything at the moment (though, with ~30% inflation per year, Argentina is rapidly catching up – until the next economic crisis). The difference in wine prices is remarkable. The reason for this is that Chilean wine is for the most part produced for export and priced at export pricing levels – we often saw the same bottles of Chilean wine that we’d bought here in the US for sale in Chile at the same or higher prices. It’s not that it’s super expensive, it’s just that it’s internationally priced. Argentina is different.

Argentina: Argentina exports only a small fraction of their wine and that wine is often labels that aren’t even sold domestically, so when you go to buy wine in Argentina, you are confronted with prices that were designed entirely for the local, relatively low-income, wine-loving market. The vast majority of the wines in any store are priced at AR$15-30 which is US$3-7. The staple wine that we drank all the time in Buenos Aires literally cost ~US$4/bottle. That wine was awesome, and a bottle of that quality would easily cost $15-20 in the US (or Chile for that matter). The value got even better if you were willing to spend a little bit more… we took back with us a few extremely expensive (on Argentine standards) bottles of wine that are easily some of the best wine we’ve ever had (and when we were consultants, people used to give us some pretty fancy wine from time to time!) – these super expensive bottles cost ~US$20, I’d put them in the ~US$100 range for something of similar quality here in the US. Another great thing is that it’s easy to experiment with different high-end bottles in restaurants as the mark-up tended to be only 10-20% over store prices vs. the 2-3x mark-up that is common in the US (Chile also had a high restaurant mark-up).

So good AND so cheap! Just look how happy we are.

On value for $, Argentina is impossible to beat.

Sub-category 4) Variety of new wines to try in-country: Argentina

There is no question that Chile has great wines, but because they export so much of their wine, the wines that you’ll see in Santiago are pretty much the exact same wines that you’ll see in the Chilean section of a wine store in the US. I’m sure that there are wines that you have to be in the country to experience, but in general, you can sample most of the Chilean wines from pretty much anywhere in the world.

On the flip-side, the vast majority of Argentine wines are currently impossible to purchase outside of the country. You can be certain that a trip to Buenos Aires will expose you to an awesome variety of wines that you’ve never seen before.

Category 2) National drink: Winner – Santiago (by miles and miles)

Chile: Chile’s national drink (other than Nescafe) is the Pisco Sour. It’s made from Pisco which is a grape based liquor and varying forms of sour mix. Often there is egg white put on top, but the Chilean version usually skips that part. It’s important to note that Pisco Sours are also very popular in other parts of Latin America (most notably Peru), but the Chilean version is their own. The Pisco sour has the remarkable quality of tasting almost non-alcoholic – kind of like lemonade – yet having the ability to absolutely knock you on your ass in a very short period of time. They vary in alcohol content depending on the type of Pisco used, but at one venue we had one drink each at around 5pm and were not able to walk straight again for about 4 hours. The girl we were with threw up upon walking out of the bar. After one drink. Three hours later, we still wished that we had thrown up wih her. They are dangerous, but we love Pisco Sours.

Pisco Sours make us happy

Argentina: Buenos Aires has an obsession with a very special kind of liquor called Fernet. It’s made out of grapes and a variety of spices. It’s often mixed with Coca Cola. We tried a Fernet and Coke one time while in Buenos Aires. Despite the fact that it was mixed with a fair amount of Coca Cola we could not drink more than a few sips. It was without question the worst tasting thing we have ever put in our mouths. This is of course subjective; there are many, many people that claim to love this drink – we suspect this is merely a form of hazing.

Fernet makes us sad

Category 3) Coffee: Winner – Buenos Aires (unless you are looking for a little something extra with your coffee..)

It may seem odd to have a category devoted to coffee, but the coffee/cafe cultures in these two cities are so remarkably different, we thought it was worth mentioning. For us, we preferred the leisurely cafe experiences in Buenos Aires, but to each their own as these are very, very different. Here’s the deal…

Buenos Aires: Cafes are a big deal in Buenos Aires. The strong Italian roots of the city are likely the reason behind the strength of the cafe culture. There are usually several cafes on every block and for the most part, they all serve fresh ground, strong and quite tasty coffee. The standard ‘cafe’ is actually what we would call an espresso shot in the US, but there are several variations involving more or less amounts of milk (e.g., cafe con leche, cortado, lagrima). It’s all good. Pretty much any cafe you go to will serve some cookies and a glass of water with every coffee you order. The locals spend lots of time hanging out in cafes sipping their espresso and reading the news. There is no such thing as a to-go cup… when you’re going to have coffee in Buenos Aires, you are going to sit down and drink it for as long as it takes. That’s just how it’s done. Coffee is a big part of the culture here and a good deal of pride is taken not only in producing top quality drinks, but also in providing a great cafe experience. If you’re in a hurry, it can be pretty difficult to get a quick cup of caffeine in this city, but then again we found that we were rarely in a hurry in BsAs.

Coffee, cookies and water

Santiago: The cafe culture is very different in Santiago. There are 3 main differences: Experience, quality and legs.

1) Experience: There are still many cafes, but for the most part they are designed for getting a quick cup of coffee rather than as places to leisurely hang out for a couple of hours. In fact, a large percentage of the cafes downtown don’t even have seating… everyone just quickly drinks their coffee while standing at a bar. We found that getting coffee was typically a 10 minute experience. This is not really better or worse than the BsAs style, just different. On top of that though, we also found that many of the cafes were favorite destinations of smokers and sometimes there was so much smoke billowing out of them that we couldn’t breathe. Starbucks is actually doing quite well in Santiago and many of the people we talked to suggested that a big part of their success might be that they are one of the few non-smoking cafes.

Stand-up coffee bar

2) Quality of coffee: For various historical reasons which we never quite fully understood, Chile has a national obsession with Nescafe instant coffee. Upon ordering coffee, the default offering you will get even in a fancy hotel or restaurant will be an empty cup and a plastic single-serve container of Nescafe. After which, they will offer to fill your cup with either hot water or hot milk. While instant coffee can be convenient when you need some coffee and don’t have any alternatives, it seems odd to order coffee in a coffee shop and get it. To be clear, you can definitely order an espresso drink if you’re in the right kind of place, it’s just not the standard-Nescafe is everywhere.

3) Legs: We covered the Coffee with Legs/Cafe con piernas phenomenon at length in a previous post (see it here: Cafe con piernas = coffee with legs). Coffee shops that are part strip club or even brothel are not representative of the coffee culture in Santiago, but are certainly a significant part of it. If you are into this, then the incredible number and variety of cafe con piernas establishments in downtown Santiago may well trump all of the other drink categories and make Santiago the city for you.

coffee with legs cafe rio santiago image

Ah the memories...

Overall winner for best Drink: Buenos Aires (barely)

There is plenty of good drinking to be done in both cities. If you’re all about trying new red wines that are really cheap and good you should prioritize Buenos Aires. If you prefer white wine, go Chile. If you like drinking gasoline, go to Buenos Aires and try some Fernet. It really depends on you. We happen to love red wine and were blown away by the incredible value we got in BsAs on awesome wine, so despite how much we miss Pisco Sours, we’re going to award this category to Buenos Aires by a slim margin. We can’t declare a strong overall winner in this category, but hopefully we’ve at least given you some good context to draw your own conclusions.

