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

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! 

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!

Someday, I'll catch up.

Wow. So things have been absolutely insane over the last few years. We've been doing our fair share of traveling, and I've been very neglectful of writing about it!

What have we been up to the last couple years?

2013:
I made a New Year's resolution to do at minimum a small trip every month, and I did pretty well! Not only did we do some really fun weekend trips, including a road trip to Arizona, and a quick overnight trip to Savannah while I was in Atlanta for work, but we also snuck Europe in there in October when I went to a business conference in Cannes. Hubby and I tacked on London, Bruges, and Paris to Cannes, and it was really fun.

Bruges, Belguim, October 2013

Travel blog fail.

Well, it seems that I've done an absolutely terrible job in the last year and a half with blogging about my travels!

It started with a sort of lackluster trip to London in October 2012, and then I just, well, I don't know, I guess we just got busy with life. In addition to being crazy busy at work, I also got engaged and married! Meaning that from here on, "BF" will now be called "Hubby... :-) 

But! I'm back to make a renewed effort to bring this travel blog up to date.

Here's a quick rundown of what we've been up to in the last 20 months or so:

October 2012: Trip to London

February 2013: Monterey weekend
March 2013: Long weekend in New York
April 2013: Work trip to Las Vegas
June 2013: Road trip to Arizona
September 2013: Work trip to Atlanta, paired with an overnight in Savannah thrown in
October 2013: Work trip to Cannes, paired with a week in London, Bruges and Paris

February 2014: Work trip to New York
March 2014: Bachelorette weekend in Palm Springs
April 2014: Work trip to Las Vegas
May 2014: HONEYMOON in the Cook Islands
June 2014: Work trip to Miami, then a quick weekend in Arizona
July 2014: Work trip to New York

Whew! Seems like I've been up to much more travel than I thought! I also have a couple of additional trips coming up this year, which I'm pretty excited about.

August 2014: Quick two night trip to Portland for a baby shower, plus an additional work trip to New York
October 2014: Work trip to Cannes with a few nights in London on the way over
November 2014: Work trip to Atlanta

I'll come back to this post and link some things once I've blogged about them! Here's hoping I can get up to speed soon....

Monterey getaway!

BF's birthday is coming up, and I knew back in December that I wanted to do a quick but awesome getaway with him for it. It's been a while since we've been to Monterey, CA, so I thought that'd be the perfect place! 

*Image from Google Maps*

And now the trip is coming up later this month, and I've finally booked a hotel! We'll be staying at the Best Western Plus Beach Resort Monterey. (Yeah. It's quite the mouthful, right?) A friend of mine stayed there with her hubby and pup over the holidays, and she said it was great. And since it's a Best Western, the prices are some of the most reasonable I've ever seen in the area. It's a little outside of Monterey, but I think we'll survive. I mean, we'll be ON THE BEACH! AND it's dog friendly? I may have found my new favorite hotel! 

I'll be back towards the end of the month with a review of it, but to say I'm excited is a bit of an understatement. Now, to find some dog parks we can stop at on the drive up...

What weekend getaways are you planning for this year?

New Year's Resolution

It's a little late, but I finally came up with a New Year's resolution... drumroll, please...

Make 2013 the year of day/weekend trips!

There are a ton of places that I want to go that are close by or fairly local. And I've been severely neglecting taking advantage of the awesome travel available in the US!

Here's my plan so far:

1) January: Day trip to Santa Barbara and Solvang with X while she was visiting from NY. - DONE!

2) February: Two night getaway to Monterey, CA with BF for his birthday. - BOOKED

3) March: Three night trip to NY with M! (She's going again for work, I'm going again for fun!) - BOOKED
     March: Overnight to Indio for a concert with Shorty and DK. - BOOKED

4) April: Two night trip to Vegas for a work conference. (I'm trying to get BF or M to come with!) - BOOKED

5) May: Potential return to NY for work. - PLANNED

6) June: Overnight in San Diego to visit BF's family.  - PLANNED

And right there, we're halfway through the year! Here's hoping it all works out!  

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 - 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

 

In the works...

I've been feeling the travel bug lately - like crazy.

And, I'm happy to say that I've got not one but TWO trips in the works now!

The first is a super quick, overnight trip to San Diego for our anniversary next week. We're going to spend to go down, see BF's aunt and uncle, check out the museum where BF's uncle has some items on display, and spend the night in my favorite part of San Diego - the Gaslamp District!

I booked our hotel today, and it was awesome because I used my Hotels.com Welcome Rewards credit towards our hotel - so we'll be paying less than $100 for a night! The Welcome Rewards program is pretty cool - you book 10 nights in a hotel through them, and you get 1 night free (based on the average you spend on the other nights)! We decided to splurge a bit and booked a more "luxury" hotel, so the credit went towards the total, then we paid the balance. Works for me!

The second trip is one I've been daydreaming about for years - New York City! I've been traveling for years, have been to four continents and lord knows how many countries, heck, I've even lived abroad... but I've never been to New York. The closest I've come was our East Coast Road Trip from a few years back when we drove on the outskirts of New York on our way from Boston to Virginia. And now, my opportunity has finally arrived!

M is going to be in New York for work, and I found a round trip flight for $240 (American Airlines, JetBlue and Virgin America ALL had this fare) - so I immediately booked it. I'll be there for 5 nights, and the best part is we won't have to pay for hotels! The first three nights are covered through her work, and then we'll stay with my friend for the last two nights! I can't think of a better way to see NY - a great mix between visiting friends and working.

What trips do you have coming up that you're excited for?

Pack light?

Fun article about packing light for summer vacations... check it out!

How to Pack Light This Summer

I? Did not exactly pack light. I didn't go too overboard, but I definitely could've gotten away with less.

House sitters in place, we're almost ready for our vacation!

Ireland & Italy Trip "to get" list!

Things I need to get for my trip:

- A new point & shoot camera. I'm a camera gal. I have a Nikon dSLR, and I'll be borrowing a friend's Kodak Playsport video camera. But I need a new point & shoot camera. I always stress having a point & shoot camera for the times you don't want to carry around the bulkier dSLR - and my Canon Powershot has served me well for the last 5 years. But the time has come to get a new one, and I believe I've found the one I want: the Canon Powershot Elph 300 HS.

Checklist

Airfare - check
Hotels - check

Ok, two things checked off, a million to go!

Still on the list?

Rental car for Ireland
Getting all the crap I need for the trip
Signing the dog up for training/boarding

Oh yeah, and the big one: Pay off the credit card. (Sad face to that one!)

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!

A love letter to bella Firenze

View of the city from Piazza Michelangelo.

I've discovered in our recent trip planning that many people who have been to Italy either didn't enjoy Florence immensely, or could take it or leave it. It's rarely people's favorite city. And I can kind of understand - it lacks the romanticism of Venice and the vast history of Rome. It doesn't have a leaning tower or The Last Supper. It can be crowded, gets very hot during the summer, and is fairly industrial and dirty. The public transportation isn't as good in Florence as in other cities, and it's pretty pricey.

But despite all of those things, Florence remains my favorite city in Italy.

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.