|
Post by ganews on Jun 28, 2019 15:33:32 GMT -5
About to begin this 26 hour journey to Brisbane and Cairns, Australia. Any suggestions, oppy all along?u ETA By which I mean our Toronto connection flight is busted. 1 less day in Australia, because there's no other way to get to the Vancouver connect. If this flight ever happens, the airline is comping us a hotel in Toronto. Fucking Air Canada, a flight from Baltimore to Toronto, I could drive to Toronto in 8 hours.
|
|
|
Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Aug 1, 2019 13:15:47 GMT -5
I'm heading to Boston in mid-October as a birthday present to myself (and to visit a friend). Any suggestions on restaurants and good places to visit? I love being a tourist but would like any insight on the traps that are and aren't worth the money/time.
|
|
|
Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Aug 5, 2019 7:48:42 GMT -5
We are going on a mini-vacation not this weekend but next: two nights/three days in Wisconsin Dells, which is basically the kitschy water-park capital of the world (as all of the tourist commercials say). We're staying at an ancient-Greece themed hotel/resort with two water parks and a small amusement park (roller coasters, go-karts, that sort of thing). Honestly my first choice would have been a few days in Madison drinking beer and paddleboating on a lake, but my husband is a kid at heart and was super enthused. I am sure I will have fun doing this too. I can park my butt on a lazy river tube while he runs around, if I want. It's kind of funny though because in early March I met up with my friends at Great Wolf Lodge for an overnight and the kids ran around in the (indoor) water park and I did the lazy river and I feel like this is basically the same thing but bigger. Except my husband didn't want to go with me to that.
|
|
|
Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Aug 19, 2019 8:33:07 GMT -5
So. Wisconsin Dells.
It is tourist CENTRAL. It reminded me somewhat of Niagara Falls, only there's not one central attraction - the whole place is the attraction. There are a jillion water parks and resorts and small roadside hotels and mini golf and Duck boats and fudge shops and t-shirt stores and crazy weird museums and attractions. The place we stayed at - Mt Olympus - seems to really sorta exemplify the whole thing. It's right up against the main road and not terribly well organized; the water park attractions, for instance, are spread out over four semi-separate plots. There was a main hotel building we stayed in, but additional buildings stretched higgeldy piggeldy down the road for about a mile.
The water/theme park we stayed at was fun, and fine - low-key and not crowded on Thurs or Fri (well, the indoor water park got a little jammed during the evening but it wasn't completely nuts). They have a bunch of water slides, three lazy rivers, a gigantic wave pool (with a huge 9 foot wave that slams into you) and indoors, two hot tubs. The hotel was just okay but it was fine for two nights. The food was kinda lousy, but what do you expect. Overall, it was fun, and I'm glad we got away for a few days and tried something new.
|
|
|
Post by liebkartoffel on Aug 21, 2019 16:05:29 GMT -5
Just got back from a working vacation in New York and we managed to check off just about everything on the Manhattan tourist check list: Central Park, Lincoln Center, Rockefeller Plaza, Grand Central Terminal, Bryant Park, New York Public Library, the Staten Island ferry, walking across the Brooklyn Bridge, seeing a Broadway show and, most importantly of course, shopping at the Nintendo Store. Cliche, yes, but not bad for four days.
|
|
|
Post by Desert Dweller on Aug 31, 2019 23:41:19 GMT -5
My choir is going on tour next June to the Baltics + Finland. I am trying to determine if I can go. The price is tantalizingly close to being workable for me. I think I can afford the ground cost, but I'm worried about being able to afford the airfare to Europe. I already work 55 hours per week. I may have to work 70 hours per week. Hmmmm....
|
|
|
Post by haysoos on Sept 10, 2019 11:59:52 GMT -5
I went down to Atlanta over Labour Day long weekend for DragonCon, and this year I made the mistake of driving. In total, I was just short of 8,250 km (5126 miles) by the end of the trip, having driven across two provinces and twelve states. That is just waaaay too much driving. I felt hungover for an entire day after I got back, and my knees and back are still kind of stiff and sore.
There were several observations and discoveries I made traveling through the heartland of the United States
- Most of the Great Plains looks exactly like southern Alberta and Saskatchewan (also known as "the boring parts").
- For being an allegedly wealthy, oil-rich "have" province, Alberta has shitty roads. Nearly every US state has roads in better condition than Alberta's except possibly South Dakota, which were nearly identical. I instantly felt at home riding over the cracked tar seams on the pavement of South Dakota.
- US Rest Areas also make Canadian ones look like total shit. In Canada, you're lucky if there's even a porta-pottie, let alone running water. In the US there's regular deluxe rest stops with vast parking areas with proper entry and exit lanes, and signage, and a building with heating/cooling and plumbing and toilet paper, and vending machines, and maps, and even free freaking Wifi!!. Now this is tax money well spent!!
- Omaha, Nebraska has a bizarrely ornate and robust system of interstate exchanges, with multiple lanes, flyovers, cross-unders, curling exit ramps, and multiple lanes of high-speed traffic all leaving Omaha as quickly as possible. The roads look like Shanghai or something. Don't listen to the LED signs though. I think they're part of some semi-sentient entity trying to misdirect and trap motorists in some kind of predator's web.
- No matter how many Southerners claim otherwise, white gravy is just white glue warmed up and with a bit of pepper in it. It's gross.