Quick recap on the cage match thus far…

Round 1) Food – Buenos Aires came out strong and won round 1 with best overall food despite Santiago’s superior variety

Round 2) Drink – Buenos Aires barely edged out Santiago driven by the incredible value for your money on unique red wines

So far Buenos Aires has Santiago on the ropes, but the first two categories have definitely played to Buenos Aires strengths, so we expect big things from Santiago in the coming rounds. Next week, we’ll get into round 3 and tackle the issue of which of these two cities would be more attractive to live in as an expat.

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!

Disclaimer: Keep in mind these are just our opinions based on our personal experiences and we’re very happy to have people disagree as this is quite subjective – if you do disagree, please speak up and tell us why!

Travel cage match: Santiago, Chile vs. Buenos Aires, Argentina (part 1: Food)

Posted on January 13, 2011 by ryan

2 cities enter. One city leaves.

Will it be Santiago, Chile – the home of enormous mayo covered hot dogs and some of the most impressive mountain views anywhere in the world?

or

Will it be Buenos Aires, Argentina -where you can (and more or less have to) eat steak 5+ times a week?

Research wasn’t easy. We worked relentlessly day in and day out to try as many restaurants, go on as many day trips and explore as many on and off-the-beaten-path attractions as possible. We’ve also done an extensive wine comparison. I don’t know how we stayed motivated.

There are five high-level categories to this competition, each of which will be thoroughly analyzed in it’s own post with a winner declared:

Food – Quality, diversity and overall dining experience
Drink – For these countries, this one is mostly about the wine
Livability – How easy would it be to live here as an expat
Visit-ability – How fun are these places to visit
People/Culture – What are the people and culture like and how open are they to foreigners

Obviously, much of this is very subjective and our opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. You may agree or disagree with our conclusions; our hope is to provide enough context such that you can draw your own conclusions based on your own preferences and priorities. Our other hope is that this series of posts becomes a useful reference so that next time someone asks us the question of which city to spend more time in we can just tell them to read this rather than rambling about it for an hour–sadly, the rambling will likely continue.

Let’s do this.

Today’s category is…

1. Food

We like food. We like food a lot. Trying authentic foreign cuisines is one of our very favorite things about travelling, so this category is a pretty important one in our minds. Let’s break it down:

Most crave-worthy: Winner – Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires: We’ve been back in the US for a few months now and we haven’t bothered eating steak. We know that it could never measure up to the Buenos Aires version that you can get at places like El Estrebe, Dada and a number of other stellar places (see our where to eat in BA post for recommendations). My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Beyond just the steak, we can’t forget the empanadas…. oh, the empanadas. The empanadas were unbelievable. Also, Provoleta is missed. We crave these things often and if/when we go back to visit BA, food will be one of the biggest reasons.

Want

Santiago: It’s not that the food was bad in Santiago, it was actually pretty good. That said, we certainly don’t crave anything we had there. Food is not as core to the culture of Santiago as it is to Buenos Aires. It’s fine, but it’s unlikely to blow you away. However, if you are a fan of giant hot dogs, Santiago is the place for you.

Yep

Best food diversity: Winner – Santiago (by a landslide)

Buenos Aires: Virtually every restaurant in Buenos Aires has an identical menu. As we’ve written about previously, there are really only 5 types of food in Buenos Aires (steak, pizza, pasta, empanadas and Dulce de Leche). They do those 5 things quite well, but that’s pretty much all they do. If you head into some of the more touristy areas you can find a handful of foreign cuisine options, but not many. Despite the high quality, after a couple of weeks the monotony of eating the same thing every day does get to you.

Sometimes it's possible to combine all 5 food groups in one meal

Santiago: Santiago, on the other hand, is full of all kinds of different cuisines. Peruvian and Japanese are probably the two most common (and quite good), but we also had some of the best Indian food we’ve ever had, there are lots of Chinese restaurants (which the locals strongly suggest avoiding), Seafood, Italian, American, French, you name it. From a dining perspective, Santiago offers far more international options than Buenos Aires.

We do kind of miss the Peruvian ceviche

Best dining experience: Winner – Buenos Aires (if you have a few hours)

Buenos Aires: In BA, dining is definitely an experience–whether you want it to be or not. For dinner it is usually a 3+ hour experience. This is not (usually) the result of bad service, but rather is intentional. In BA, dining isn’t really about eating, it’s about being with your friends and family. Service is usually quite efficient and impressively formal up until they finish bringing your food; after that, you will have a very hard time tracking down your server to get your bill. This is by design. They would never want to give the impression that they were rushing you out and fully assume that you will spend another hour or 2 sitting around the table after you finish eating. That’s simply how it’s done. At first, this can be a bit unsettling for those of us from countries that tend to be in more of a rush. After you get used to it though (and assuming you are not in a hurry), it’s pretty awesome to allow yourself to fully experience a meal with your fellow diners.

Santiago: In Santiago, the dining experience was far more similar to what you would find in the US. Servers are interested in turning tables fairly quickly and in some cases may even clear your dishes and bring your check while you’re still chewing your last bite (update: we have it on good authority from someone who has spent much more time here than us that this is usually not the case and perhaps we were going to the wrong places. Either way though, they definitely value efficiency more in Santiago and meals were much quicker relative to BA) Great if you’re in a hurry, but otherwise nothing special. I’m sure there are exceptions, but even/especially the fancier places we tried were not that memorable.

Overall winner in the food category: Buenos Aires

Santiago is no slouch, but dining is core to the entire culture in Buenos Aires and as long as you eat meat and can handle the lack of diversity, they do it extremely well. So, if your single top priority in choosing between these two cities is food (and you like meat), you should definitely prioritize Buenos Aires.

As important as it is though, food is unlikely to be the only factor in your decision making process, so stay tuned for future posts to see which city wins in the remaining categories!

Do you agree or disagree? Let us know what you think!

Rehab phase 1 is almost complete; Phase 2 is coming

Posted on September 9, 2010 by ryan

Today is our last day in Chile. Tomorrow we return to Argentina. Next week we return to the US.

Phase 1 of rehab has been intense

We have been unemployed and in South America for almost exactly 6 months now.

For 6 months we have had no deadlines and no responsibilities.

We’ve had neither cellphone nor blackberry and we’ve tried to exclusively spend our time doing things that we want to do rather than things that we were supposed to do. For instance, look how long it’s been since I last got a haircut:

Luckily, I'm getting a haircut later this week

We’ve slept for as many hours as we chose to every night (except for the damn 4am geyser tour in Atacama).

Stupid geysers. Stupid 4am. Stupid, stupid.

We’ve taken lots of daytime naps, we’ve enjoyed bottles of wine for lunch and we’ve consumed more steak then we had eaten in the previous 10 years combined.

Dinner in Buenos Aires: Perfectly cooked Argentine beef image

And we'd do it again

At times, we’ve seen amazing landscapes. At times, we’ve sat on park benches and watched dogs play for hours. At times, we’ve sat on benches and had people try to steal Jen’s purse – that was entertaining.

We’ve read lots of books. We’ve tried to read many Spanish newspapers. This has gone poorly.

We’ve lived in 2 countries and immersed ourselves in their cultures- Argentina for 4.5 months and Chile for 1.5 months. We are happy to help you plan your trips.

We’ve sat in cafes for hours – in the beginning we had lots to talk about… later we just stared at each other… then we started bringing books… then we ran out of books… Now we don’t go to cafes so much.

