Destinations Archives - Travel with the Smile

Around the world in 2018

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Blog, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Stories from the road

Isn’t it fun to look back at the previous year? Where did it take you… What you’ve accomplished…What goals you‘ve reached or how can you get closer in the following year… 2018 was a crazy year. We traveled almost all the way around the world, finished our dream trip...

Chrysler Grand Voyager/Dodge Grand Caravan minivan camper conversion

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Blog, Canada, New Zealand, Road trips and Hitchhiking, United States

When we moved from Europe to Canada and saw how big North American minivans are compared to European cousins, we knew we will buy one and use it as a weekend mobile bed/hotel. Once we’ve got our Dodge Grand Caravan and found out how easy you can remove seats and have...

Jucy New Zealand Car Rental Review

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Blog, New Zealand, Road trips and Hitchhiking

In May 2017 right after we arrived in New Zealand we got lucky in Instagram competition by Jucy campers and won a voucher – 3 days free rental of JUCY campervan. We were planning to stay in New Zealand for almost a year and thought we would use the voucher before...

Running Routeburn Track, the alpine adventure in New Zealand

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Blog, New Zealand, Running

I was looking forward to this day for several months. We were going to run famous New Zealand’s hiking trail – 32 km long Routeburn Track. Even though we were excited about the alpine views, mountain ranges and glaciers, there was just one tiny issue. We’ve never...

10 things you didn’t know about New Zealand

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Blog, New Zealand, People and Culture

Things like New Zealand having more sheep than people or having astounding mountains and nature, in general, is something everybody knows about. What foreigners or short term visitors to New Zealand don’t know is something you usually notice after a longer time spent...

Month 9 recap of our trip around the world

by Maya Steiningerova | Last updated Oct 17, 2025 | Argentina, Blog, Chile, Hiking & Trekking, New Zealand

In case you missed it, read our recap of Month 1 & 2, Month 3, Month 4, Month 5, Month 6, Month 7, Month 8 Chile, Argentina and New Zealand – that is how our 9th month of a trip around the world looked like. It was an exhausting month when we trekked a lot, were...