Pro Tip: In Luxor and Aswan, give yourself additional days before and after your cruise if you really want to see more than 1-hour highlights. We’d also suggest skipping the Aswan Dam if you can. It’s a reallly early morning, a realllly long drive, and not too much to see, just walking along the top for 10 or 15 minutes. You’ll want that extra time at Philae Temple. Just saying.

After getting thoroughly templed-and-tombed out in Luxor, Dendera and Abydos (but still not having seen everything worthwhile), we headed to Hurghada for a week of diving in the Red Sea.

Sadly, we both had such terrible respiratory infections, that was impossible.  It was also cold & overcast. We instead filled our days with wandering,  doing laundry and discovering a pretty nice, though oddly-housed, antiquities museum.

Next up:

One Month traveling in MOROCCO!

February 2025

Our Art & Adventure Travel itinerary continued in Casablanca, with a return to contemporary, present-day artworks. A walkable, fairly modern city, we don’t agree with those who advise skipping it. In fact it’s maybe the perfect way for first-timers to ease into Africa / Morocco… mostly clean, but has that *edge* that becomes the standard elsewhere on the continent. THIS is what strolling the souk/medina can be like.

A self-drive down the lovely Atlantic coast brought us to Al Jadida, Essouira, and Agadir before heading back up into Marrakech . We timed this to cover the 1-54 Art Fair, and had a generally amazing art & cultural experience; there are many more galleries and museums than we’d discovered in our research and nearly all were fantastic!

After that art-citing week, we did a 3-day hike in the High Atlas Mountains, where we really experienced local mountain life of the Berber /  Amazigh (preferred) herders and famers. Go a bit later in the year than we did, and you’ll be treated to amazing (!) valleys covered in apple blossoms! As you can see, when we went, it was still a bit cold. 

Returning to Marrakech only to rent a car, we drove back toward the Atlas Mountains. We visited ancient Ait Benhaddou, setting of more than 200 movies and TV series, and a key stop on the African Spice Route. We investigated several crumbling rammed-earth ksars and even managed a studio visit with a very talented artist, who has also created an incredible new arts hub.

In Ourzazate, we toured Atlas Studios, Africa’s version of Hollywood, and enjoyed an evening of local cultural performances. Not for the tourists per se, but where the locals gather for their weekend evenings.

More hiking, through and to the top of Todragh Gorge, and an amazingly beautiful but super-challenging 8-hour drive brought us to Meknes… (seriously – this is one of the most geologically-interesting and beautiful drives we’ve ever made, but it’s a lot of work).

After Meknes, we spent several hours (too few in Mr. Nomads’ opinion) at Volubilis, the ruins of a 3rd-Century Roman city where we had almost literal free reign, tromping in and between palaces, temples and homes. The hydrological engineering to distribute fresh, sometimes heated) water from one source through 100+ acres of city supporting 20,000 people (and carrying away the resulting waste) boggled my mind.

Another twisting drive through mountains with endless olive groves brought us to Fes, supposedly the largest and most ancient still-occupied walled city in the world.

Fes is renowned for its souk, which honestly seems never-ending, and of course the centuries-old leather tannery/ies. We made the cross-souk journey twice in order to get those famous insta-worthy shots of the richly-hued vats of dye. You can decide if we succeeded here.

As with much of Morocco, unfortunately many historical sites in Fes were closed due to earthquake damage.

After Fes, we continued our Morocco road trip and visited the blue city of Chefchaouen, Tetouan, Asilah and Tangier/Tanger before leaving Africa for Europe. Some we’d recommend (Helloooo Asilah) and others not (Uh, Chefchaouen – what happened to you!?).

A Month of Art in SPAIN

March 2025

We crossed from Tanger by ferry into Spain which is NOT as simple or easy as it seems like it should be. Still, we got to at least wave to Gibraltar on the way.

MALAGA – Art & History intertwined

We took a bus from the port and spent a lovely few days in Malaga, which was a welcome surprise. We’d imagined Malaga mostly as a luxury beach town, and while there’s certainly some of that, it’s also a fantastic art & food town. Oh, and more Roman ruins!

We enjoyed standout institutions like the Picasso Museum and Pompidou Center, the national museum and the university gallery.

Oh, and we lucked into the opening of “Ireland’s most successful artist“, Sharkey’s new gallery! This man’s personality is as exuberant and colorful as his art!

We had 2 different short stays in Malaga, and look forward to spending lots more time there when we return to Europe.

