Girls' London Getaway: 8 Day Itinerary

It's coming up on Shorty's birthday again, and in our (newish) tradition, that means another girls' trip is coming!

This time, London is the dream destination - since Shorty and M have never been! Shorty found a very good deal on airfare from LA to London and booked a week long trip, then a few more of us decided it would be a great girls' getaway. Here's what we're trying to pack into the week we'll be there - it's a mix of seeing the sights for the newbies, and doing some off-the-beaten path things for those of us who have been before!

DESTINATION:  
London, with a quick overnight trip to Bath

DURATION:
8 days, 8 nights

5 Night Taste of Croatia: Our Trip Overview, and What I'd Do Differently

When we first selected Croatia for part of our summer trip, neither Hubby nor I knew much about the country itself - we had only heard amazing things about sailing in Croatia.

 Day sail with Toto tours from Split, Croatia

We didn't have quite enough time for the kind of sailing trip we'd like to do there, since we were combining visiting Croatia with a trip to Austria for a wedding. Instead, we decided to get a quick feel of the country, so we would know better where we'd want to go visit for a longer trip someday.

Now that we've completed our trip, a couple of things have stood out as things we'd wished we'd have done differently! Here's a quick overview of what we did, plus the things we would recommend to others getting a taste of Croatia.

11 Day Wander in Athens, Mykonos and Santorini, Greece

My darling friend CG and her lovely boyfriend are taking a trip to Greece this spring/early summer! CG had a couple of questions about our Greece trip last year when they were planning, so I decided to write an itinerary post! This itinerary is actually fairly close to the trip we did last year (posts on that coming soon), with a couple of extra days thrown in, and a bit more of a romantic tilt to it (ours was a girls' trip).

DESTINATION:  
Greece - Athens, Mykonos and Santorini

DURATION:
11 days, 11 nights 

A view of the Parthenon from the hotel we stayed at's roof in the Plaka district.

Trips I'm Planning: 11 Days in Austria & Croatia

A few months ago, I got the amazing news that my dear friend Sis is engaged! It's been a while since I've gotten to spend time with her (almost 5 years since our time in London, to be exact), so I am really looking forward to visiting her in Austria and being present for her special day.

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

Hubby and I have been wanting to explore a few different parts of Europe, and he's never been to Austria, so at first I thought we'd explore Austria some more, or take a train to Prague for a few days, or check out Budapest or some cities in Germany. But he's had a hankering to see Croatia, and Sis has been on a couple of incredible sailing trips there, so we figured - why not check another country off our bucket list! 

6 Day Wander in Florence and Milan, Italy

Quick break from my Portugal posts, because my dear friend, X, is taking a long overdue trip to Italy this summer! She will be visiting family in Rome, but also wants to see some other parts of Italy while she's there, particularly Florence and Milan. We recently had dinner when I visited NY for work, and I was more than happy to offer to do some research on itineraries for her! You could also take this itinerary and add a couple days at the front or end in Rome and/or Venice, and have a pretty solid 10-12 day trip to Italy!

DESTINATION:  
Italy - Florence, Milan and some surrounding areas, with Rome as a starting point

DURATION:
6 - 8 days, 5 - 7 nights
Base trip is 6 days, 5 nights, with two optional additional days/nights

Milan

8 Nights in Portugal: An Overview

When hubby and I started planning our trip to Portugal last October, we changed our itinerary about a half dozen times. We knew we had 8 nights, but there was so much we wanted to see!

 Landing in Lisbon

We went back and forth - should we do four nights each in Lisbon and Porto, with accompanying day trips and exploring from each base? Should we work our way around the country with a night in each location? How hard would it be to incorporate a quick overnight to Gibraltar and Morocco? In the end, we decided this hopefully wouldn't be our only trip to Portugal, but we wanted to get a small taste of different parts. We settled on two nights each in Lisbon, Lagos, Sintra and Porto, with the nights in Lisbon book-ending the rest.

Greece: A Girls' Trip Itinerary!

Shorty has a big birthday coming up, and she's been dreaming of a trip to Greece for years now, so she decided to make it happen and just go!

