COVID-19 We are believers in the life-changing aspects of travel. While travel may at this time be limited, not possible, or beyond your personal safety boundaries, that doesn’t mean you cannot dream, plan or get inspired, and our stories will help you do just that. If you do hit the road, traveling near or far, always remain informed and respectful of an area’s safety guidelines. Remember that operations and hours of businesses may temporarily change. To help guide your decisions about traveling during the pandemic please visit the CDC and check with local travel destinations.
We are Michael Hodgson and Therese Iknoian, the husband-and-wife team behind the HI Travel Tales curtain – and, yes, despite travel’s occasional travails, we remain happily married and always look forward to the next trip together. We are veteran travel journalists and photographers — not Instagram bikini influencers (no one wants to see Michael in a bikini anyway!)
HI Travel Tales is dedicated to inspiring meaningful travel adventures around the world with a focus on immersive travel experiences. We discover the unexpected and extraordinary even in the most common of destinations. Our award-winning writing and photography guides travelers and non-travelers alike on a journey of discovery and wonder.
We love sharing stories from other travelers, too, and have a growing slate of wonderful contributors. We are also surrogate parents to a rather large and still growing family of stuffed animals who all have names and invariably fight over who gets to go on the next trip (Michael sometimes insists two go, hiding one in Therese’s carry-on.)
Want to know what it’s like to work with your spouse – and stay married? Then listen in to two CoupleCo podcasts featuring Michael Hodgson and Therese Iknoian below.
We are travelers. Always have been. We engage. We explore. We immerse ourselves everywhere we go. We are both uber-curious and enthusiastic about sharing our experiences. Here are a few of our latest travel stories.
From road trippers to adventure travelers, everyone who heads out on a hike needs to pack along emergency gear to keep them safe if things go wrong. The 11 essentials for hikers are items that are easy to carry and pack, and might just save a life – yours.
Tucked onto a bluff overlooking Noyo Harbor in Fort Bragg, California, the Noyo Harbor Inn offers a secluded escape with a surprisingly accessible location along Highway 1.
Venturing to the southernmost continent of Antarctica is a bucket-list adventure for many with its endless ice, beautiful blue waters, and wildlife like penguins and whales. In March of 2018, we joined a Polar Latitudes expedition to Antarctica and have assembled here a collection of some of our favorite Antarctica photos shared on Instagram.
Cooking up the best authentic Cajun gumbo is not hard, but it does require a few pointers. Spuddy Faucheux at Cajun Cooking Experience near New Orleans shared his world of cooking with us in a personal Cajun cooking class. Now, we’re sharing the cooking experience and his authentic chicken and sausage gumbo recipe with you.
Since COVID-19 is likely going to be around for a while, even after vaccinations, safe road trips may be the best answer to see new places. With our road trip safety essentials list, you can avoid relying on restaurants and make less frequent trips to stores so you can focus on having fun and traveling well.
Packing luggage for travel can be stressful. But no matter what the adventure, there are some travel essentials that are always in our luggage or carry on. Find out what these must-have travel items are to help you decide what to pack for your next travel adventure.
It has been a very long 2020 but through it all we found our readers still wanted to dream of travel, to think about travel, and to plan for travel. This was made clear with our Top 10 Stories of 2020 as selected by our readers and what they viewed. Local and regional U.S. stories, stories that highlighted adventures closer to home and ideas for road trips, sprinkled with a few topics drawn from our archives allowed us and our readers to keep dreaming of travel in 2021.
These are our best Instagram photos of 2020 – voted on by our followers with their likes and shares. We hope our travel photos will help inspire you to plan future travel, dream of destinations near and far, and start your travel bucket list for 2021 … and beyond.
Christmas Garden Berlin 2019 — a magical wonderland of Christmas lights, lasers and music set in the Botanisher Garten in Berlin.
Nothing is cozier or more warming than a mug of hot German mulled wine, known in Germany as Glühwein. Popular at traditional German Christmas markets you can buy it premixed outside of Germany, but if you want true depth of flavor and fresh spices, follow my Glühwein recipe to make the best mulled wine you’ve ever had.
Virginia City, Nevada, was the site of the richest silver strike in the world in 1859. Today, Virginia City still looks much like it did during its rough-and-tumble mining beginnings. We’ll guide you on a perfect 24 hours in Virginia City adventure itinerary with saloons and Cemetery Gin included of course.
Located just south of Reno in the Carson Valley, and tucked up against the Eastern Sierra Nevada on US 395 in Nevada, historic Genoa is worth even a brief stopover. Dating back to 1850, the quaint village promises history, hikes and great food and drinks.
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