I don't know about you, but we miss traveling.
Hello everyone, I'm Claire, this is Craig and for those of you that don't know us
one of the things we love to do the most is travel. We've traveled to over 30
countries together in the last five years
and this year we were due to spend the whole year travelling.
We did start doing that in January but then for obvious reasons we had to cut
the rest of our trip short and today is actually the day we were
due to start the second part of our trip and we were supposed to be flying off to
Australia and New Zealand for three months.
So, since we're not doing that we thought we'd look back and share with you
our top 10 places we've ever traveled to. We visited a lot of these places before
I was paralysed so if you're interested in what our life was like before then
then stay tuned. But without further ado let's get into
number 10. The home of pizza, pasta and gelato that
can only mean one place. Italy. Food is an obvious draw to this
country. One of our favorite ever culinary experiences was this roman
dining experience in Pompeii. Another thing we love about Italy are
all the relics of ancient history that are still standing today
From the coliseum and roman forum, to the cities buried by the eruption of Mount
Vesuvius over 2000 years ago. On top of all that, Italy also has a
magnificent coastline. Its summers can be a bit too hot for us
but its mild winters are a firm favorite of ours to escape the cold back home.
In at number nine is Benelux. Our next destination is actually three small
countries which share some great characteristics.
We absolutely love the cycling culture in these three countries,
there are designated cycle paths everywhere separate from both cars
and footpaths and it's the only place we've ever been where cars actually
respect and give way to cyclists rather than honking and yelling at them.
Combine this with the Netherland's picturesque canals and windmills
Belgium's quaint towns and cities and Luxembourg's castles and it's hard not
to like being here. Make sure not to miss the beers
chocolate, cheese, waffles and frites while you're here.
In at number eight we have Malta. This is the first destination on this list that
we've visited since Craig's been in a wheelchair.
Year-round sunshine is a big draw for the three Maltese islands.
For such a small place there's a surprisingly large amount of things to
see and do./ The island of Malta boasts ancient
walled cities and has a beautiful coastline
and the best part is it takes less than an hour to travel from end to end.
This means that it's really easy to see all the best bits of the island in just
a few days. You can also take a short ferry ride to
Gozo where you can explore ancient megalithic temples and even more
walled cities. Malta's third island, Comino, is also
worth seeing. The island only has three permanent residents but it's home
to some beautiful beaches and the famous blue lagoon a popular
snorkeling spot. A lot of Brits love to fly off for a
week or two in the summer to catch some sun on one of the mediterranean beaches
now this destination is actually on the Adriatic sea and not on the
Mediterranean but if we had to pick any destination to
go for one of these typical types of summer holidays then we would definitely
pick Croatia. It's not as touristy as some of
the popular places like Spain, Greece or Turkey
but there's still plenty of tourist activities to do if you want them. The beaches
have some of the clearest blue sea water we've ever seen and the Plitvice Lakes
and Krka national parks are definitely worth a visit.
Summer or winter we love the alps, especially the french alps.
It's hard to beat being in the middle of a mountain range surrounded by
snow-capped peaks, coniferous forests, alpine villages and
glacial blue rivers and lakes as far as the eye can see.
Some of our favorite experiences have been trying all of the outdoor adventure
activities you can do in the alps. You can't beat a day skiing, snowboarding,
sledding,
mountain biking, monster scootering or hiking followed by a relaxing dip in an
outdoor hot tub. Enjoying the warm water with views of
snow-capped peaks and breathing in the cold mountain air definitely
any spa day. And if you love cheese, fondue, tartiflette
and raclette are not to be missed. In at number five we have the USA. Fun
fact: Craig actually lived here for two years when he was younger.
We haven't spent a huge amount of time here recently
but we like it because every time we visit we have a completely different
experience and it's definitely somewhere we want to
explore more of. Compared to living in Europe
each state feels like it's the size of an entire country and there's so much
variation in landscape between each state that it does actually feel like
you're visiting a new country every time.
We'd love to do a massive road trip all over the us in the next few years
we know that a lot of you guys live here so if you've got any suggestions of the
places that we can't miss, please let us know in the comments.
Number four is a place where the fields are made of lava and the sand is
completely black. We love this destination because it's
like nowhere else we've ever been. Where else can you walk between tectonic
plates, witness smoking rivers and boiling hot water explode out of the
ground and risk getting hit with a warm eggy
smelling shower as it crashes back down.