Each of these things has been a critical part of our rehabilitation. By completely removing ourselves from our old environment and the associated pressures/peers/challenges, we were forced to gain perspective. We were humbled on a daily basis. It was annoying.

Through immersing ourselves in foreign cultures in which nothing is expected of us and no one cares about our resumes or has a vested interest in what we do next, we found perspective on who we had been and on who we want to be. At times it was freeing, at times it was frustrating – both are part of the process.

Through meeting people on the road (both travelers and locals) our perspective on what life can look like and the sheer number of different possibilities that exist and can lead to happiness has expanded immensely. As has our definition of happiness-now we think it requires frequent napping.

Finding this perspective was the goal of rehab phase 1. This isn’t the end. We don’t have any answers, but this new and broader perspective will serve as the foundation for phase 2.

Rehab phase 2: Re-entry / where we go from here

Next week we will fly back to the US and begin phase 2. We are not sad to return, we are excited to start a new chapter of this adventure. It’s like a choose your own adventure book, except written for adults instead of 8 year olds.

To say that we are ‘returning’ is not entirely accurate… we don’t have a specific home to return to. We have a storage unit full of stuff in San Francisco and a car in Seattle. We have no jobs and no place to live that is our own. And, due to poor/rushed planning all of our other clothes are in that storage unit, so we will have to continue wearing the same 5 outfits that we have been wearing for the last 6 months even though all of our sweaters and socks have holes in them. This should make a strong impression in job interviews.

We won’t be picking up where we left off, we will be starting fresh in a new city. We are planning to live in Seattle for a variety of reasons. It will likely rain a lot, but also be much cheaper.

The prospect of starting fresh is a little intimidating at times, but with our newly broadened perspective, we are excited to construct lives that offer us balance. We don’t know what it will look like exactly. From a distance, it might look like a dancing penguin. No one knows. That’s what makes it exciting.

Let's hope that it doesn't look like this dancing penguin

Jen is looking for a ‘real’ job. I plan to pursue a number of entrepreneurial projects that I have been toying with for some time. In both cases, we will only consider things that we think we will genuinely enjoy. We have already accumulated plenty of option value in our careers and are ready to cash in and find things we love. The evil mongeese can suck it.

We’d like to have a dog. And we’d like to have lives that allow us to keep the dog alive. We suspect that the dog will appreciate this as well.

We plan to have hobbies outside of work. We’ve heard that this is possible. Jen would like to teach English as a foreign language in the evenings. I’m excited to return to improv comedy. Maybe we’ll even do something athletic–fear not, we pledge to continue drinking enough wine to keep ourselves firmly out of shape.

We believe that we are ready for phase 2, but re-entry comes with a number of risks. We need to be ever-vigilant for any signs of relapse.

Signs that we might be relapsing:

If any of the following occur, we may need to buy plane tickets or at least some steak…

We don’t actively pursue hobbies
We eat take-out dinners more than twice a week
We have more than 3 days in a row of unhappiness at work (a couple of days can happen anywhere from time to time – at 3, we torch the place)
More than 50% of the friends that we spend time with on a regular basis have MBAs
We spend more than 10% of our social interactions complaining about our jobs
We eat lunch while still typing
The idea of getting a dog dies due to impracticalities of work schedule
The dog itself dies due to neglect
Multiple instances of cancelling social events occurs due to last-minute work conflicts
We check emails on our phone while mid-conversation with others
We don’t manage to leave the country at least twice a year
We achieve Starwood platinum status (and are proud of it)

There are almost certainly others. We will need your help to avoid relapsing. That is why we absolutely plan to continue this blog. It will become less about South America (though there are still tons of topics we’ve been meaning to write about on Chile/Argentina and still plan to), and more about Seattle and our re-entry.

We hope to be an example not just of a couple that left our jobs to travel for 6 months, but one that also made a successful return to our careers and are better off than we were before we left.

Stay tuned.

Any other relapse warning signs you can think of that we should watch out for??

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Posted on September 7, 2010 by jen

Our vacation from a vacation from a vacation in San Pedro continues – here’s what we did days 3 and 4, as well as our thoughts on a few restaurants and hotels in San Pedro. (P.S. Day 4 includes the most incredible natural landscape we’ve ever seen . . . and we get around.) If you missed it, you can read Part 1 of our trip review here.

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

Day 3: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche

Tour company: Layana

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: The big attraction for this tour is going out to Laguna Cejar, where the water is so salty that you float. A lot. This sounded cool, so we signed up. What we didn’t hear before we went was that the water is cold. Really, really cold. We had been looking forward to relaxing in the water, given that it was a hot, sunny day, but all that changed when our toes touched the laguna. Ryan ended up getting in (briefly) and verified that you do, in fact, float more than in regular water.

Ryan's the crazy one who floated in the freezing cold water

Then, we hopped back in our tour bus and headed nearby to Laguna Tebenquiche for sunset. This place is really cool because you can get some incredible reflections of the volcanoes in the laguna – Ryan really liked this and took a lot of pictures.

Us at Laguna Tebenquiche

A nice touch by the tour company was that they brought along snacks and pisco sours – yum! Some of our tour-mates skipped the sunset photo op and instead focused on taking pictures of themselves in various poses with the pisco sour bottle . . .

Verdict: This was a chill, relaxing afternoon activity – nothing spectacular (actually, the sunset was pretty incredible) but it was something fun to do close to town that didn’t mean being on a bus all day long. One strange thing with this tour was that the guide didn’t speak English at all during the tour. Not that he couldn’t speak English (he busted out some English with us later) but just that he didn’t bother asking if anyone on the tour wanted English. With other tours we were on, the guides always said everything in both English and Spanish. We didn’t say anything because we’d already heard enough about the volcanoes and lagoons on the other tours, but seemed strange to us that this was the approach.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Lagunas Cejar and Tebenquiche.

Day 4: Lagunas Altiplanicas

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP35,000/person (~US$70)

Time: Full day trip leaving San Pedro at 7am (~11 hours)

What we did: This was a day that involved a lot of sitting in the van, as many of the places we visited were really far away. We started at the Laguna Chaxa, which is in the middle of a massive salt flat – actually the 3rd largest in the world (after Bolivia and apparently Utah – who knew?). This was different than the salt flat we visited near Salta, Argentina, in that it’s an incredibly rugged landscape that looks more like rocks than the smooth white field we saw in Argentina.

Yep, that crinkly, rocky looking stuff is salt

The big attraction here for most people is the flamingos that hang out in the lagoon. They were cool, but really, really far away – see?

Those are flamingos

Luckily, we have a really good zoom on our camera.

They look just like the yard decorations in Florida!

We’d been to the (very good) zoo in Santiago the week before and seen flamingos from about 5 feet away, so we were less impressed than others in our group.

After breakfast at the first stop, we hopped in the van for a ~2 hour ride to 2 big lagoons at really high altitude. They were kind of pretty but (in my opinion) not worth the hours in the car. And, this was essentially just a photo stop – when we got there, we walked along a set path, then got back in the van. Not exactly adventure travel.

Please do not stray from the path

The stop that made this trip worthwhile, though, was at the Salar de Talar (Talar salt flat). Apparently Cosmo Andino is the only tour company that goes there – we arrived and were the only sign of civilization anywhere around. And this place was pretty incredible – the most spectacular thing we saw on the entire trip.

