We have wanted to go into Wadi Rum ever since our first taste of Jordan back in 2011. We drove past Wadi Rum on our way to Petra that day. It looked amazing - like a completely unique and separate version of Southern Utah. We always wanted to come back and see it, but with so many new places to go, it looked like it might not happen. Luckily, that first trip to Petra was way too short and we didn’t get to see all the things we wanted. So it was easy to convince us to come back to Jordan, spend a whole day at Petra, and then go camping in Wadi Rum. It sounded just about perfect. ...

Our hotel in Wadi Musa was perfect for what we needed and wanted. It may not have been as fancy as the Marriott hotels where we have been staying, but it nailed almost everything we wanted for this location. The staff, like every single person we have met or seen in Jordan, was extremely friendly and did everything they could to meet our needs and wants. What was it we needed? We needed an early breakfast so we could get into Petra before the crowds. There are approximately zero restaurants between the hotel and the entrance to Petra, definitely none that would be open as early as we would be leaving, so we really needed to eat breakfast at the hotel. They had breakfast ready just after 6 am. And that’s not all, they also packed us each a to-go “breakfast” to eat for lunch inside Petra. They really shined. We only stayed the night at the hotel, checking out before heading off to Petra in the morning. We needed a safe place to park the car with all our luggage in it, and they told us we could leave it parked in the closest parking spot to their front door all day. It really was perfect. ...

We needed to give the Dead Sea a few days to calm down so we decided to drive south to Petra via the inland route which meant climbing up and through the steep cliffs along the eastern edge of the Dead Sea. The road up and over was very narrow and extremely windy. It’s a good thing nobody else was on that road because getting past each other could have been dicey. ...

We flew on Egypt Air from Cairo to Amman this morning. The flight is just barely longer than an hour, but they still managed to do a full meal service. None of us were hungry, having already sat for a really good breakfast in the executive lounge at the Cairo Marriott earlier that morning. I can say without a doubt that the food options on our Egypt Air flights were definitely lower quality than all our other flights on the trip. ...

This is our first-ever trip to Egypt. When we originally started booking this trip we anticipated seeing more of Egypt, but the final plan put us in Cairo for only about 36 hours before continuing on to Jordan. We decided to sleep two nights at a hotel in Cairo, but it still felt a little bit like a really long layover. Going through customs and immigration in Cairo was super easy. We already had Egyptian e-Visas linked to our passports. The e-Visa program is pretty slick. And yet, getting out of the airport still felt like it took forever. That was all caused by the rate at which bags were delivered to baggage claim. It took nearly 30 minutes between the time our first bag came out until our final bag came out, and there were still lots of people from our flight waiting for their bags when we left the airport. It felt like no more than two bags ever came out at the same time. Sometimes it felt like several minutes between each small batch of bags - almost like a single person was carrying a bag in each hand from across the parking lot in order to get them on the conveyer belt. Maybe we were just really tired and that caused some time dilation, but it felt crazy slow. ...

We flew directly from Salt Lake City to Paris in just under 10 hours. It’s a fantastic flight and it was even better being in the comfortable seats in Delta’s Premium Select area. Brett has Diamond Medallion status with Delta and was able to get us all upgraded on the longest leg of the trip. Thanks to favorable tailwinds, we landed in Paris about 30 minutes earlier than expected, giving us about 12 hours to go out and enjoy the city before jumping on our next flight to Cairo. ...

We left Sarajevo this morning and drove to Zagreb, the capital and largest city in Croatia. We stopped long enough to go on a bike tour of the city, grab a few bites to eat, and then we drove back to where it all started in Ljubljana, Slovenia for our fight home. Dragon Cities Saint George and the Slain Dragon ...

Despite all the scars from wars, Sarajevo still feels very much like a typical European city. It feels more like “Europe” to me than Split did. I’m sure that’s the influence of the Habsburgs. As we walked around the city tonight, I found myself thinking about how important Sarajevo has been in the history of Europe and the world. And I’m not just talking about hosting the Olympics. It was the first city in Europe to have electricity, tramways, and other technologies. ...

We got up extra early this morning because we had to be in Konjic by 8:00 for today’s adventure. We’re staying at the Swissotel in Sarajevo and they serve breakfast from 6:30 to 10:30. I think that’s the largest breakfast window of any hotel we’ve seen. And the breakfast spread was really good. So we met everyone for breakfast at 6:30, ate quickly, and left the hotel by 6:50. Konjic is a popular tourist town for mountain adventures like rafting and canyoning on the upper Neretva River. We were scheduled to do two canyons with some river boarding (think boogie boarding down a mountain river). Unfortunately, the water levels are too low right now for the river boarding, but we still got to hike the canyons and float the rivers in our wetsuits and life jackets. ...

I’m writing tonight’s blog in Notepad because the Internet connetion here at the Swissotel in Sarajevo is so terrible. I can’t even check my email via Wi-Fi. My cell phone is working perfectly thanks to T-Mobile, but I only get 5 GB of free international data each month, so I don’t want to overdo it. But this Wi-Fi situation is upsetting. The rest of the hotel is really nice. I am super impressed with the quality of everything else, so it’s sort of crazy that I can’t get Internet access in my room. I’ll post this the next time I actually have Internet access. ...