Vacation?!? Wait, Aren’t We Always on Vacation?

Despite common opinion, full time nomads are not on a permanent vacation. Even those not working full time like ourselves.

Sure, life on the road has us constantly exploring new places, and the lines between vacation and normal life get awfully blurred.

But there’s probably no doubt that our own lives could not be mistaken for a vacation in the past few months.

We just returned from an overdue and much needed break on an 11-day cruise aboard the Holland America’s Koningsdam to the Southern Carribean.

We had a fabulous time cruising the high seas with my mom, our frequent cruising budding. Cruising is just a fabulous way to still be exploring, but not having to handle all of the logistics of travel that is part of our normal everyday life.

And it’s a great way to share vacation with others, while still being independent.

We do have to admit at first it seemed a tad odd to chose a cruise vacation when we’re now boat owners cruising on our own. But it’s still very different (ie. they don’t let you do engine maintenance on a cruise ship) and a great getaway.

Quick Video Recap Version:

The Cruise Ports

We’re frequent cruisers, and this time we selected an itinerary with new to us ports of call that included Sint Marteen, Barbados, St. Lucia, Martinique, Antiqua and St. Thomas.

Some for the more northern islands were hard hit by Hurricanes Irma and Maria and our ships was one of the first to return. As the islands depends on tourist dollars for their economy, we felt most welcomed and appreciated – and the locals have gone to great lengths to get the touristy areas back up to snuff.

But the damage was still very visible.

While on St. Thomas we decided to take a ferry over to our beloved island of St. John – where we lived for the 2010/2011 winter season (inbetween our Oliver Travel Trailer and bus days). It was our first return, and the damage was heartbreaking to see. But it’s a resilient community that is working hard to recover.

Here’s a selection of photos from our trip, in no particular order:

Horseback riding in St. Lucia

Trunk Bay – St. John

Watermelon Cay – St. John

Vacation! (Horseback riding in St. Lucia.)

Pinion Peaks – St. Lucia

Kayaking in Atiqua

Working from Martinique

Sint Martern

Barbados

If you’re contemplating a cruise to the Carribean anytime in the near term future – the islands are ready and waiting for you.

Blurry Lines

Just like our normal life blurs the lines to seeming like vacation sometimes, our vacations often look like work.

And with the next edition of our book – The Mobile Internet Handbook – due out soon, our vacation was really a focused writing retreat.  It was good to get away from connectivity, so we could write about connectivity.

The 5th Edition is nearly done and will be passed to our editor this week – and hopefully available for purchase beginning next week. Whew. It’s been a big project, but we think the book is going in the right direction to now complement our online mobile internet resources at MobileInternetInfo.com.

Be sure to join our free mobile internet newsletter if you’d like to be notified when the book is ready (and of course, our premium members will be getting a free copy.)

What’s Up Next?

Now that we’re back on land, we’ll be getting the boat in storage and shifting back to RV life for a bit.  But first we need to get over to the west coast of Florida to pick up Kiki, who has been having a little vacation of her own being spoiled by her grandparents.

We’re excited to get out camping over the coming months!