Last weekend a fun group of Never Dry paddlers headed out to Stellendam for a late winter (early spring?) paddle on the North Sea. If you are wondering why we are walking in the photo, read on to find out!

As I pack my bags for a paddling trip tomorrow, I realize I've forgotten to finish this post about a recent trip to Rotterdam centrum. A couple weeks ago Joachim organized a relaxing/low-key trip from the kayaking club on Kralingse Plas to the center of Rotterdam. We took a different route into Rotterdam than in previous trips. We saw a number of iconic Rotterdam sites, and ended up in the heart of the city during the peak of the Saturday market. â€‹Read on for a short post with plenty of photos from a wintery urban paddle!

This is a "Time Capsule" post, meaning it describes a trip from the past which never made it to the blog. This post is short on text but has some of my favorite ever paddling photos! Enjoy :)

Our second day of Vancouver paddling, in October 2016, took us to Deep Cove (click here to see the first paddle). We rented boats from Deep Cove Kayak (at the time, 72 CAD for the day), and were pleasantly surprised by the quality of their rentals. After they heard I was an experienced kayaker, the manager said he had a boat I might like to try. He came back with a beautiful white (carbon fiber?) sea kayak from a brand I hadn't heard of before - Sterling Kayaks, made in Bellingham, Washington. I paddled the "Illusion" model. Apparently they go for $6000+! Price tag aside, it was a wonderful boat to paddle. A girl can dream, right?

This is the final post in a 6-part series about trip planning. If this is the first time you're seeing this series, I recommend you start here! For an overview of the complete series, please visit the Trip Planning 101 page.

Since this is the final post, the Google spreadsheet template is now available! Check out the main Trip Planning 101 page to get a copy. This post presents a few additional (and optional) tabs in the spreadsheet: Flights, Lodging, and Rental Cars. 

​I'm having a mini celebration right now, because this marks the 200th Naked Kayaker post! I know it's not much for 8 years in the blogging world, but considering how much time and effort go into most of these posts (planning the paddle, paddling, making maps, photo editing, writing the story, researching the destination, editing), I think it's something to be proud of. I've started and stopped my fair share of hobbies/projects in this life, but if all else fails, The Naked Kayaker will go on!

In my 100th post, I reflected on some goals I'd made in the past, and defined some new ones for the future. Looking back, Alice and I did not meet our first goal of paddling together 8 more times (I think we went 3 more times?). But I definitely met the next three goals of paddling 100 miles before a set date, exploring ten new places (easy!), and getting involved in sea kayaking in the Netherlands. 

That's fun - let's do it again! While we were in New Zealand, I made a list of New Year's resolutions. I just checked and somehow, out of 19 resolutions, only one of them is kayaking-related! How did that happen? Let's fix that asap. Below are 7 new kayaking-related goals for 2018, some more ambitious than others... 

I'm on vacation this week! visiting family and friends in Boston and New York. Flights to the US always seem to be on sale this time of year, and when I saw a flight to Boston for $400, I went for it! As you might have noticed, I've been blogging pretty actively through the winter. I'm not sure where this winter-y motivation is coming from, but a few cold weather adventures and a trip to New Zealand certainly didn't hurt! 

With the Trip Planning 101 series almost wrapped up, I'm excited to kick off a new series in which I'll share photos and maps from trips that never made it onto the blog. I'll be focusing on particularly scenic/memorable trips from before The Naked Kayaker began (2010) and from more recent too-busy-to-blog periods. I think this idea stems from my wintery bouts of paddling nostalgia, and not wanting to lose the details I still remember. The posts will drift from the usual format (story, logistics, photos, map); they'll be shorter, informal, and focus on photos, with short snippets of text. Maybe I'll even ask a few of my fellow paddlers to weigh in with their memories! I'm tentatively calling it "Time Capsules," but if you have any wittier suggestions, please share them!

Today I'm excited to finally share some photos from a beautiful trip to Vancouver in October 2016...

This is the fifth post in a 6-part series about trip planning. If this is the first time you're seeing this post, I recommend you start here! For an overview of the complete series, please visit the Trip Planning 101 page.

What do you think of when you hear "packing list"? Does it invoke stress or a feeling of control? How often do you leave something important behind? When traveling with friends, do you try to coordinate so everyone can pack as lightly as possible? In this post I'll share my approach to packing, which involves a simple spreadsheet and step-by-step process for filling it in. 

This is the fourth post in a 6-part series about trip planning. If this is the first time you're seeing this post, I recommend you start here! For an overview of the complete series, please visit the Trip Planning 101 page.

Do you make an estimate of trip expenses before going on a trip? How do you keep track of who-paid-what? In this post I share the next tab of the "Best Trip Planning Spreadsheet Ever": the Budget! I'll explain how it can be used to estimate trip costs, log transactions during the trip, and keep all travelers happy and content by keeping costs low, transparent, and well documented. ​​Here in the Netherlands, it's a cultural norm to split costs equally (e.g. "going Dutch") and keep track, sometimes to the cent, via easy bank transfers and payment request apps. I hear this is also catching on in the US, so hopefully this precise approach won't alienate any of you readers! 

As a bonus, I also share the ways that I keep my travel costs low!

Our last kayaking trip in New Zealand had a rocky start. We nearly forgot our tent, the weather forecast predicted two days of rain, our first boat started sinking, and on the morning of our departure I woke up with a bunch of red bites on my stomach. Five minutes of googling over breakfast at the campground, I was convinced I had bed bugs. How I could have acquired bedbugs 3-weeks into a 3-week camping trip (with my own sleeping bag in my own tent) did not seem relevant. Read on to hear more about kayaking in Fiordland National Park! Spoiler alert: I did not have bed bugs.