It really looked like that - like somebody airbrushed an entire mountain

The colors that existed here were absolutely amazing.

Seriously, you should check out our album - this place was incredible

We hopped out of the van and walked for a good 40 minutes along the edge of the lagoon – it was cold and windy but worth it because the view was so amazing. Check out our panoramic video and listen to the wind:

After the lagoons, we stopped in 2 small towns to walk around a bit. The second one, Toconao, was really charming – enjoying sodas in the main square before heading back to San Pedro was a great end to the day.

Such a cute town square!

Verdict: This tour was worth it for the special stop at Salar de Talar – this was one of the most spectacular things we’ve ever seen in nature. After seeing it, we don’t understand why this isn’t the main attraction on the tour and the other tour companies don’t even go there at all. Cosmo Andino was a little more expensive than other tour companies but totally worth it. Also, our guide was great – Oscar was born of Chilean parents in London so speaks perfect English and Spanish . . . although we weren’t expecting the Cockney accent from a big Chilean dude, so took us a minute to adjust. He was great and made the tour really relaxed and fun.

See the rest of the pics from our trip here: Lagunas Altiplanicas.

RESTAURANTS

La Estaka

This place is AH-MAZ-ING. Better than pretty much anywhere we’ve eaten in Santiago. It’s 2 long rooms (indoors, which is important during cold desert nights – some of the other places are outside), both with fireplaces that give it a cozy atmosphere.

Cozy inside La Estaka when it's freezing outside

They usually play lounge music, and one night we were treated to an (actually very good) quartet playing traditional local music. The food here is really, really good – over the 4 out of 5 nights of our trip that we ate here, we tried both salmons on the menu (one served with an incredible, cheesy quinoa risotto), the chicken curry and the steak. There were some mix-ups in the service – on two separate nights, we tried to order the salmon with risotto and instead were served the other salmon. Not quite sure how or why this happened, but the serving staff handled it really well and recovered nicely, comping us drinks to make up for it (we like drinks). Aside than this, the service was fabulous – very attentive, very friendly and generally made us feel welcome. By our last night there, the manager knew us, knew how we liked our salmon cooked and knew we’d want extra pebre with our bread (it’s so good!!!). This place is on the more expensive end for San Pedro (mains CLP8,900/US$17), but well worth it in our opinion.

We LOVE this place!!

Adobe

We think this place is owned by the same company as our beloved La Estaka. They’re known for the fire pit they have in the middle of the dining area where people hang out at the end of their long day tours. We had lunch here but avoided it for dinner – the fire pit is awesome, but it’s outside, and we were cold enough when we sat INSIDE!! We had a salad and a pizza here, and both were good but not out of this world.

Blanco

What an embarrassment of a restaurant. This is a swanky-looking place in all white right on the main drag. It’s trying really hard to be sleek and modern, but just not getting it done. We’re fine with basic food when we’re traveling, especially when we’re in the middle of a desert. We just don’t like when a place pretends to be high end, charges really high prices, serves bad food and has a wait staff with an attitude. Our waiter here was probably the worst we’ve ever had. He completely forgot about our drinks and looked perturbed when we asked about them 15 minutes later, took our order wrong and then argued with us when we asked him to correct it when our food was delivered. The chicken was raw in the middle and, when it came back from the kitchen the second time, was overdone and crunchy. We came really close to walking out but ended up staying because we had a just-opened bottle of wine on the table. It was this experience that sent us back to La Estaka for the remainder of our trip.

Tierra Todo Natural

We stopped in to this cool little open-air cafe for coffee (real espresso, not Nescafe) one afternoon and again for lunch another day. The espresso was good, the sandwich I had for lunch was fresh but a little bland and the tacos Ryan had were really good. We were a little confused by the taco menu at first (they have one that’s a “guacamole taco” which consists of just a tortilla and guac . . . hmmm), but the meat tacos were really tasty, especially with cheese added. Service is a little slow but friendly – we’d go back.

WHERE WE STAYED

San Pedro has a handful of really high-end places to stay (think US$300-600/night) and a bunch of simple hotels and hostals; we opted for the latter. We made a reservation in advance to stay at the Takha Takha and then moved to the Hostal Katarpe after our first night.

Takha Takha Hotel

This is located right at the end of the main road running through town. We arrived late at night and we happy that they had our reservation. It was freezing, so we decided to upgrade to a room with heat, which cost CLP47,000 (~US$95). The room was pretty, done in adobe. But we were less-than-thrilled with the king bed (actually, 2 twins pushed together with a giant bump in the middle; could feel the individual springs when we laid down; one half of the bed (mine, lucky me) had a plastic potty guard mattress pad that crinkled any time we moved) and the bathroom that had 2 thin-as-paper closet doors. The next morning, we saw that the compound was under construction and had building materials strewn everywhere – not that pretty.

The construction area was right outside our room

Also, no wifi – not a necessity, but nice to have. For what we were getting, we thought the place was significantly overpriced, so we found another place the next morning and moved.

Hostal Katarpe

We found this place after wandering in to ~10 different hotels/hostals near the main street.

See - isn't it cute?

At most of the places we checked, prices were pretty consistent, but this place was a great value! Our room was set near the back of the property (quiet!!), was very simple and clean and HAD HEAT and wifi!!! All this for CLP30,000/night (~US$60); note – we opted for the no-breakfast option for CLP5,000 less since so many of the tours leave first thing in the morning and include breakfast. The place also has a central patio that was great for relaxing and taking in a bit of late-afternoon sun. The woman who runs the place is very friendly and helpful, and we really enjoyed staying here!

Ryan chilling at the patio after the crazy geyser tour

OVERALL

This was a great trip, and we’re so glad we were able to fit it in while we’re here. It was really relaxing (other than the 4am geyser trip) and as different from Santiago as is possible. We got a ton of amazing pictures (see them here), at least a few of them will end up framed on the wall (someday, when we have a wall to call our own again). Yay travel!

Trip report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 1)

Posted on September 6, 2010 by jen

We decided to take a trip to get out of the Santiago smog for a few days and quickly decided on San Pedro because (1) it’s the only major attraction that’s to the north, and it’s still too cold to go south and (2) it’s really neat. San Pedro is a small town in the middle of the Atacama desert in northern Chile, the driest desert in the world. We learned while we were there that there are actually places in the desert where rain has never, ever fallen. Whoa.

The desert is beautiful shades of pink and orange that go on forever with some really funky rock formations, lagoons, lots of volcanoes and a giant sand dune we got to run down (without having to walk up it first – key benefit to the tour we took; see below). This was such a great, chill getaway from Santiago (our vacation from vacation from vacation), and we’re really glad we went. We went for 5 days and had an awesome time, and here’s what we did that made it awesome. This post covers our first two days there – details on our last 2 days coming soon! (Note: Lots and lots of travel details below for those of you planning trips to San Pedro; for the rest of you, focus on the pictures.)

