Chichen Itza was a Mayan city. What most tourists think of as Chichen Itza is the Temple of Kukulcán (El Castillo), as it’s the landmark used in tour guides. There’s more to Chichen Itza than El Castillo, however. The longer you’re able to stay at Chichen Itza, the better chance you’ll have to see everything. We were only able to see about 2/3...
During our trip to Cozumel, we took a ferry to Play del Carmen to meet a tour group heading to Chichén Itzá. If you’re staying on Cozumel, it might be worth booking your Chichén Itzá tour at your resort. That way, they’ll arrange a tour that leaves Playa del Carmen a bit later. Nearly all the tours we could find on Viator left at either 7:00am or 7:30am...
Our final day and a half were spent heading first to Nagoya, where we spent the night, then on to Ghibli Park, which is a Studio Ghibli theme park just outside of Nagoya. If you’re a fan of Studio Ghibli movies, this is a must-see. No photos were allowed inside most of the buildings, but there were still plenty of photo ops. You’ll want a full day at...
During Japan’s rainy season, from early/mid June through July, thousands of hydrangea bloom along the narrow track of the Hakone Tozan Railway. The “hydrangea train” is a nice day trip from Tokyo into the mountains. This was day 4 of our Japan trip. It was very peaceful and relaxing. We started the day by taking the bullet train (Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen) from...
Our third day in Japan was spent at Tokyo DisneySea. There are two Disney resorts in Tokyo: Disneyland and DisneySea. Since this is the only DisneySea in the world, we chose it over Disneyland. It’s called DisneySea instead of DisneyLand partly because of an overall nautical theme weaved throughout the park, but also because of tie-ins to the secret Society of...