Despite its closure in 2011 the Vehicle Assembly Building (or VAB) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre still holds the distinction of being one of the largest single story buildings in the world thanks to its mammoth size at over one million cubic feet. To give you a sense of just how big that is, the interior can form rain clouds below the ceiling on exceptionally humid days. The building as a result has not only a moisture reduction system to minimize the gathering of condensation, but over ten thousand tons …

While all the focus in recent months has been upon the Mars Curiosity Rover, another of NASA’s creations has reached a milestone as we enter the New Year and the Mars Opportunity Rover’s ninth year of service gathering data on the red planet. Touching down on January 3, 2004 – joined three weeks later by Mars Spirit Rover – the two were originally sent on a 90-day mission to search for signs of historical water activity on the Red Planet, but would instead go on to surpass their designers’ and …

While the standard image of a busload of people piling out at some location, followed by a guide who gathers them up like ducklings and marches them off after a quick head count, umbrella in hand to help lead the way, is likely to be the type of tour you end up on if you ever decide to go with some sort of official tour group, they don’t always need to come in this variety. And even if it does, these tours also have a number of pros to them, …

Chichen Itza is in fact the first Heritage Site that Nicole and I visited together thanks to her parents, who organized a family trip down to Mexico for Christmas a few years back.
Perhaps one of the greatest Mayan sacred sites on the Yucatan peninsula, the fusion of Mayan and Toltec civilizations from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries certainly makes it the most important example of this union, found upon almost every inch of the monuments and artistry that comprise the grounds of Chichen Itza.
And even though climbing the Castillo …

When we heard about easyJet’s Inspiration Initiative, and found that it coincidentally fell around our blog’s one year anniversary, we almost felt obliged to write our own Inspiration Initiative post! We hope that our stories of travel and the reasons why we do it help inspire others to head out there and see the world.
If you’d like to be part of the Inspiration Initiative (and maybe win a trip and an iPad2!), visit easyJet Holidays here: http://holidays.easyjet.com/holiday-ideas-inspiration.htm
Nicole

WHO
Every March Break, my parents drove us down to Florida for a week to …

During our visit to Chichen Itza, our guide Ivan – described to us by his employer as the Russian with the heart of a Mexican – shared with us his trick for getting the tour without having to pay for the tour.

Places like this Mexican ruin are extremely popular, and thus extremely busy.
This however can be turned to your advantage. Instead of arriving first thing in the morning to jump the crowds, try and get there when the first morning’s tours are beginning. Then you can move around the site …

Given the tendency of societies to build upon previous settlements, older cities have a great wealth of history and can reach much further in the past than we might even expect.

In Cancun for example we discovered this ruin dating from the pre-Columbian Maya civilization within the Hotel Zone, and in our case a close enough walk to the resort that we didn’t even need to take the bus.

This is in fact one of the larger ruins located on Cancun Island and is said to be a contemporary of the more …

Natalie – @nearafar on Twitter – is asking a travel question every Wednesday, and this week was ‘What’s your favourite island?’.  Gary and I visited Isla Mujeres with my Dad in 2004, and it’s remained high on our ‘must return to’ list.  We spent our day at the Turtle Farm, visiting sea turtles, at Playa Tiburón for a beer or two and then on to the Playa Norte for some swimming.  Just a 20 minute ferry ride from Cancun, it feels like a world away, relaxed and laid back, with …

One of our early trips together was a Christmas trip to Cancun we took in 2004 with my parents, my brother, and Kate, who would eventually be my sister-in-law.  As Gary and I are both usually all about ruins, I lobbied hard for a trip to Chichen Itza – and everyone actually agreed.  We had an excellent Russian-turned-Mexican driver who took us out there, to a nearby cenote and to Valladolid, which is a long day, and not nearly enough time in the town… but you do what you can.
Gary …