TOURS/EXCURSIONS

There are a ton of tour companies lining the streets of San Pedro, pretty much all of them offering trips to the same attractions. We’d done some research beforehand and heard horror stories about a few of them (e.g., they’d cancel your trip then not give you your money back and just wait until your flight or bus left and there was nothing you could do about it) and noted a few that had consistently good reviews on Tripadvisor. Our first morning there, we went around and talked to a few of them and booked our excursions for the next few days – some have discounts if you book multiple tours with them or pay in cash (but you have to ask; they’re not just going to offer it up). Here’s what we decided to do:

Day 1: Valle de la Muerte and Valle de la Luna

Tour company: Cactus

Price: CLP10,000/person (~US$20)

Time: Afternoon trip leaving San Pedro at 3pm (~4 hours)

What we did: We did this tour our first afternoon in San Pedro. It’s the closest to town and seems to be the most common tour – pretty much everybody does this one. We received a recommendation to go with Cactus Tours because they’re a bit more active than the others, and we really liked this. Our guide (Pablo) was really cool, made the trip fun and relaxed. We first drove out to Valle de la Muerte and walked for ~40 minutes across the desert.

Pretty crazy landscape!

We ended up at the top of this massive sand dune where people were sandboarding. We then had a lot of fun running down it.

Those people had to walk up first - ha ha HA!!!

And the landscapes were amazing. Besides the really cool sand dune, there were also these crazy pointy rocks – how did they get that way????

Crazy landscape (along with the obligatory volcano)

Then we headed over to Valle de la Luna (so named because the landscapes are so strange it feels like you’re on the moon) and saw another really big sand dune, along with the Three Marias, which are 3 natural rock columns that somebody thought looked like Maria. Except that now there are only 2 – some tourist knocked one of them over. We ended the afternoon watching sunset over the valley.

Sunset in the desert is beautiful

Verdict: This was one of our favorite trips, for the combination of actually getting out and doing some walking (many trips involve sitting on a bus for hours and then getting out and taking pictures of things, then getting back on the bus), the great guide that we had and the beautiful sunset. Not to mention that it didn’t involve getting up before the sun was up (you’ll see what I mean in a minute).

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Valle de la Luna photos.

Day 2: Geysers de Tatio and hot springs

Tour company: Cosmo Andino

Price: CLP25,000/person (~US$50)

Time: Brutally early morning trip leaving San Pedro at 4am (~8 hours)

What we did: This is a really popular tour in San Pedro, and most people would say it’s a can’t-miss, so we signed up and did it our second day in town. First, we set our alarm for 3:45am and waited outside our hostal for the bus in the dark at 4am. The drive up to the geysers takes about 1.5 hours, and we arrived while it was still dark. The geysers are at 13,700 feet, so it’s REALLY cold up there. We were bundled up in all the clothes we had (and some more we’d borrowed from friends in Santiago) and were still freezing. And not just the “I’m uncomfortable” type of freezing; this was more of the “I can’t feel my hands and am somewhat concerned my toes may need to be amputated” type of freezing. I grew up in Alaska and I’ve never been this cold.

Once we arrived, we had a cold breakfast and Nescafe outside the van as the pitch black was turning to morning dusk.

Breakfast in the dark and freezing cold

Our guide then took us around and told us a bit about the geysers and then gave us some time to walk around on our own. The geysers were kind of cool – lots of steam coming up from the ground, and one or two that would occasionally blow water up into the air. But we couldn’t really figure out why we had to be there so early in the morning. The explanation we got was that you couldn’t see the steam as well as it warmed up. But to us, it seemed like the geysers looked just as cool (and maybe better) when we left around 8am (after the sun had finally come up).

That's a fake smile (if you couldn't tell) - I was just pretending to have fun

We then drove out to a hot springs. Cosmo Andino goes to a different hot springs than most of the other tours, so we were the only ones there. It was basically a stream at the bottom of a hill filled with really warm water (actually boiling in some places – we didn’t go in to those places). It was nice, but it was still very cold, so the idea of stripping down to our skivvies was less-than-enticing for us and we ended up only dipping our feet in.

Pretty neat, but too cold to strip down

On our way back to San Pedro, we stopped seemingly in the middle of nowhere, where our guide (Oscar) showed us a bunch of endangered cacti (including one that was ~200 years old!) and then led us to a hidden waterfall around the side of a hill. It had finally warmed up, so we were able to enjoy the waterfall and a little bit of sunshine along with the waterfall.

It turned out that hugging the cactus was a bad idea

Verdict: For me, this tour was not worth getting up at 4 in the morning and nearly freezing to death for; if we had it to do again, I would skip it (or at the very least hire a private guide who would take us a few hours later). The geysers were ok, but we just can’t see why the 4am start is necessary. And I was so uncomfortably cold for at least the first 4 hours of the tour that for me it wasn’t worth the pain.

See the rest of our pics from this trip here: Geysers de Tatio.

Day 2: Astronomy adventure

Tour company: Space Star Tours

Price: CLP15,000/person (~US$30)

Time: Evening trip leaving San Pedro at 8pm (~2.5 hours)

What we did: While we were there, we learned that the Atacama desert is one of the best places for astronomy in the world, due to the high altitude and 350+ clear days per year. What’s going to be the largest observatory in the world (ALMA) is actually being built not far from San Pedro. A group of astronomers have set up an outdoor observatory where they basically give a tour of the night sky. We were picked up in town around 8pm and driven to the observatory, around 15 minutes away. We started in a round room lit by a single candle with a glass ceiling so you could see the stars. Our host for the evening, a Canadian astronomer (I think named Les) who lives in San Pedro, was incredible. He started by giving us a basic introduction to astronomy (really interesting, not dry at all), where we learned for one thing that Pluto is no longer considered a planet – who knew?

Then we went outside, near the 10 massive telescopes they have set up essentially in the front yard. Les had the coolest laser pointer we’ve ever seen – crazy green and looked like it was actually reaching all the way to the stars. He used this to point out the Southern Cross, Milky Way, Venus (we saw planets!!), Mars (more planets!) and even Jupiter which could all easily be seen with the naked eye, all the while explaining really fascinating historical discoveries. He then introduced us to what was on each of the telescopes, and then we had time to walk around and look in each of them. We saw 4 of Jupiter’s moons!!! And we saw a star formation that looks like a butterfly. And lots of other cool things. We ended the evening by heading back into the candlelit room for hot chocolate and Q&A with Les. He was really fascinating to talk to, had very thoughtful and detailed answers for all the questions but also had a skill for making it easy to understand.

Sadly our camera does not have a long enough exposure time to take good pictures of the stars... they were spectacular

Verdict: This was definitely our favorite “tour” of the trip. It’s definitely different from the other tours that are offered, and it’s like nothing we’ve ever done. I hadn’t expected seeing the stars and planets to be so interesting, but this was really a fabulous experience!!! Our camera is not good at night, so check out the Space Star Tours website for cool photos and more info – this is a must-do trip if you are in the area.

To be continued . . .

See how much fun we had in San Pedro? Be sure to check back for Part 2 tomorrow – including the coolest landscape we’ve ever seen!!

Update: Part 2 is posted: Trip Report: San Pedro de Atacama (part 2)

Atacama: A Vacation within a vacation within a vacation

Posted on August 27, 2010 by ryan

First…

we packed up our apartment in San Francisco, put most of our stuff in storage and went to Buenos Aires.

Then…

after ~4 months we left a couple of bags with a friend in Buenos Aires and went to Santiago.

Then…

after ~1 month we left a couple of bags with friends in Santiago and headed up to San Pedro de Atacama. We’ll be here for ~5 days.

