A smartphone makes travelling a lot more comfortable. You don't get lost on it if you don't intend to, you communicate with friends you left behind or with your worried family, and you can access the endless information on the Internet. Read here which apps and websites I find particularly helpful.

Long before our departure it was clear that sooner or later we wanted to buy a car to travel to South America. We both already owned cars for other long-term journeys and fell in love with the freedom one gets by owning ones own four wheels. But when we arrived in South America, we had to realize that buying a car here is not as easy as in New Zealand and the information you can find on the Internet mostly refers to Chile, which seems to be the country to go to if one wants to buy a car. However, as we were in Ecuador and wanted to head north, a detour to Chile was out of the question. So we started digging ourselves through the Colombian car purchase process with a lot of help from lovely people. Here comes a How-To Car Buying Guide for Colombia.

A couple of days ago we returned from the Galapagos Islands, a place that, first of all, I never expected to actually exist and secondly, one (or more precise: me) could ever visit. For a long time we questioned ourselves whether we really want to afford to go to a place that so openly is categorized as being highly expensive. After doing a lot of research I found a couple of Blogs that wrote about affordable accommodation and the possibility of Last Minute Cruises and eventually we searched for a flight. When we stumbled upon a unmatched price we gave in. This is our collection on how to travel the Galapagos on the superduper cheap cheap.