Guidebooks and "must sees" and UNESCO heritage sites be damned. We all need to stick our toes in the sand now and again, and not give two hoots about anything else.

A few months ago we received an email from our dear friend Klaus asking if we wanted to meet up with him in Colombia for a few days in June. Never one to turn down the possibility of meeting friends on the road (not to mention seeing a new country), we told him to count us in.

During our time in Spain, there were only a handful of restaurants we could afford. I suppose some might point out how much enjoyment we missed, sampling tapas and sangria in the country that has perfected them both. But I wouldn't trade away any of our picnics by the sea. To me, they are some of our most quintessential memories as backpackers.

Welcome back for the third installment of the Golden Hedgehog Awards for Lodging, wherein we recognize the finest and most spectacularly wonderful places we stayed on our round-the-world trip! In this installment, we'll be covering award-winners #3 and #2.

The capital of the Ratankiri province in Cambodia is the disheveled little town of Ban Lung. Just outside of Ban Lung is fabled Boeng Yeak Lom, a perfectly-round crater lake renowned for its remote beauty. It sounded perfect. We just needed to figure out how to get there.