Our longest trip to date. Plenty of stories and memories, including our wedding and honeymoon. We celebrated a great start to our married life by doing what we most love to do. In our 6 week vacation we visited 5 countries and multiple cites. We traveled through Spain, Malta, Greece, Israel and Iceland.
Planning
We had planned to spent only $5,000 of our savings for the traveling only. Unfortunately there were a lot of unexpected expenses due to extreme weather and cancelled/exchange flights. The plan was initially to take off from Los Angeles into Barcelona, Spain. We purchased the tickets a couple of months before for a great price, but once we got to the counter, the flight had been re-scheduled but without notice.
Our Flight Plan
| Date and Time | From | To | Airline |
| Sep 10 2:10PM | El Paso TX (ELP) | Los Angeles (LAX) | Southwest |
| Sep 10 8:00PM | Los Angeles (LAX) | Barcelona, Spain ( BCN) | Norwegian |
| Sep 17 7:30PM | Barcelona, Spain ( BCN) | Valleta, Malta (MLA) | Ryanair |
| Sep 25 10:35PM | Valleta, Malta (MLA) | Athens, Greece (ATH) | Ryaniar |
| Oct 2 8:20AM | Santorini, Greece (JTR) | Athens, Greece (ATH) | Ryanair |
| Oct 4 4:20PM | Athens, Greece (ATH) | Paphos, Cyprus (PFO) | Cobalt |
| Oct 8 9AM | Larnaca, Cyprus (LAR) | Tel Aviv, Israel (TLV) | Cobalt |
| Oct 14 8:55AM | Tel Aviv, Israel (TLV) | Chicago (ORD) | Wow |
| Oct 16 10:12AM | Chicago (ORD) | El Paso (ELP) | United |
Equipment
- GoPro
- Universal Travel Adapter
- Memory exchanger
- External Drive
- Cables
In Our Backpacks
We took 2 backpacks full of clothes. We were backpacking! …we thought we packed light:
- 2 swimming trunks/suits
- 3-4 shirts (1 dryfit)
- 2 pants
- 3 boxers/underwear
- 1 blanket
- hygiene items
Our Experience in Brief…
Traveling from El Paso > Los Angeles > Spain > Valleta, Malta > Athens, Greece > Paphos, Cyprus > Tel Aviv, Cyprus > Reykjavik, Iceland > Chicago and back to El Paso.
Starting with Spain we had a great time moving by train, we met with a interesting people, eating spectacular tapas and taking fascinating tours. Read more.
Malta was surreal. Astonishing views and great turistic atmosphere. We loved this country since we first heard of it in Thailand. We loved it so much that we planned our wedding there. We had some of our best memories there. Read more in our Malta blog.
After Malta we traveled to Athens Greece. After the surreal and yet stressing wedding, we had planned to travel by boat to the Greek islands right after arriving to Athens. This plan was quickly demolished by a rare tropical storm in the Mediterranean Sea. Read more about our time in Athens.
Athens was great for food, pictures and historic monuments. We left Athens with a great about of pictures and fully belly, we took of to Paphos, Cyprus. This was a secret I had kept from Heidy. As you might have read before, she planned the wedding and the pre-honeymoon while I planned the honey moon. Read more about Cyprus
Jerusalem was our next stop, after we got to Tel Aviv international airport we took a train to Jerusalem. A very old city with the greatest of stories. The foundation of western culture, and many wars. Read more about our take of Israel here.
The last leg of our trip was Reykjavik, Iceland. More than a visit, it was a long layover. We spent it sightseeing the cold town by bus. Read our take on our brief visit to Iceland.
Conclusion
As lengthy as it may have been, we loved our long trip. We were not as prepared as we could, Reykjavik had a much different weather that the other places we visited and therefore we could not prepare well for it. We did have unexpected expenses due to inclement weather, but there was no way to plan for a cyclone in the Mediterranean. I had the best trip with my fiancée and now my wife. There are so many things that I am grateful and one is this experience, and they I spent it with the woman I love so much.