She put together the itinerary she wanted to do, the things that were the most important to see on her first trip to Greece, and then she sent it to a bunch of us, and we all picked the parts that we're able to make it to. It ended up working really well that way, because everyone had different dates, responsibilities, budgets, and this way there was no pressure on it!

London 2012

I blinked, and then all of a sudden it was almost two years after Hubby's and my trip to London in 2012. We decided we wanted to visit our good friend SD, as well as my honorary sister-from-another-mister, Sis. Both were living in London at the time (Sis has since moved back home to Vienna), and we wanted to get away to somewhere that wasn't hot and sweltering Los Angeles.

London! (The itinerary!)

We're going to London later this month! I'm so excited!

Air New Zealand had some amazing round trip fares for direct flights out of Los Angeles to London, so we jumped on the opportunity to visit two friends that are living there. It's been over a year since I've seen SD, and it's been over FIVE years since I've seen CH! I've never flown Air New Zealand before, but so far it's been a great experience with them - they have a really, truly fantastic customer service line, are friendly and never rude, and gave us free London Passes with the purchase of our tickets! The London Pass is going to come in handy, too, with line jumping and free entry to a ton of attractions. 

So, what do we plan on doing? 

Nothing, and everything.

I want at least 1 day of this trip to be dedicated to not having any plans. In the other two trips I've taken this year - New York and the Wild Wild (Mid)West, our days were packed to the gills with stuff to do. Must see this, must do that, must eat here. So this trip? Not a whole lot of that. I want some quality time with BF. I want some really fun, casual times with our friends. And I want to actually be able to soak in a true idea of what London is like!

There are, of course, things I want to see - Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, the London Tower and Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, Harrods, the rugby museum, the bridges. Maybe Windsor Castle. Maybe the Chislehurst Caves. A coworker told me that the Soane Museum can't be missed. There's a DaVinci Code tour that looks my inner nerd thinks sounds awesome.  And there are bike tours and boat tours and canal tours and seven new attractions... the list goes on and on. 

On the top of my "musts" list - afternoon tea! I love, love, love tea, and I feel like it's a quintessential thing to do while visiting London. Not sure where we'll end up, but I'll be sure to post about that later! 

And someone on a TripAdvisor recommended this "marvelously cheap" outing for visitors: "Take the Docklands Light Railway from Bank station in the direction of Lewisham. Get off at Island Gardens and walk through the historic pedestrian tunnel under the Thames. Pop out in Greenwich and stroll around - perhaps eating a picnic in the park or going to the Maritime Museum (free)." It sounds good to me! 

All I want out of this trip is great escape - good, relaxing time with BF and my friends, and to feel completely NOT stressed when we get home. And I think we've got a pretty good plan (or, non plan?) to make that happen!

So, have any of you been to London? Is there anything out there that we shouldn't miss?

Wild Wild (Mid)West: Mount Rushmore & Custer National Park

The morning of our last full day of our trip we headed out early so we could see as much as we could of Mount Rushmore and Custer National Parks. And, since we didn't take all of the traditional routes for this leg of the trip, I'm going to talk about the highways we took, too, in case anyone is interested in our route!

We headed south on 385  from Deadwood through Hill City to get to the monument, because my stepdad has family in Hill City, and we wanted to check out the Black Hills Institute museum. We didn't end up making it to the museum, because we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time to see everything else, but if I had more time, I'd definitely stop in! And if I had kids, I wouldn't dream of missing it - they have a T-rex skeleton!

 A kid fishing in one of the picturesque lakes along the drive.

Wild Wild (Mid)West: South Dakota and the Black Hills

On day 4 of our trip we got a rather late start, as we'd been up late at the Sheridan WYO Rodeo and Street Dance. But we made it onto the road by 1pm, and drove pretty much straight to South Dakota, with a short detour to see Devil's Tower, WY. 

Devil's Tower from the road. 

Wild Wild (Mid)West: Driving across northern Wyoming

Once we had dismounted our horses, we took our sore rumps to the car for the longest day of driving of the trip - the exit of Yellowstone to almost clear across Wyoming to Sheridan, WY. And we had a schedule - we had a rodeo to go to!

The drive from east Yellowstone to Cody, WY was one of the prettiest parts of our trip. President Teddy Roosevelt called the drive the most scenic in America, and it definitely lived up to the hype. 

