Cinque Terre + Sedona and the Grand Canyon | October 2026
When I decided to adjust our anniversary trip to make it a little slower and more manageable, I cut out the Cinque Terre portion, so naturally, it was necessary to make a return trip to Italy this month for redemption!! This is the postcard region northwest of Rome, with all the colorful houses perched on the cliffs. There are five villages in a row and almost all of them have hiking trails in between! You can no longer hike between Corniglia and Manarola (at least efficiently) because the coastline trail has fallen into the ocean! I had a great time on the trails, exploring the villages (especially earlier and later in the day to avoid all the other tourists), and waiting out a torrential thunderstorm by hiding in a stairwell (wait...was that fun?)! Yeah, that was a pretty epic Italian adventure. Then, not many days later I flew over to pick up Peter and his friends in order to take them to a concert (8 Bit Big Band) in Seattle!! If you love jazz and video game theme music,...