We traveled abroad to 18 different countries in the time Paavo was 4 months to 3 years, and every time someone asked us our favorite place, Melbourne, Australia always made the top of the list. It ticks all the boxes for us: great kid stuff, great running, and great vegan … Continue reading
What: Lots of summertime in Europe as well as some transition time to Fall Where: Paris, UK (its own post here), Chamonix, Annecy, Grachen (Switzerland), Berlin, and Barcelona When: A few days in July (Paris), then August 22-September 20th Why: Why not? Biggest pull was to be in Chamonix for … Continue reading
What: Summertime in Colorado 2018 Where: About a week in Frisco, a week in Winter Park, about 10 days in Keystone, and a few days here and there in Broomfield. In the middle, in late June, we also headed to Wyoming for Matt and Jeff to run the Bighorn 100 … Continue reading
We liked you UK, and though you were a bit rainy, we’ll (eventually) be back for more What: We spent a month in the UK (if you didn’t guess that already) Where: We flew in and out of Manchester, spent a week in the Lake District in the small town … Continue reading
We started our post-Seattle travels with six days in New Mexico. A running race provided the initial impetus (as usual) for this trip. Me, my brother, and our friend Alan all decided to run the Jemez 50 miler in Los Alamos. Everything else was built around that! We booked the … Continue reading
After our Boston and San Francisco trips (latter part of April), we headed back to the PNW for three weeks. We immediately headed south to Oregon where Julie ran the Eugene Marathon. We had a great time with some Team RunRun friends and were hosted by our friend Wyatt’s parents. … Continue reading
We had some change of plans and didn’t “need” to be in NorCal as we originally thought. But we had tickets booked, so we “made the best of it” and spent a week in the Bay Area! We love it here so this easily worked out for the best! Itinerary: … Continue reading
Like most stops along our journey, Boston had its ups and downs. We learned some new things to apply to future travels, we had some good times, and we had our fair share of grumblings (which we try to keep to a minimum!) Here are our highlights from Boston 2018! … Continue reading
Paavo had arguably the best week of his life! Nuff said. Itinerary: 7 nights in Raleigh, NC We were in town for the Umstead 100/50 mile races. I was running the 100 and my sister Emily was doing her first 50 miler. The entire family was showing up to support. … Continue reading
In looking back at all the locations of note on our Bellingham map, I quickly realized that the majority of our key spots were restaurants – lots of good eating! While there was more than just eating going on in our short Bellingham stay, eating was definitely one of the … Continue reading
The short: there is so much more to explore in New Zealand and we want to go back. Itinerary: 6 nights in New Zealand. 1 night near Auckland airport due to late arrival; 3 nights in Rotorua, 2 nights in Auckland We have always wanted to come to New Zealand. … Continue reading
While Australia hit it out of the park for us, connecting on all categories of interest, Bali was more of a mixed bag. And while we want to love Bali, and there are plenty of reasons to love it, there are some things that just didn’t do it for us. … Continue reading
We loved our three weeks in Australia. The entire visit here checked the boxes for us and we had a lovely holiday! Hands down one of our best trips ever. Itinerary: 1 week in Gold Coast, 1 week in Melbourne, 1 week in Sydney This has also been one of, … Continue reading
Melbourne was one of our hands down favorite cities we’ve traveled to. It checked all the boxes and felt homey to us from the moment we arrived. Some of my favorite memories that I don’t want to forget are: Paavo eating vegan gelato for dinner at Vegie Bar. It was … Continue reading
The Motivation I’ve been wanting to write on Urbyville again for some time. My main motivation is because I think it’s important to take time to reflect on what we’re doing with our lives, and blogging our story is good for that. I’ve also been wanting to write more of … Continue reading
Traveling in Japan was a completely unique experience. Not that we didn’t expect it to be unique, but we simply didn’t quite know what to expect at all. Well, we did expect to like it based on really good reviews from quite a lot of other travelers that had already … Continue reading
This post has been a long time coming and one that Matt and I think about all the time. What have we learned along the way while traveling with a baby? What would we do differently the next time around, or better yet, as we go along? I’m sure we … Continue reading