Like a dream within a dream within a dream…

this is a vacation within a vacation within a vacation. We can only hope that the ‘kicks’ are timed correctly and we will be able to return to Santiago and then Buenos Aires and then the US with all of our things and ourselves intact. If anything goes wrong we could become lost in vacation limbo forever. Obviously, this would be horrible.

We have to be careful.

We can only hope that our subconscious doesn’t create evil projections that are able to catch us and throw us out of our vacation early. To avoid them we will have to choose a new and exotic destination every day. We will go to crazy places like the Valle de la Luna, Los Geysers del Tatio, Las Lagunas Altiplanicos and others. If things get desperate, we may even go so far as to go sandboarding in the desert and/or cross the somewhat unpredictable and recently unstable border into Bolivia. Hopefully these crazy environments and activities will be enough to confuse our subconscious and keep us safe.

Time moves much slower here than in reality.

Because we have total freedom to choose what we want to do in each moment, every day spent in a normal vacation is worth 10 days of life at home (just add up how many hours you spend enjoying what you want to do vs. doing what you are supposed to do in a normal 10 day period in reality and you’ll see what I mean). Many theorize that this time distortion compounds with each additional layer of vacation abstraction–each day on a second level vacation is worth 100 days of enjoyment in your normal life; each day on a third level, 1,000. We’ll be here for ~5 days on this third level vacation which means that for us it will be the equivalent of 5,000 days worth of normal life enjoyment. You will hardly realize that we were gone, but for us, we will have experienced ~14 years of enjoyment here in the arid high-altitude desert of Atacama. If, upon reading this, you are now depressed by how little you enjoy your normal life, consider joining us–there is still room on our afternoon tour.

Unfortunately we do not have any spinny tops.

When we return… if we return… we will have no way of knowing whether or not we are back in reality or are in yet another layer of vacation. It’s entirely possible that we will spend the rest of our lives unsure whether we are on vacation or not. We are okay with this. If we do end up in vacation limbo, please consider joining us, but under no circumstances should you attempt to rescue us.

By the way…

If the last 6 months have just been a dream and rather than traveling in South America we’ve actually just been sleeping in a conference room using our laptops as pillows while making slides for a big presentation tomorrow… Please don’t wake us up; we will be cranky.

p.s. If you haven’t seen the movie “Inception” go see it. Then this will make (at least some) sense.

Wine tasting at Concha y Toro

Posted on August 22, 2010 by jen

Ryan and I had a day free of networking meetings this past week, so we decided to get out of the city and visit Concha y Toro winery for the afternoon. We were psyched to find out we could get almost all the way there using public transit: hop the subway one block from our apartment in Bellas Artes, make one change, ride it to the end, then a 10 minute cab ride out to the winery.

Even if it doesn’t ring a bell, you’re probably familiar with Concha y Toro – recognize any of these labels?

We've seen Casillero del Diablo in the grocery stores and Como Sur in Trader Joe's in CA

Concha y Toro is the largest winery in Latin America (and the 8th largest in the world) and exports ~80% of their wines – lots of them end up in the US. They also seem to be the biggest winery tour attraction (at least that we’ve ever seen). We learned from our guide that during the low season (like now, middle of winter), they give tours to ~300 visitors per day. In the high season (December/January), they have up to 900 guests per day. To us, it seemed crazy busy – can’t imagine what it’s like during high season.

We had called ahead and made reservations for the English tour. We arrived a bit early and wandered through the store, trying to avoid the group of 40 Venezuelans (who clearly were not at their first stop of the day). Our tour ended up being just us and 6 retired Australians, and it went a little something like this:

Watch cheezy corporate video about the history of the winery in a fancy theater room
Walk across the winery grounds to see the original house that the owner built – beautiful yellow and white mansion with lots of cool statues and fountains and a view over the vineyards and their own private pond
The house and the grounds surrounding it are gorgeous, even on a grey winter day
Look at some dormant vines (we’ve taken to visiting wineries in the dead of winter; not recommended) and wait for Australian tourmates to finish asking the guide question about her year mopping floors in an Australian mine
Taste a splash of something white in our fancy dancy branded glasses (that we got to take home!)
Wait for the group of 40 tipsy Venezuelans to leave the cellar (the Casillero del Diablo) so we can go down and check it out. The story goes that long ago, the original owner noticed that bottles of his private stash of wines had gone missing from the cellar, so he spread a rumor that the devil dwelled in his cellar . . . and never lost another bottle again. As we were leaving the cellar, the lights went out (it was really dark) and a recorded voice began telling the story of the devil in the cellar
Pop back above-ground and taste a splash of something red before being shuttled into the restaurant and store

While this wasn’t exactly the best wine tour we’ve been on, it was interesting to see Chile’s largest wine tourist attraction. And the free glasses were a bonus (especially since we broke one in our short-term apartment and had to replace it – shhh, don’t tell our landlord). The Concha y Toro wine tour was something different and easy to do from the city of Santiago for an afternoon, but very different that the high-end wine tasting tour we did in Mendoza. We learned that large corporate wineries aren’t really our gig, but we still like their wines!

Meet, Plan, Go! September 14th in thirteen cities. Be there. Seriously.

Posted on August 17, 2010 by ryan

Listen up. This is important. We want to tell you about an outstanding event that will be taking place on Sept. 14th in thirteen cities across the US and Canada called Meet, Plan, Go! Its entire purpose is to provide you with inspiration, contacts and resources to “plan the trip of a lifetime” – and then go. You’re probably wondering how much something this awesome would cost. Well, I hope you’re sitting down: this event is free. If you live anywhere near one of these cities, we think you should go. To be honest, we’re pretty bummed that the fact that we’re already traveling prevents us from going. Please go and tell us about it so that we can live vicariously through YOU (seriously, it’s the least you could do). 🙂

If that wasn’t enough to convince you, read on…

If you’ve followed this blog at all in the past, then you know a little bit about our story–we were management consultants with intense jobs for a long time, now we’re hanging out in South America applying our high-intensity, driven personalities to enjoying life rather than making PowerPoint slides. We won’t be doing this forever, and we wouldn’t want to. Even if we had the finances to enable doing it forever (which we most decidedly do not), we’d eventually need to go back to doing something that felt like it gave us a purpose. Going on a long-term trip like this doesn’t mean abandoning your career or even your current job, it just means taking a break. That’s why we like the term “Career Break”, which we keep coming across more and more during our adventure.

The more we reflect on our experience and the more we learn about what others get out of taking Career Breaks (whether they last 2 months or 12), the more enthusiastic we are about suggesting them to others–everyone really. I can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t benefit from taking a step back for a little while. It brings perspective. It allows you to see more clearly what it is that you want. It may lead to you returning to your previous job/career with a renewed vigor and sense of purpose, or it may lead you to new epiphanies about who you are and what you really want to be doing. Regardless of where it leads you, by the end you’ll know yourself better, be more excited about life and probably have some great photos and crazy stories that you can use to make your friends jealous.

