The Emerald Lakes are situated in the Tongariro National Park, New Zealand. These lakes have yellow edges and are the water in them is pure turquoise. They are situated near the summit of Mt. Tongariro and they fill the craters which were created by the explosions in that area. The brilliance of their colors is mostly due to dissolved minerals in them, which are washed down from the nearby Red crater. Naturally, the mineral content of the water means you can’t drink or swim but the sheer beauty of these lakes is enough to mesmerize anyone who comes to see them so get to it and book your flights to New Zealand!

These lakes contrast very well with barren landscape all around them and make for a beautiful picturesque piece of nature’s work. The hill which leads to these lakes can appear to be an easy one to climb but the realization sets in as soon as the trekking is started that it is a very difficult one to trek.  As this picture shows though, the summit is worth the walk.

IF YOU GO: The park has plenty of road access points and sits right in the center of New Zealand’s north island.  In addition to the general access points there are also a few shuttles from the nearby town.  One thing to keep in mind is that this park is a dual world heritage site; it is not only beautiful to look at but an important cultural site for the Maori people.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Flickr user Antoine Hubert via a creative commons license.

Radio City Music Hall and the Rockette’s are one of the best known icons of New York City. Located in the Rockefeller Center, Radio City is a very famous entertainment venue sometimes known as the Showplace of the Nation. For a very long time, the Radio City Music Hall was the leading tourist destination in New York City and in 1978, it was declared as a city landmark.

It is still one of the leading tourist attractions of the city and a very famous tourist destination around the globe. Today, the music hall is primarily used for concerts and live stage shows. It’s been home to many award shows like the Grammy awards, the MTV Video Music awards and the Tony awards. This hall has a rich heritage of history and is definitely a place worth visiting.

IF YOU GO: If you get a chance to visit the Radio City Music Hall, then you must not forget to see the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’, the largest theater pipe organ in the world. If your trip happens to coincide with the holiday season, don’t miss a chance to see the world famous Rockettes.  There’s plenty of lodging in New York, but why not look for apartments in New York which will certainly beat out a hotel!

Photo Credit: IShouldLogOff.

Have you ever moved on from a place only to discover that you still have an entire pocket full of change? Virtually no exchange houses, official or unofficial will take pocket change, no matter how much it may add up to. It is some sort of unspoken rule among the world’s money changers. A conspiracy to keep our pockets heavy and jingling.

It took us three countries to realize that pocket change might actually make for a great souvenir and not just a pain in the butt (no pun intended) to carry around. From that point forward we made it our mission to not only keep pocket change, but to keep an entire set of change from every country.

To make matters worse, or better depending on your opinion, we even started to collect old coins, buying soviet era tin circles off the streets of Eastern Europe’s capitals, coins that represented a currency now revalued, and even collectors coins for holidays in China. Oh yes, we sunk to a new low every city we went to, negotiating for more and more metal to add to our “light” backpacks. Literally, a new low, as the weight of each new set of coins added significantly to the weight on our backs.

Of course we didn’t carry it all around the world. Virtually every box or courier shipment that went home thanks to friends and family contained precious plastic baggies of coins.

And so they were scattered around the homes of friends and family when we returned and their temporary keepers were more than pleased to return the coinage as soon as humanly possible.

Fortunately we had a plan for the 100 pounds of coins (or so it felt).

A coffee table.

Yes, we were going to cover the top of a coffee table with these coins. For months after our return I hunted high and low (online shopping!) for the perfect coffee table to cover in coins. I did not find it and loosing patience with putting his drink on the floor, Danny implored me to just buy one.

Then the fun began. Coins are metal and if you remember Chemistry 101 in high school you know that metal reacts with other chemicals. Mainly oxygen. And so those coins we so carefully collected around the world? Well without oil deposits from human touch, they tarnished, darkened and in some cases changed color completely (why hello rust). And so Danny set upon cleaning them. After probably 20 hours of soaking, scrubbing, rinsing, scrubbing and drying the entire collection is virtually there. They’ve been “cataloged” or better yet organized and sorted, piled according to country and region and finally stacked in a 3″ binder.

And sometime in the next few days, those coins, which morphed from annoying pocket change to a precious souvenir of our travels will make their way onto a coffee table where they will live on to cherish one drink at a time.

Have you collected any one thing from your travels? What have you done with your collection?