It’s a simple question, “How was your trip?” with a not-so-simple answer. It’s the post-travel question that everyone asks, and I find myself doing a quick assessment on every person that asks it, gauging how short of an answer they want, what sort of information they’d find interesting, and how … Continue reading
For a brief time I became the king of the bedtime routine. And while my kingdom has now become an oligarchy, with Julie and I sharing duties and power in the realm of food and sleep, I learned valuable Dad lessons during my time on top. I also had what … Continue reading
***I wrote this post when Paavo was 5 months old and I was feeling very overwhelmed by motherhood, a feeling that has lessened now that Paavo is 9 months old. Every day is still hard, tiring, and full to the brim without much of a break, but that feeling of … Continue reading
If you can’t run it, crew it! Crewing for the 2016 UTMB race was a great experience, yet one that I couldn’t find much information on when Matt was preparing for the race this year. I wanted to share information on how we crewed for Matt, what stations we went … Continue reading
Summary: Options: Very few. None in Les Houches and a few in Chamonix with vegan options; nothing strictly vegan Proximity: If staying in Chamonix, the few places offering vegan options are within walking distance Value: Good at Monkey. 11 Euros for a huge falafel wrap and 4 Euros for a … Continue reading
I am more prepared for this race than for any ultra marathon I have ever raced. I’ve run hundreds of miles on the course. I have done race-specific training like never before. I’ve been running with this god-awfully heavy pack of required gear for well over a month now. I’m … Continue reading
Common question. Something that is often on our mind. Something that is rarely talked about. Money and finance. How do we do it? First, this is a topic that I’m really interested in. Second. It is a topic that we think about and are working on constantly. Lastly. It is … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Call me lame, I ran the same route both nights we were in Geneva, both times around Lake Geneva. I was also blown away by the place. Perhaps it’s because we had just spent two months in Mexico and Geneva … Continue reading
We left Seattle on March 23rd, spent time visiting friends and family in the Midwest in April, then started our Baby Abroad trip on May 1, flying to Mexico City. Since May 1 we’ve been to several cities in Mexico, including Mexico City, Toluca, San Miguel de Allende, Saltillo, Queretaro … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Retiro Park – Within a half mile of our hotel and a determining factor in which hotel we chose for our two days in Madrid. We’ve run here before and finished a marathon in this area a few years back … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Right – In the hotel zone, you’re on a narrow swath of land with only two options, right or left. I went right (toward Cancun city center) on all but one of my runs. This proved to be my favorite of … Continue reading
I love a good gear review when it comes to thru-hiking, so I thought it would be worthwhile to compile a list of our gear for our travels thus far, along with why we brought it and how it fits our needs. First, How We Travel With our thru-hiking background, … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Parque 2000 – I literally ran here for all 70 miles while in Queretaro. I ran the 4+ kilometers too and from our airbnb place in the central historic district on some of the days and on others we took an … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Trails just outside of town. On day one I ran with new friend David on a 5k loop just outside of town. There was minimal climbing, but that was on purpose because he was tapering for a 100k a couple days … Continue reading
Vibe of the city: Bustling nearly all hours, friendly, crowded, some pockets more laid back than others, where there are parks, coffee shops, vegan/vegetarian restaurants, and people strolling along down tree-lined streets. Why did we choose it: We always want to improve our Spanish, we have some connections to Mexico … Continue reading
“Lets do this” the email from the race director said, capping off a wild Thursday, full of new adventure plans concocted by David and me. And while battling conflicted feelings, Julie could not help but admit that this was one of those life opportunities presenting itself to us, we just … Continue reading
-Where did you run? – specific routes or areas Chapultepec Park – This place is easy to find. Look on a map of Mexico City and you will see this huge green space on the West side of the city. There are lots of entrances and lots of parts of … Continue reading