If you read our recent post on career option-value and identified with anything in it, you’ll agree that one of the very best ways to remove the stress from your life is to embrace and enjoy failure rather than running from it. There is no better way to feel like a failure on a daily basis than to immerse yourself in a foreign culture–trust me, it’s pretty fascinating to go from being a senior client advisor to only having the ability to communicate at the level of a 5th grader! Not only will you be humbled on a daily basis, but you’ll be away from the constant influence of your friends and colleagues who, in an attempt to be supportive, tend to reinforce the idea that you should stay on the path you’re on. They may be right, but it’s more important what you think–and it’s almost impossible to get real perspective without getting away from it all every so often. Long-term travel is the best way I know to do it.

Still not convinced? We’ve got reinforcements…

I could go on and on (and you’ve seen me do it!), but instead I’d like to turn it over to one of the founders of Meet, Plan, Go! who also happens to be the host of the event in San Francisco to tell you more. Her name is Tara Russell and she is someone you should get to know. Here’s a quick snippet of her bio from the Meet, Plan, Go website:

TARA RUSSELL is a “Life Sabbatical & Long-term Travel Coach” – a Certified Life and Career Coach with a passion for working with clients who dream of taking time off to travel, live, work, study or volunteer abroad. As the Founder and President of Three Month Visa Coaching and Consulting, her mission is to empower her clients to change their lives (and ultimately the world at large), through meaningful international travel experiences.

Let’s talk about this Meet, Plan Go! thing…

Tara, tell us more about the origins of Meet, Plan, Go!… How did it get started and why does it exist?

The seed for Meet, Plan, Go! was planted back in January of 2010 when Michaela Potter and Sherry Ott who founded Briefcase to Backpack were in town and we met up for coffee. We realized that there were so many cool ways that we might work together that what was meant to be a half-hour meeting turned into a 5-hour brainstorming session! Our goal working together has been to take this conversation about Americans and career breaks and start building some critical mass behind it – get it out from the underground and take it national. One thing that came up was the success of a group I have been running for a few years now in SF – SF Travel Book Club and Lectures Series – and we started to wonder what it would look like if we could take the strength of that in-person group dynamic and expand it nationwide by doing a day of coordinated events across the US. From there, Michaela and Sherry were able to leverage the strength of their online network to recruit hosts and panelists from across the US and that’s how Meet, Plan, Go! came to be!

Why do you think that taking a Career Break and traveling is beneficial for people?

I would go beyond even saying “beneficial” – I think career breaks are absolutely essential for people…perhaps now more so than ever. Consider that our office desks are no longer stationary items that we can leave behind after 5pm…with the introduction of cell phones and PDAs, many of us are forever wired and always accessible from the moment we wake up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night. In an age when we are hearing more and more about work /life balance, it seems increasingly difficult to truly “unplug.”

Career breaks and travel give us that opportunity to unplug…to really take a step back, get perspective and regain balance in a way that we just can’t do while we are caught up in the pace of our hectic 9-5. (Or – let’s be honest – given the crazy hours many of us work, our 5-9.)

Travel gives us fresh and new perspectives, expands our horizons, strengthens our sense of adventure, pushes us to challenge ourselves, feeds an appreciation of our own strengths and abilities and provides us with space and time to examine who we are and what we truly want out of life. I’m passionate about helping my clients find that and taking that message national is what MPG is all about!

Who is this event for?

Well, it’s pretty simple, really. Here’s a quick and easy exercise to help readers determine if MPG is right for them…

Close your eyes and imagine taking time for yourself to do exactly what you have always wanted. Do you see:
* Surfing lessons in Costa Rica?

* Taking classes at a local university?

* Hiking the Himalayan Annapurna Circuit in Nepal?

* Renovating your house into the home you dream of?

* Volunteering at an orphanage in Brazil?

* Japanese lessons in Kyoto?

If you came up with anything other than “I’d like to be right here where I am…in my beige cubicle.”, then Meet, Plan, Go! is definitely for you.

This event is for anyone who has ever had a travel dream and wondered how to make it a reality. Anyone who has ever thought “Oh, I would so love to do something like that, but… Anyone who is currently reading this from their tiny little corner of cubicleland and thinking “Man, I wish I was lounging on the beach in Fiji right now.”

You get the picture…if you close your eyes and dream of being somewhere other than where you are, this is the event for you.

What exactly will happen at the event?

We have put together a stellar panel of travel experts – travel writers, photographers, podcasters and bloggers as well as me wearing the hat of Travel Coach. We will be presenting on the big Whys and Hows of career breaks and long-term travel and helping participants get an idea of resources that they turn to when they can start planning and go for support as they move forward.

What do you expect that people will get out of it? Why is it worth their time?

I would say this really breaks down into the “big three” of what you need to make your plans for a career break a success – inspiration, resources, and community. People who attend will be inspired by a panel of speakers / travel industry experts, they will be connected with some of the resources they need to start making their travel dreams a reality and they will be surrounded by a dynamic, supportive community of people who “get it”. Each element of that formula is really key for us.

Ok, let’s talk about the San Francisco event for a minute…

What are the logistics (e.g., when, where, how long, how do people sign up, etc.)?

The SF event is being held on Tuesday, September 14th from 7-9pm at NextSpace in downtown San Francisco. The event is free but participants do need to reserve their space and print and bring their ticket with them. RSVPs can be made at: http://meetplangosanfrancisco.eventbrite.com

Switching gears a bit, let’s talk about you…

How and why did you personally get involved in this?

When I met Sherry and Michaela back in January, there was such a cool synergy there when we combined our skill sets. Given their professional and personal backgrounds and their experience running Briefcase to Backpack and also blogs of their own, they are incredibly savvy about the internet, blogging, online networks and marketing, etc. What I brought to the table was years of experience running in-person travel-related events and also working with one-on-one coaching clients as they prepared for career breaks of their own. From that, (coupled with my own experiences planning and realizing a year-long career break of my own,) I had a keen understanding of the self-imposed limitations and perceived obstacles that often deter people from taking the sabbaticals that they really want. When we put our heads together, in short, I saw the opportunity to work with really cool people on a project I was extremely passionate about – how could I say no?

What do you do with your time when you’re not working on Meet, Plan, Go?

I am thrilled that I get to spend a great deal of my time working with one-on-one travel coaching clients, helping them work through the logistical and emotional preparations that go into making a career break possible. In addition, I’ve been able to do quite a bit of speaking in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond on topics revolving around career breaks, life sabbaticals and long-term travel. Loving my work makes it something I am pleased to dedicate a lot of time to.

When I’m not coaching, reading travel books or arranging events for SF Travel Lit & Lectures or working on MPG, I do my best to get out in this gorgeous city with friends to enjoy all the great sights, music, food and museums that SF has to offer. I also dedicate as much time as possible to my passion for photography and some of my work can be seen at www.greentaraphoto.com

And (of course,) whenever I can, I travel!

A few things to summarize…

This event sounds awesome. It is unbelievably inspiring to me/us that a few people got in a room together and conceived a plan to put something like this together for the sole purpose of inspiring others to get out there and pursue their travel-related passions and that now, in a few weeks, it’s going to happen simultaneously in thirteen cities. We are at the same time impressed by the ambition and execution of the coordinators, inspired by the concept and, perhaps more than anything, jealous that you get to go and we don’t. Don’t miss it-we’ll be angry with you.

Check out the Meet, Plan, Go! website for more info

Beaches and mountains and wineries, oh my!: More reasons why Santiago rocks

Posted on August 9, 2010 by ryan

While Santiago is a great city in and of itself, possibly its most compelling feature is its proximity to an amazing variety of incredible day-trips, ranging from beaches to wineries to mountains and more. This is a tale of some of those day-trips.

