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.

Exploring Croatia: Getting Around

The first thing I did when I was researching Croatia for our trip over the summer was to identify where in Croatia we wanted to go, and how we would get there. 

I usually try to sort those kinds of details out first, and to make sure that everything is actually accessible without being insanely expensive! (I learned my lesson on this the hard way when I had to take an 80€ private transfer from the Nice airport once!)

CROATIA
Croatia is actually quite spread out for such a small country, so the next challenge was figuring out where to stay, and how to get in between places. After loads of research, I determined that we wanted to spend the majority of our time in Split, with at least one night in Dubrovnik. Split was a good jumping off point for the tours and sites we wanted to visit - specifically, Plitvice Lakes, and a boat tour of the Dalmatian coast and islands.

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.

Porto, Portugal

Capping off our trip to Portugal was a visit to Porto, in the north of the country. We arrived to Porto in the early evening and checked into our hotel, then went exploring for snacks. We stumbled on an amazing little spot for a glass of wine and tapas style appetizers on Rua das Flores called Cantina 32, and spent a lovely hour sitting out on the pedestrian street with glasses of wine and beer and an amazing cheese platter. They also had amazing lemonade and lupini beans! Highly recommended! 

Cheese platter and sausage croquettes - make sure to get extra pumpkin jam!

Santa Cruz Island Kayaking with Channel Islands Outfitters

Living in California, it's easy to take for granted all of the amazing scenery and activities there are locally. Off of the coast of Ventura and Santa Barbara counties are a series of channel islands that make up the California Channel Islands National Park. We look at them every time we drive up the coast, and we'd toured near them on some whale watching trips, but we'd never been out to visit them!

SD came to visit California for work a few weeks ago, and we decided to do something we've been wanting to do for a long time - take a ferry out to the Channel Islands and have an adventure!

Heading out for our adventure!

Magical Sintra, Portugal

We decided to stay in Sintra for two nights of our Portugal trip almost on a whim. We wanted to stay somewhere close to Lisbon, but not *in* Lisbon, which made Sintra and Cascais very appealing choices. After I researched the area a bit, we decided on Sintra, since there were a handful of things we wanted to see there: Pena Palace, the Castle of the Moors, the Quinta Da Regaleira, Sintra National Palace, Monserrate Palace and Park... there are some amazing things to check out in Sintra!

 Castle of the Moors, Sintra

I, of course, had way too many things I wanted to see in the one full day that we had in Sintra - especially considering we arrived later in the evening on our first night, and were driving RW to the Lisbon airport halfway through the day. It's ok, though, because we still got an amazing sampling of Sintra, and a return trip is definitely in our future.

Renting A Car & Driving In Portugal

Renting a car in Portugal was easy, and totally worth it. Ok, slight correction - DRIVING in Portugal was easy - the car rental part was a bit of a hassle, but still worth it.

RENTING THE CAR
We started our driving adventure of Portugal in Lisbon. I had researched a few different car rental companies, and had finally settled on a booking with Budget Rental Car, through Expedia's website. Since we were planning on driving pretty extensively throughout the trip, and since RW was going to be traveling with us for half the trip, we ended up with a slightly larger car than we normally would rent in Europe.

Cabo da Roca & Óbidos, Portugal

Cabo da Roca and the little town of Óbidos were two spots in Portugal that I absolutely loved. We visited both spots on the day of our trip dedicated to driving from Sintra up to Porto.

 

Cabo da Roca

TRAVEL TIP: Road travel in Portugal often takes longer than estimated when you're using smaller roads instead of highways. Along our trip from Sintra to Cabo da Roca, we got stuck on a small, winding road behind a large (especially for European standards) RV from Germany. The drive ended up being an adventure in itself, as the couple in the RV actually needed our (and other motorist's) help in a couple of tight spots! Make sure you give yourself plenty of drive time, especially if you're going on a tour or have a reservation somewhere!

