My first time golfing

To be honest, the first time golfing was so much harder than I expected. But it was so much fun and I learned a lot!

Jeremy knows how to golf and has golf clubs at home, so we decided to go golfing today!

We drove to the Riverside Golf Course, where they have a 9 hole course! At first we started with a little training and bought a bucket of 50 balls for that. Jeremy taught me how to use the different golf clubs and explained everything to me. It was pretty hard for me to make the ball fly far enough.

After half an hour of training, we took the golf card to the first hole. Riding the golf card was really fun  I was not so good at the first 2 holes, but I pared at the 3rd hole and I was so proud of my self! 

Jeremy is such a good trainer and helped me so much to get better.

It took me a lot of concentration and I didn’t have so much energy anymore for the last 3 holes, so I got worse at the end. But it is for sure a fun game and I will for sure try it again soon!

Have you ever golfed before? Do you have a good advise for me?

Read more about our USA Road Trip here: California Coast Road Trip

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The Zion National Park is home to a huge variety of animals and plants. 68 species of mammals, 36 species of reptiles, 7 species of amphibians and 271 species of birds live side by side in a delicate ecological balance.

You can either drive into the national park by your own vehicle or you could just park outside, take the Springdale Shuttle to the entrance of the park and use the Canyon Shuttle in the park. 

The roads the Canyon Shuttle are using is completely closed for cars and is the only way to get to the top of the canyon.

The Canyon Shuttle stops at 9 different places, where you can hike and go to beautiful viewpoints. The Angel’s landing is probably the most famous trail of the Zion National Park and the view is amazing.

Impressions of our trip to the Zion National Park

Waking up to another beautiful day in Zion National Park with our camper van crew

There are so many trails to choose from in Zion National Park and the views are breathtaking

Zion is a photographers playground

LUCKY SHOT OF THE DAY!

I captured a photo of a bat completely by accident

Check out other blog posts about our USA trip here: USA ROAD TRIP

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The last time we played poker was with our friends on a small Island called Cacnipa in the Philippines.

The Bellagio Hotel in Vegas

After a little power nap after the huge lunch buffet (Go here to the Blog Post “Our Favorite Buffet In Las Vegas”), I got new energy and we were ready to gamble a little bit. I like roulette and black jack the best. So Jeremy and me were watching people at the roulette table for a couple of minutes, before I sat down to play too. The minimum was $5 and if you set on numbers you can split it in $1 chips, but you need to have set a minimum of $5. 

Roulette in Vegas

We changed $20 in chips and set it on different numbers.  We always picked the 26, because that is both of our birthdate.

We made some money and lost some. Jeremy won $10 on the 0, that was really great. But then I lost too times $5 on red

After playing for a little bit, we left the table with $22.

Jeremy stopped at the Black Jack table and sat down. He did really good, even if he never got a black jack right away. 

He left the table with $80 chips. So we won $60 and were happy for that!

Now it is time for us to leave Vegas for the next adventure. We are heading out to Zion National Park.

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We did not have breakfast included in our hotel, so we were thinking about going to a lunch buffet in one of the  hotels on the strip.

Jeremy tried the buffets in the Excalibur, Flamingo and Luxor before, but he wanted to try something new. So we were looking to find our favorite buffet in Las Vegas

Every buffet is about the same price, about $15-30 depending on the time of the day. 

We parked our van in the self-parking of the Excalibur and walked in direction north of the Strip.

New York has no buffet, but there are really nice places to eat as well. It looks like in the streets of New Yorker, but a lot cleaner

I think if you want to eat something that fills you up and have a drink as well, it is not much more expensive to just go to the buffet, where you have a huge variety of food from all over the world and I always need a little of something sweet after

So I really wanted to check out a buffet.

A few other bloggers wrote that the buffets in the Bellagio and the Cosmopolitan are the best.

As we were walking up the strip, the Bellagio was really far and we went to the Cosmopolitan. Their restaurant is called the wicked spoon and it turned out that this was a good decision.

The price is $27 for the buffet (8am – 3pm) and if you want unlimited mimosas, champagne, etc. you can get that for $43, but we don’t really like drinking that much.

Wicket Spoon – Restaurant in the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas

We had to wait in line for about 30 minutes to get a seat, but it was totally worth it.

The variety and quality of the food was amazing.

They had good breakfast, a great salad bar and food from all over the world, like sushi, spanish paella, Italian noodles & pizza and great steaks and meats.

My first course: gnocci, pizza, salmon, chicken skewer and caesar salad

The variety of dessert was really huge, the ice cream and chocolate dipped strawberries were our favorites.

Jeremy is enjoying his dessert

Soooo delicious

Non alcoholic drinks were included too and we really loved the fresh strawberry-passion fruit juice.

After one hour of eating, we were so full and tired. We could not eat anything anymore for the rest of the day!

Did you try the buffets in Vegas? Tell us about it in the comments

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After a little stop at the mad Greek for a gyros, we arrived our destination at 3 pm. We checked in our hotel, enjoyed a little rest in the hotel room and went down to the pool. The weather is crazy out here, it was 99 degree Fahrenheit.