Context

I thoroughly enjoyed writing about career related topics (e.g., Career Option-value) and will absolutely be writing a lot more involving evil mongeese in the near future, but I didn’t want to go too long without offering a little travel-related inspiration…

We’ve been in Santiago, Chile for a couple of weeks now and we continue to like it more and more (see our original post on Santiago). So much so in fact that we are now seriously considering getting jobs and living here for the foreseeable future. Anyone have any good leads? 🙂

We may sound crazy. You may be wondering why we would consider living so far away from home. There are many reasons. In this post, I’ll discuss 3 of them: beaches, mountains and wineries. Oh my.

Santiago day trip 1: Beaches

About a week ago we made plans with some friends to go skiing in some of the gigantic mountains hovering just outside/over the city. We headed over to their house at around 9am to meet up. When we got there, they told us that they had heard the weather was rough and it might be snowing too hard in the mountains for skiing to be much fun. We are fair weather skiers, so skipping the slopes for the day was fine with us. After some discussion about possible alternate destinations, we decided to drive to the coast for the day. It was drizzling for most of the ~1 hour drive, so initially we weren’t all that optimistic about the beach. We were in for a surprise.

We started at Isla Negra, which is a small beach town a bit south of Valparaiso and the site of one of Pablo Neruda’s houses (he’s kind of a big deal here). The tour of the house was very worthwhile (this guy collected all kinds of crazy stuff, including a narwhal tusk!). Beyond the house, the beach was fantastic which was helped by the fact that the rain stopped..

This was Pablo Neruda's backyard. I wish it were my backyard.

After our tour, we decided to drive a bit further up the coast to Viña del Mar. Viña is a popular beach destination for a good reason.

It's always a beautiful day in Viña del Mar

The weather was significantly better at Viña. We had an awesome lunch on an outdoor patio (keep in mind that it’s the dead of winter here) and then took to the beach…

Everyone out enjoying this beautiful winter day

Also, there were some very cool sand sculptures.

Such as this crazy dragon thing

We got some ice cream, hung out on the beach for a few hours and eventually headed back to the city.

Let’s recap:

We woke up in the morning ready to go skiing.
We determined that it was snowing too hard to go skiing
Rather than driving an hour east for skiing, we drove an hour west to the coast
We spent the day enjoying a sunny, warm and beautiful day at the beach and eating ice cream (because it was snowing too hard to ski).

Does this seem strange to anyone? Is this sequence of events possible anywhere else in the world? If so, let us know! If not, join us in basking in the awesomeness that is Chile.

Santiago day trip 2: Mountains

This weekend it wasn’t snowing too hard. With our friends at the wheel, we managed to make the ~1 hour drive east (though ‘up’ is the more accurate direction) and hit the slopes at Valle Nevado. It was our first time skiing in the Andes and it was unlike any skiing we had ever done before (in a good way).

This is the lodge down at the base (yep, that's the bottom...)

Aside from the incredible views and massive amounts of snow in every direction, there is something quite unique about skiing in the Andes…

Hmmm... what's missing from this picture?

Trees. There are no trees. I’ve never skied without trees before. They pretend that there are separate runs, but really it’s more of a free-for-all where you can pretty much go anywhere–there is nothing but snow and mountains for miles and miles and miles. At the lodge, you can conveniently pay for a helicopter to drop you off further out if you’re crazy (we saw it go back and forth more than a few times), or some people apparently take a lift up and just head off in a different direction and have a friend pick them up near the side of the road somewhere down the mountain (or just hitchhike from there).

I’ve skied all over the US, but I’ve never seen this much fresh powder–certainly none that is this light and fluffy. Also, it doesn’t get that cold (rarely below freezing) and apparently the day we were there was the most crowded our friends have ever seen it–sometimes we waited in lift lines for up to 2 minutes.

This is the 'most' crowded it's ever been...

And another thing…

Echaurren glacier at the top of Valle Nevada image

At the top of one of the lifts you get an incredible view of the Echaurren glacier (top left) which is hanging out at around 17k feet

If glaciers aren’t your thing, there are also some spectacular views of the city way down below.

That's Santiago city down there in that valley. If you look closely you can see the buildings... completely surrounded by mountains

Not only that, but the drive home offered some pretty spectacular sunset views.

Sunset on road to Santiago from the Andes image

Sunsets in Chile do not mess around

Let’s recap:

1 – 1.5 hour drive from city
Amazing powder skiing, wide-open runs, not crowded, warm
Incredible glacier views
Incredible city views
Incredible sunset
If we were feeling lazy, we could have gone to the beach instead

Convinced yet? If you still don’t agree with us that Chile is awesome, that’s fine. There’s plenty more…

Santiago day trip 3: Wineries

On another day, with some other friends (people are friendly here), we headed north to the small town of Los Andes. It’s about an hour, maybe 1.5 hours north, nestled in between the Andes and the Coastal Range (more mountains) and more or less surrounded by the vineyards of the Aconcagua Valley (you have to be specific because there are like 7 wine valleys within an hour or so of the city).

The views were ok

Frankly, there wasn’t really any need to have a particular destination in mind, you can basically just start driving and stare in awe out the window at the amazing scenery beyond every turn.

We had been pretty fixated by the Andes, but we learned about a whole new mountain range on this trip.

Those are part of the Coastal Range. Also awesome.

We stopped at one point and did a little hiking through vineyards to get to the top of a hill (which happened to be the site of some very interesting petroglyphs).

This is what we saw

After we managed to tear ourselves away from these incredible views (and of course buy as many bottles of wine as we could carry after some wine tasting) we headed to our friends’ favorite lunch destination in the area…

Decent place to have lunch -- try the drunken chicken

As if the above wasn’t enough, we also were treated to a brief performance by these guys:

Huasos - Like guachos, but Chilean

Once again, let’s recap:

1 hour drive
Spectacular scenery along the way
Not one, but 2 mountain ranges (Coastal Range and Andes)
Cool wineries that make great wine in unbelievable settings
Drunken chicken for lunch
Chilean cowboys

What more could you want?

In Summary

We used to live in San Francisco. San Francisco is known for having lots of incredible day trips you can do near the city. While we are big fans of San Francisco, the day trip possibilities around Santiago make San Francisco day trips look a little silly (in diversity, intensity and proximity). We’ve only just begun exploring this city/country and so far we are blown away.

Where else can you do all of this and more so close to a major city? Why doesn’t everyone live here?? 🙂

Check out more photos in our gallery:

Beach day photos

Ski day photos

Winery day photos

We got featured on BudgetYourTrip.com

Posted on August 8, 2010 by ryan

BudgetYourTrip.com is a very cool site. They would be cool even if they didn’t post an interview of us. That said, they did post an interview of us and you should check it out.

If you aren’t familiar with the new site Budget Your Trip, there are at least three reasons why you should be:

It offers great resources to help you budget any upcoming trip you might have ranging from categorized cost benchmarks to planning tools
The people behind it are very cool corporate America run-aways that have created a new life for themselves allowing them to pursue their passions
They featured us in an interview on their site! You should check it out: Consulting Rehab feature on Budget Your Trip

Seriously, their site can really help simplify the planning for your next trip. Check it out. Tell your friends.

Enjoy!