On the road to Cody, WY

Wild Wild (Mid)West - Montana, Wyoming & South Dakota Road Trip

Even though I technically live west of Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, the upcoming road trip we have planned there reminds me of the "wild wild west."

M and I were taking a drive a few months ago and decided we wanted to take a road trip. But not just any road trip - a road trip to somewhere 1) we'd never been, and 2) that was completely different than California or the East Coast. Then we remembered we'd never seen some of the great "American" sights like Yellowstone and Mount Rushmore (which both scream road trip, no?) and voilà, a trip was born. 

I meant to write about our itinerary ages ago when we actually booked the trip, but stuff (like my real job) got in the way, and now it's right around the corner! SO. Here's a rundown of what we're going to be doing!

DAY 1 – BOZEMAN, MT

 

Slieve League Cliffs and Donegal, Ireland

Well, we've been back for over three months. Three months! And for almost each day of those three months, I've spent at least a few minutes a day daydreaming that I was back in Europe on our trip. So I decided it's high time to get around to detailing what we did on our great big fabulous trip!

THE TRIP
First up: our flights over, and our first days in Ireland, which included the Slieve League cliffs and the town of Donegal!

Rough outline: Ireland

It's been difficult to draft our our time in Ireland because we're still so unsure of what we want to do and see. We know we want to rent a car at the airport when we get there, and we know we want to spend the first few days off the beaten path. So I'm sure this rough outline is going to change, but if I was the only one making decisions on this trip, here's what I'd do!

Sunday:
- Arrive in Dublin, rent car
- Drive to West Coast, taking our time and stopping along the way
- Arrive in Donegal around 4pm and spend the rest of the day in town

Rough outline: Siena & San Gimignano (v2)

Of all the days of the trip, the ones we've adjusted the most are the days we're in Siena and Tuscany. I'm really happy with how we've adjusted things, because 1) we now have more time with SAY and Dr G, 2) we're doing a few things that are new, and 3) we have lots of free time to just enjoy Italy and where we are!

Saturday:
- Arrive in Siena in the evening (bus or train from Rome is around 3 hours)
- Meet up with friends, check out Siena, wander around

Rough outline: Florence (v2)

I could spend an entire trip to Italy based out of Florence. It's been my home city away from home since I did a semester there during college, and I'm super excited to be heading back soon! We'll only have two nights there, so we'll be packing in quite a bit, but I think we'll still have time for everything.

Wednesday:
- Arrive in Florence by bus late morning, check into hotel
- Uffizi gallery for Shorty - it's on her bucket list of things to do on this trip! I'm not sure I'll go in this time around, since I spend many extensive tours there when I lived in Florence.

Rough outline: Rome (v2)

It seems like this trip is constantly changing!

But now that we have our itinerary set, at least in terms of airline flights, I'm going to revise the rough outline of a Rome itinerary from a few months ago.

It's actually fairly close to the same itinerary, with the adjustment that we don't get to Rome until late Thursday night, and have an extra night there at the end of the trip. Also, my friends who are getting married let me know that there's a rough plan to celebrate the Bride's birthday and everyone meeting up in town on the Friday night we're there!

Bus travel around Tuscany

As much as I love the train system in Italy, one of the places I didn't explore as much as I wanted to in 2002 when I lived in Florence was Tuscany. I know, crazy, right? Since it's RIGHT THERE? I didn't see as much of it as I wanted because I was young and new to travel and didn't like to go places I couldn't get to on a train. A train was safer, you see, because it had one place to go, and was pretty difficult to mess up with. Buses, on the other hand, were tougher - there were different timetables and schedules, where to get the tickets was always somewhat of a mystery, and there were rarely the convenient audio reminders of which station you were about to get to.

Bus travel in Italy requires a little more effort than train travel, but the benefits of getting to go to the smaller towns and locations were great.

Day Dreaming of San Gimignano, Italy

I've been having a serious case of the day dreams when it comes to trip planning lately. Now that we're officially going, I've been playing around with itineraries and things to do, and talking to the people we're going to be traveling with, and I'm getting really excited.

My newest day dream? Adding a night in San Gimignano into the mix.