Inspiring travel stories, tips, and guides from a couple exploring the world one destination at a time.
Last Updated: June 6, 2026
Paso Robles is a beautiful wine region of rolling hills draped in grapevines and ancient oak trees, situated midway along the California coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. It had been our go-to destination for long weekend getaways when we lived in San Diego. From Temecula it was a five-hour drive north — and absolutely worth every mile.
Last Updated: June 6, 2026
Temecula was less than a two-hour drive north from Santee Lakes. Over the past 25 years we had explored many of the wineries in the Temecula Valley, watching the region mature into something genuinely impressive. Not only has the quality of the wine improved considerably, but so has the culinary scene — and, inevitably, so have the tasting fees.
Last Updated: May 2026
We still had a property in San Diego that we had rented the past couple of years. Our tenants moved out, giving us a great opportunity to make renovations and put it on the market. We changed our travel plans and based ourselves in Escondido — the closest RV park to the house in Rancho Santa Fe. Southern California is an amazing place and it was wonderful to be back after a two-year hiatus. Great year-round weather without mosquitoes, black flies, tornadoes, hail, or hurricanes — just fires and earthquakes. It’s easy to see why so many people live here and pay the insane cost of living.
Last Updated: May 2026
After Botswana we flew back to Cape Town and drove east into the Cape Winelands. Stellenbosch sits about 30 miles from Cape Town in a valley framed by mountains — a Dutch colonial town settled in 1679 with a Mediterranean climate of hot dry summers and mild wet winters that makes it one of the great wine-growing regions in the world. We spent two days here exploring the estates before flying home, and it was the perfect decompression after the intensity of the safari.
