After getting our rental RV from Portland we spent one more night with my old host family, who had showered us with their hospitality. Or if not showered, then jacuzzied, since we took one last dip in their back yard after they went to bed… Be that as it may, not only had they fed us, housed us, taken us to their campsite for 4th of July and given us a bunch of food and other stuff to take on the road trip, they also went and got us a massive amount of maps and...

One of the first things we decided to do when we planned our RTW trip was to rent a motorhome in the USA and drive it around for a month. At first we thought we'd do a coast to coast trip, but we quickly realized that this would take too long and/or mean we would miss a lot of the things we had listed as the "must sees". So instead we decided to return the car to Portland Oregon where we were starting our US tour. The second important question was where to ren...

I spent ten months in USA as an exchange student in 2006-2007 and had a great time. This was mostly due to the amazing host family I had and thus as we were planning our RTW trip it was quite obvious that we'd have to stop by to see them. It just so happened that our schedule took us there in the beginning of July when the country was celebrating its independence day. My old host family invited us to join the festivities by taking us to the same campground I visi...

Our travel agent at Kilroy had booked us a weird set of flights for our trip to the United States, where we would start by visiting my old host family in Oregon (I was an exchange student in high school in 2006-2007). To get there from Lima we would start by flying to San Jose in Costa Rica and continue to Los Angeles with a technical stop at Guatemala. In LA we would have to get our things from the belt and check them in again for the final flight to Portland Or...

First of all I just have to state that in Finnish Lima means slime. I thought that was important… Truth be told Lima wasn't slimy at all, though the distinct stench of urine does float around widely in some areas. We arrived by bus from Arequipa and spent a few days in Peru's capital, rich in colonial history and great architecture. Our accommodation Hotel Paris Lima, had a very central location offering us a great retreat to do some sightseeing from. The ho...