Before deciding to go to Mexico City, we repeatedly had the thought, “What will we eat as vegans?” We assumed most street food and restaurants would be off limits and that we’d be doing most of our cooking at home. While we did in fact cook at home a lot, mainly because … Continue reading
May 1st marked an important milestone for our family– Paavo received his first passport stamp when we arrived in Mexico City, where we’ll be staying for the next two months. For at least the rest of 2016, we will be calling the world our home, as we have left Seattle … Continue reading
Here is our ongoing story of our life off the trail, off the bike, and off the road. We try to keep the adventuring spirit, even in between our more adventurous adventures. Ready for Rocky Raccoon 1/29/15 Interestingly, as I type this, “One More Time” by Daft Punk is … Continue reading
Looking back on our recent month in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, and the stories we’ve shared along the way, there are a few key points that continually rise to the surface. So here it is, the cream of our SE Asia travels: Activity based travel is currently our favorite … Continue reading
Three weeks into our journey here in Thailand, we started getting antsy. We’d been to the big city of Bangkok to sightsee, to the northern region near Chiang Mai to learn how to cook thai food, to the beaches of Koh Tao to earn our scuba certifications, and we were … Continue reading
While here in Thailand, we’ve realized that we like to be active participants of the local culture and highlights rather than passive viewers. The cooking school was a perfect fit for us because it allowed us to both learn and practice an important piece of thai culture. This explains how … Continue reading
What have we learned since we’ve been in Thailand? Thai people love their food. Second, they like their food spicy, in addition to bitter, sweet, and sour. So, we decided the best way to experience Thailand and its people’s love of food was to learn how to cook it. We’d … Continue reading
As we continue to try live in a way that we think is best and avoid thoughtlessly abiding by societal norms, we found ourselves on a stopover between Bangkok and Chiang Mai (Thailand’s two largest cities) and as we got off the train, our mild expectations were shaken a bit … Continue reading
As you might expect, it wasn’t just our parents that were nervous about us traveling to Thailand, especially to Bangkok. I was a little hesitant to visit a city that has a reputation for all-night partying and sex tourists looking for love in all the wrong places. Ask many Americans … Continue reading
We made it to Bangkok! After over 23 hours on planes (which all went smoothly) we landed in Thailand with temperatures well into the 90’s. We were immediately thrust into the hustle and bustle of busy city Asian life. Bangkok is happening, with a huge population, a major urban setting, … Continue reading
Aside from the publication of Julie’s second book, all has been fairly quiet on the Urbyville front, at least from the website’s perspective. We’ve actually been busy little bees these last few weeks, as Operation Grandparents has begun here in beautiful, snowy Ohio. Hey, at least it doesn’t rain as … Continue reading
Holy smokes! This is way overdue but the whirlwind that has been the past two weeks has lead to the longest drought of Urbyville postings ever! I’ll sum up the highlights and tell why this moving trip across the USA may well have been the most ideal of all the … Continue reading
We woke up yesterday to crystal clear skies, temps climbing into the 80’s, and a 0% chance of rain, asking ourselves, “Are we still in Ireland?” Then we heard the gusty, 20mph winds and saw the whitecaps on the sea just outside our window, and said, “Yep, that’s the Ireland … Continue reading
In just over a week’s time, we’ve visited five countries, driven in four of them, will have run a marathon in three of them, spent time with two friends from the States, and had one heck of a unique tour of Europe. Just last Tuesday we left Prague, turning in … Continue reading
While Julie was cruising to her 18thcareer marathon and staying in her beautifully consistent time range she has managed on her 8thmarathon of 2012 (along with a 50k and a 100-miler), I was dropping a bomb on the beautiful course in Leiden in the Netherlands. Julie put together her 5thfastest … Continue reading
The Czech Republic is well behind us at this point, as yesterday we flew to Amsterdam, met up with our friend from the States (who we met in Guatemala), hopped in a rental car, and drove to Belgium. Matt wrote up his race summary from the Prague marathon, but I … Continue reading