So we needed something healthy for dinner and had a salad with my favourite Olive Garden dressing and chicken, which we prepared the day before.

We showered and got ready for traveling the world! At first we were in Rome and saw the Colosseum and Caesars Palace!

View of our hotel room – Caesar’s Palace

Our next stop was Paris in France. We took photos next to the Eiffel Tour! 

A couple of minutes later we were right in the middle of New York and were next to the Empire State Building and took photos at the Statue of Liberty.

photo stop at the Statue of Liberty in NY

selfie in NYC

walking over the Manhattan Bridge in New York

Our last destination of the day was Egypt. We were really impressed by the incredible pyramids and the great architecture. 

I’m in a Pyramide

Selfie in a pyramide

And where else is it possible to see that many beautiful destinations around the world in one night? Viva Las Vegas

the Excalibur Hotel in Las Vegas

we had a great night in Vegas

the Bellagio Hotel (remember the movie Ocean’s Eleven?)

The post Around The World In One Day appeared first on Open Mind Travelers.

So we drove along the Pacific Coast and stopped at about 11pm close to the pier in Huntington Beach. We parked the Van and went to sleep.

Huntington Beach

Our first night in the Van was good, but I had to pee so bad  After waking up, we took our bikes to ride to the pier and along the beach. It is so perfect to wake up at such a beautiful place on earth. The fresh air feels so good.

we love to ride our bikes to the beach

It is very beautiful in Huntington Beach, a really nice town to spend a little time, play volleyball or go surfing. We enjoyed one hour walking at the pier and watched the surfers in the ocean.

Huntington Beach, California

Orange County

Jeremy’s uncle lives in Orange Country, so we thought it would be nice to meet him. We stopped for a few minutes at the Fashion Island. I love the malls in the USA and the perfect weather in California.

Fashion Island, Orange County

Jeremy’s uncle recommended us the Shake Shack at the beach and it was time for my first American burger with some traditional french fries! It was so delicious and the ocean view was incredible! 

burger time at the Shake Shack in Dana Point

We had a great day with his uncle and made an italian dinner at his house. After sleeping one night in Dana Point, we made our way down to San Clemente, which was only a 20 minute drive.

San Clemente

Wow, San Clemente is one of my favorite cities in California so far. You should definitely go there when you are on the West Coast! We arrived there and I fell in love with this place!

We had to get the van checked so we brought it to PepBoys. We were thinking what we could do in the next hour till the van was ready. Jeremy loves his Rainbow Sandals and their factory is in San Clemente, so we took our bikes and drove there and I got myself a nice pink pair too.

Rainbow Factory in San Clemente

Hanging out in San Clemente

Waking up with the sound of the ocean, having a little breakfast picnic at the beach is just amazing. We are having a lot of fun, chilling at the beach and watching the surfers.

Relaxing at San Clemente Beach

This photo of the incredible sunset was taken on our first evening in San Clemente. We love this place soooo much 🙂

San Diego

After a few nice days in San Clemente, our next destination was San Diego. Jeremy lived there for a couple of years so he knew pretty much everything cool to do. We drove by his old work and spent an hour at Solana Beach. We had a delicious California Burrito and enjoyed it with a perfect view.

We played a little basketball and that was for sure the basketball court with the best view I have ever seen! Jeremy is such a good player, an older man with his little grand daughter was so impressed because he made so many shots.

Basketball at Solana Beach

In the afternoon we drove to Pacific Beach and relaxed a couple of hours on the sand.

beach time at Pacific Beach

Jeremy wanted to show me Coronado Island so we spent the afternoon there and saw a beautiful sunset.

sand castle at the beach, Coronado Island

We spent 3 days in San Diego and rode biked along beach. One night we even went to a San Diego Padres Baseball Game.

great day at PB

Living in a Van is not always easy but it is a great experience and there is no better place to have a nice lunch than at the beach!

Lunch at Mission Bay

I knew Baseball only from the tv and I did not think I that I would like it. The San Diego Padres Game was my first Baseball Game and it was really fun! We saw 3 homeruns and even the game took longer than 4 hours but it was not boring at all. We were happy that the Padres won.

After 8 beautiful days of enjoying the good life on the West Coast, we finally went back to Jeremy’s dad’s house to repair his surfboard. I think I might want to learn how to surf on this trip too.

stay tuned 🙂

The post California Coast Road Trip appeared first on Open Mind Travelers.

we are starting our USA Road Trip tonight and we are so excited to see more beautiful destinations in America.

While i was still in Germany, Jeremy bought an awesome Dodge Van 2 month ago, we remodeled it and now we are ready to travel the world again I can’t wait to be on the road again!

Jeremy changed the floor in the Van, installed great led lights, made us a nice bed and i was responsible for the decoration So we went to IKEA to give it the final look.

The Van is so perfect. Jeremy did such a gread job with picking this one! We have everything we need in there: a nice bed, we bought stuff to cook in here and we are so happy to live with less!

Our first destinations will be a city on our way to San Diego! We are planning everything as we go!

Help us make our trip special and comment any ideas of good places in the US below.

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