MADRID – Art, Wine and Carnival

Any given day, Madrid is one of the art capitals of Europe you should definitely visit, with the Prado and Sofia Reina museums ranking on many “best of” lists. But on this trip we discovered a number of other great state-run, nonprofit & private foundations which further bolster its standing. Because it was Madrid Art Week, these combined with a bunch of solid galleries, 4 art fairs (see 2 minutes of ArtMadrid) to keep us running every moment. It was also Carnival, which added a lot of fun moments to the to-do list!

After, we rented a car and drove back down to Malaga & over to Salobrena to visit friends. After a year of traveling, it was a really welcome sort of homecoming. Constant travel can get kind of lonely.

Continuing our Spain Art & Adventure travel roadtrip, we enjoyed art & history in Cartagena, Alicante, & Valencia (for the craziness that is Fallas), went hiking in Cirat, took in the Magdalena festival in Castellón de la Plana, and explored Tarragona and Barcelona before heading to Italy. Whew.

Art & Design in ITALY

Early April

In a whirlwind couple of weeks in Italy, we reacquainted ourselves a bit with Turin (but honestly I was mostly in the hotel doing taxes), took a daytrip to Asti, where we’d lived for several months last year, and then headed to Milan for MiArtFair, the anchor of Milano Art Week and Milan Design Week, more properly called Salone del Mobile Milano, just a few days later. 

It’s spring, so the fairs are back to back; to catch the next one(s), we jetted off to check out…

Art in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)

From Milan, we flew to Abu Dhabi in the UAE for its (first) Public Art Biennial, traveled to Dubai for the Art Dubai fair, and then on down to Sharjah, for the Sharjah Biennale (teaser video) – a three week whirlwind we’ve dubbed the UAE ArtTrifecta.

We were surprised by how different each of the three Emirates was.

We expected glitz & glam in Dubai, and there’s plenty of it to be sure. It seems fairly positioned as a playground for the rich, with incredible shopping (seriously, the malls are enormous!) and exotic cars everywhere – like a Vegas with limited access to booze.

Abu Dhabi is positioning itself as a playground of a different sort, with a great aquarium, Warner Brothers World, FerrariWorld and a pending Disney resort for family-focused travelers, and the Louvre Abu Dhabi, TeamLAB, Zayed National Museum and Guggenheim (both still a ways from completion) and the Bassam Freihya / Manayat a Saadiyat complex setting the tone for arts lovers.

Sharjah was a complete mystery before our arrival, and while the larger city has a long way to go to compete with either Abu Dhabi or Dubai for the family audience(s), it’s becoming a huge player for the art crowd worldwide due to the efforts and holding of the Sharjah Art Foundation. Should be really interesting to watch further developments. Oh, and no booze here. At all.

Overall, a worthwhile visit, and worth another trip in the future.  Our art cravings temporarily satisfied, we sought out Art & Adventure travel in…

NEPAL – Adventure, trekking and culture

May – June

From the UAE, Nepal, with its incredible hiking – particularly the Annapurna Circuit Trek – beckoned. And Kathmandu. And Pokhara. As did short wildlife safaris in Bardiya and Chitwan National Parks. And exploring local villages & culture in the Kathmandu Valley. We really concentrated on the Adventure part of our Art & Adventure travel itinerary.

Sadly, after roughly 6 weeks in lovely Nepal, we hit the road for Thailand. We’ve been before, but Mr. Nomad needed some semi-emergency dental work done, and heard that Bangkok is a good option.

THAILAND – the land of Smiles (we hope)!

June – ?

Bangkok

Ahhh Bangkok. We visited back in 2009 during our SE Asia backpacking trip (the trip that really ignited our wander/wonderlust ).  Our memories of this city are a little fuzzy, and we’re pretty sure Bangkok has doubled in size since then, but this city definitely has some of *whatever* you’re looking for. Except maybe beaches.

As we mentioned earlier, we schedule Bangkok now because Mr. has some dental issues that need addressing, and supposedly Bangkok is *the* place in SE Asia for good dental care. At the moment, that remains to be seen, as it’s been a lot of runaround.

However, we have seen chunks of the city we didn’t on our prior visit. In fact, we think a big chunk probably didn’t exist back in 2009. Up by the Bangkok Art and Cultural Center, there’s a HUGE, interconnected mall complex where you can spend entire days to escape sweltering heat & humidity. It’s like multiple-Vegas-casinos huge.
We visited night and weekend markets, (we were especially surprised & impressed by Chatuchak) temples galore and a number of worthwhile galleries and museums.