Look out at snow-capped peaks while swimming in an outdoor swimming pool
that's nestled in the side of a mountain and heated by water trickling off that
mountain.
Chase countless but incredibly impressive waterfalls.
Explore an abandoned plane wreck on a beach where the sand is completely black.
Watch some of the biggest waves you've ever seen crashing down onto the black
beaches.
Take in endless lava fields.
Watch brilliantly blue icebergs floating on a glacier lagoon
before getting washed onto another black sand beach.
If you haven't guessed it yet we're talking about the land of fire
and ice, Iceland. You could have so many incredible unique experiences in Iceland
and it's a brilliant place for a road trip the only reason it's not higher on
our list is because of all these unique
attractions of course everyone else wants to see them too
so don't expect tranquility. Even if you hire a car and drive yourself to all the
attractions you can probably expect a tour bus to
turn up while you're there and also it's so expensive. Luckily all
of the best bits are natural attractions which are free
to visit but accommodation and transport are so expensive that you can't spend as
long as you want to here.
Since this is a new video style for us,
if you've made it this far we'd love to know what you think so drop
a comment down below to let us know. Should we make more videos like this or
would you prefer never to see something like this again?
In at number three we have the Azores islands. This is probably the least
well-known destination on our list and it's also the last place
that we visited. This Portuguese archipelago has been
referred to as Europe's answer to Hawaii. Now we've never been to Hawaii so we
can't confirm this but if these islands in the middle of
the Atlantic are anything like the ones in the middle of the Pacific
then we can see why Hawaii is such a popular destination.
The Azores islands have many of the same draws as Iceland except
they're a lot less busy and a lot warmer, so warm in fact they're home to Europe's
only tea plantation. As volcanic islands hot springs are
plentiful. In the town of Furnas on the island of
Sao Miguel steam even vents up through the streets.
Look at this, just chilling. Here you can find a dish called
Cozido, a stew which has been cooked directly inside the hot springs on
almost every menu.
In the summer the Azores is renowned for whale watching.
We were there in January so we didn't see any but we did enjoy watching some
absolutely huge waves crash into the rocks.
Nature is one of the biggest draws and the Azores has some pretty stunning
scenery
Intense blue and green lakes
volcanic peaks
and luscious green hills meeting the deep blue ocean.
The Azores is also home to a vast number of cows which means they make some
pretty great cheese. Our favorite was the one from the island
of Sao Jorge. We only visited two of the nine islands so we definitely
plan to come back as soon as we can to see the rest.
At number two we have the second biggest country in the world.
Like the USA, Canada is so vast and varied
but the Canadian Rockies must be one of the most beautiful places in the whole
world
They are another ultimate road trip destination
with endless mountains
rivers
waterfalls
and lakes. Some of these lakes are unbelievably blue,
so blue that we almost felt like we were imagining it.
Swimming in some of them felt more like we were swimming in the Caribbean sea
than a lake. Actually if this list was ranked purely
on the most beautiful views we've ever seen
then i think the Canadian lakes would dominate the top spots.
Besides the beautiful scenery there's also plenty of wildlife to look out for
while you're driving along. We saw moose, elk, caribou,
deer and a family of bears even cross the road
right in front of us. Probably our favorite wildlife sighting ever.
Not to mention the Canadian people are also super friendly.
We'd love to hear what your favorite destinations of all time are
leave a comment and let us know down below. And finally
at number one our favorite place we've ever been and what we consider to be the
ultimate road trip destination. We spent just under two weeks here back
in 2015 and we've been dying to get back ever since
We were supposed to be flying back there again today for three months
but we've had to postpone for obvious reasons, but we're definitely planning on
getting back there as soon as possible. While we'd say the single most beautiful
view we've ever seen was in Canada, we did also drive through some parts of
Canada that weren't quite so beautiful. Don't get me wrong, they were still nice
but as a destination as a whole we've got to give it to New
Zealand for having the best scenery in the whole world
In the two weeks we spent driving around the south island i'm not sure we saw a
single thing that wasn't worth looking at
We also had the best burger we've ever had in Queenstown
the legendary Fergburger. It really does live up to the hype
Our New Zealand trip had such a big impression on us that it's actually
shaped the way we want to spend the next few years
Be sure to check out our upcoming videos to find out why. Thank you for watching
and we'll see you in the next one, bye!