Off The Beaten Path in Portugal

One of the things we like the most about exploring a new place is checking out places that are along our journey from one place to another.

Hitting the road - and using an actual map rather than GPS!

Knowing we like to do this, we planned basically an entire day each for the drives between the Algarve and Sintra, and from Sintra to Porto, even though we'd spaced out our overnights so we never had more than about 200 miles to drive each day.

Santorini, Greece: Blue Angel Villa and TravelKeys Vacation Rentals Stay & Post-Stay Experiences

Blue Angel Villa. The saga continues! I recently wrote about our booking and pre-stay experience with TravelKeys for the Blue Angel Villa in Santorini, and here I'll continue with a review of our stay and some post-stay drama. Quick recap: Shorty fell in love with the villa, which we then booked for 7 guests for 4 nights at $3,170.

Panoramic view from the rooftop of the villa - it was stunning.

Another quick disclaimer: I am not trying to nitpick the details of the villa in this review - I am just trying to give an honest review of what we were expecting from our booking process and what we ended up with when we arrived. The bottom line for us was that we were expecting something much different based on what had been presented to us, and when the reality didn't quite match, it was disappointing.

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

Algarve, Portugal

Next up on our Portugal itinerary was part of the southern coast of Portugal know as the Algarve region. It's the most popular tourist destination in Portugal, so, of course, we debated long and hard on if we should go, as we tend to like off-the-beaten path places a bit more. But, we were going slightly off season, and there's also a very Moroccan/African/Arabic influence in the Algarve, which we wanted to see. Plus, it boasts gorgeous beaches and coastlines, along with the first ever navigational school, Prince Henry's School of Navigation, in Sagres (established in 1418), so we ended up deciding to spend a few nights in the region.

Panoramic view of the Sagres coastline.

Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon was both the first and last stop on our tour of Portugal in October 2015. (Itinerary HERE!) 

We didn't spend a ton of time in Lisbon, as we wanted to check out as much of the country as possible... so we had a half day in Lisbon the day we landed, and another half day when we returned from Porto. We will definitely return to Lisbon to check out more of the city, as what we did see of the city was fantastic.

Panorama of Lisbon from one of the many view points.

London: Meantime Brewing Company

I've mentioned Meantime on the blog before, but hubby and I were talking about beer and London a few days ago and it reminded me just how much we'd loved our tour. So, I figured they deserve their very own post!

Hubby and I, along with SD, hit up a tour at the Meantime Brewing Company last October. SD suggested it, and since hubby loves Greenwich so much, we figured it was a perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon! The tour costs 20£, and was absolutely worthwhile.

Greece Girl's Trip: The Packing List

We're going on vacation! Yes, yes, I know it's not exactly unusual for someone who writes a travel blog to be going on a trip. But. This is a girls' vacation, and I am thrilled. There are a couple of us going who don't travel regularly, so a few weeks ago, they asked me what I would be packing.

 For this trip, swimsuits and a sun hat are a must! (I don't typically bring a hat like this with me unless I'm going to be beaching. Also, I'm bringing two swim suits, because I've been to humid climates where suits don't dry overnight, and there's very little more annoying than putting on a wet bathing suit!)

Now, that's sort of a loaded question. I'm a firm believer that what you pack is pretty personal and varied, so this list is what I would bring with me. In addition to that, what you pack is also pretty dependent on where you're going, and when. Perfect case in point: I'm packing for a spring trip to the Greek Islands. If I were packing for a fall trip to London, my bag would be drastically different! My best advice is to take your itinerary (even if it's rough!) and try to figure out what you'd be comfortable in for each day/adventure.

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: The City and Sights

London is a very interesting place. 

It's beautiful, with a mix of old and modern, clean and dodgy, quiet and crazy.

When we returned from our first trip in 2012, there was a lot about London that we hadn't liked. The rush. The rude people. The occasional feel of being in "just any" big city.

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.