Many people would not like to stay in a place like this because it truly was a cottage from the 1920’s and was just one room with a fireplace breaking…
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Welcome to the Guiding Light cruising & travel blog
I love travel!!! Regardless if it is sailing the Guiding Light to new islands or grabbing a backpack and flying somewhere. The thing I like almost as much is sharing travel experiences. With that said, welcome to my cruising & travel blog where you will find information and entertainment in blogs, podcasts, photos of the day, travel videos, and fun videos. I would love if you make comments and join the discussion. 🙂
You can read about a specific location in the travel guide section, check out one of the following catagories (cruising, food & drink, guest’s post, life ashore, misc, offshore, published works, sailing school, working on the boat), or check out all the blogs below.
In order to get to Saaremaa Island you have to take a 30 minute ferry from the mainland, but the good news is that it leaves every half hour or…
Construction of the University of Tartu’s Old Observatory started in 1808 and had the largest refracting telescope at the time. Starting in 1813, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve worked here…
In fact, Tartu is the oldest city in Estonia and dates back to 1030. Sadly large parts of the town were destroyed in WWII, but Tartu still has a charming…
Yesterday I told you all about my visit back in mid August to Hermann Castle, which sits right inside Estonia next to the Russian border. While I was going through…
After leaving Lahemaa National Park in mid August, I drove across the north part of Estonia to visit Hermann Castle in Narva, which sits right on the board with Russia….
On Friday I wrote about my time hiking through the Viru Bogs in the southwestern part of the Lahemaa National Park. What I did not write was that during the…
Lahemaa National Park was established in 1971 and is one of the main tourist draws in Estonia. The name roughly translates as “Land of Bays” because the large park is…
As you read the last several days, After leaving Lithuania to go to Estonia in mid August I immediately took a ferry to Helsinki, Finland for a day trip. Well…
If you see only one place in Helsinki in the summer, make it the World Heritage Site of Suomenlinna. The “Gibraltar of the North” was once the greatest sea fortress…
It turns out you can rather easily. Remember back in Nida, Lithuania I met a Finnish and Kiwi couple? Well the Finn invited me to take a ferry over to…
Well my last blog about my time in Lithuania will be about Kaunas, which I saw on the road trip with my friend from Romania. First we saw Kaunas Castle…
I was told to eat at Lokys down in the Old Town of Vilnius if I wanted to try ancient traditional Lithuanian meals that are spectacular. This had my attention…
In mid August I wrapped up my time in Lithuania by spending a few days in its captial, Vilnius. This small town (half a million people) is the largest in…
Trakai Island Castle is an island castle located in Lithuania on an island in Lake Galvė. The construction of the stone castle was begun in the 14th century by Kęstutis,…
The area of Kernavė has been inhabited for the last 10,000 years, with the number of settlements significantly increasing in the Mesolithic and Neolithic eras. The town was first mentioned…
In order to see a couple of important pilgrimage sites in northern Lithuania, I rented a car with a Romanian guy I met in Klaipeda. The first place we visited…
Palanga is a small beach town only 30 minutes north of Klaipeda with buses back and forth every half an hour, which makes it very easy to get to. The…
I don’t ever stay in hostels since I prefer to spend a little bit more money and have my own room, but when I arrived in Klaipeda on August 7th…
The Curonian Spit is a 98 km long, thin, curved sand-dune spit that separates the Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea coast. Its southern portion lies within Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia…
I am writing about my time in Nida, Lithuania which I visited for several days at the beginning of August. After making it through the Russian-Lithuanian border and exploring Nida,…
Yesterday I wrote about the adventure I had in crossing the Russian-Lithuanian boarder on the Curonian Spit, which is 100 km long and only 1/2 – 4 km wide at…
If you remember three years ago I told you how customs and immigration to LEAVE Russia by the Trans Siberian Train into Mongolia was intense and way stronger than it…
The cathedral sits on an island in the middle of Kaliningrad’s historic center. Today all the island has is the cathedral and a large park, but in the past the…
The Museum Bunker is a museum at the former headquarters of the local German command during the battle to capture the city at the end of World War 2. The…
Given that 90% of all amber in the world comes from Kaliningrad it is only fitting there is a museum dedicated to the gem. The museum is located with in…
Even though Kaliningrad was bombed heavily during World War 2 (then a German town known as Königsberg) many of fortifications from the mid 1800’s still exist. I read there are…
The Museum of the World Ocean is a maritime museum based along the river in the historic center of Kaliningrad. It was established on April 12, 1990 for scientific research…
Kaliningrad, Russia was once the East Prussian capital Königsberg. It only became part of Russia at the end of World War 2, when the Soviet Union expelled all Germans and…
Having caught up on sleep from the long flight over to Kaliningrad, Russia I was ready to get out and explore the city. I had a basic understanding of the…