- Atlanta is the second worst city I've ever driven in for random lanes just disappearing or becoming mandatory left or right turning lanes with no warning, and a general lack of street signs. For the record, Edmonton is the worst. But Edmonton is at least on a grid system, so once you stop somewhere you at least have a chance of figuring out where you are, and how far off you are from where you want to be. Atlanta doesn't even have that going for it.
- But the second worst city to drive through was Nashville. Both directions, the freeway just came to a complete and total stop multiple times for no visible reason. And for the amount of times they need to do it, the people of Nashville absolutely suck at merging. I also saw at least three spots where it appeared cars had stopped on the shoulder and burned completely to the ground, leaving just a little mound of residue and ash.
- Worst city to drive through was Regina. Tiny town. Took a freaking hour to get through. The main road has lights every ten feet, and construction that limits speed to 30 kph.
- There's some kind of weird death field in North Dakota. So much road kill. Every mile there was at least one corpse. I saw deer and coyotes and foxes, alongside skunks, porcupines, rabbits, tree squirrels, ground squirrels, cats, unidentifiable fur, smears of blood, a headless thing that might have been a giant guinea pig or a really fat chihuahua and hundreds and hundreds of raccoons. One whole family of raccoons was laid out on one shoulder. In another construction zone, there was a pylon, then a lump, pylon, lump, pylon, lump. I tried to figure out what the lumps were, and realized they were furry. Then I figured out they were baby raccoons!! Did someone deliberately put them there? There were dozens, all evenly spaced, how does that happen?!?! On the way back, just I entered North Dakota I looked up to see the sign that said "Welcome to North Dakota. Legendary", and then looked down to see something brown and furry disappear under the car. It's creepy.
|
|
|
Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Sept 15, 2019 21:56:53 GMT -5
I recently won a bunch of money at the casino by my office, somewhere in the three grand range after taxes, and realized that I don't really need it anywhere in my budget, so I decided to splurge and blow some of it next weekend in the vacation funtime capital of the world . . . Indianapolis, Indiana. I have a few things booked in the Fountain Square neighborhood, but beyond that its mostly just light exploring and a dry run for if I ever decide to take an actual, interesting vacation.
|
|
|
Post by liebkartoffel on Jan 7, 2020 10:50:17 GMT -5
Well, my parents have successfully emotionally blackmailed us into vacationing with them in Hawaii (Kauai/Big Island). Anybody have any recs? Been to the Big Island before but never Kauai.
|
|
|
Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 7, 2020 23:29:31 GMT -5
My choir is officially booked to go on tour to the Baltics in June. We will be performing in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. There are options to continue on with regular touristy sight-seeing in Helsinki afterwards, if we'd like.
I will be working 60 hours a week from now until then to be able to afford this. Yay!
|
|
Gumbercules
AV Clubber
Get out of my dreams, and into my van
Posts: 2,979
|
Post by Gumbercules on May 25, 2021 6:39:10 GMT -5
This thread hasn't been updated since, oh let's see... Feb 2020. Yeah, that tracks.
Anyways, I just booked housing on Block Island, a small island off of RI (my home state), which we'll be doing over me and my wife's birthdays (and also our anniversary). Though we'll also be bringing the HumanBean in tow. This will be our first overnight trip with her, so we'll see how this goes. Normally you take the ferry over with your bicycles and get around that way, but that'd be tough with a child trailer attached, and taxis there don't stock kid car seats, so we have to bring our car on the ferry (which is an added $100). We're really looking forward to this trip. It's at the end of the summer, but we haven't done anything for over a year, and have no plans to travel or do anything this summer, so this is our outlet.
|
|
|
Post by Pedantic Editor Type on May 25, 2021 8:21:05 GMT -5
Heh. Liebkartoffel, did you make it to Hawaii? The post doesn't say when you were gonna go.
We actually have plans this year! We are going to Key West in a few weeks, and I'm very excited. I've only been there once as a cruise stop, and that was ages ago (2003). We have a cute historic hotel booked in the middle of town and exactly one thing planned - a sunset boat ride. Otherwise we're going to play it by ear, relax, enjoy the town, drink lots of rum and just chill.
I also have an AirBnB booked for a girls weekend on Lake Michigan which is not really a vacation but a long-overdue chance to see my college besties and catch up.
|
|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Nov 15, 2021 11:15:31 GMT -5
Looks like I will be going to Portland for a library conference in March. First time for me in the PNW. I won't have a lot of free time but what should I try to make sure and check out? Any recommendations? Djse (and a Sack of Cats) ?
|
|
|
Post by Djse (and a Sack of Cats) on Nov 15, 2021 13:00:14 GMT -5
Looks like I will be going to Portland for a library conference in March. First time for me in the PNW. I won't have a lot of free time but what should I try to make sure and check out? Any recommendations? Djse (and a Sack of Cats) ? AW YEAH. Kind of depends on where you'll be in town. My standard Portland recommendations are usually... - Powells (the giant bookstore) - The Japanese Garden (just a cool place to wander around) - The International Rose Test Garden (another cool wandering place) - Multnomah Falls (potentially less cool and more crowded now that reservations are required) - Wyrd Leather And Mead (it's a bit of a trek from downtown, but worth it) - Live shows - venues in or close to downtown include the Star Theater, Dante's, the Doug Fir Lounge, and the Roseland Theater ...not necessarily in that order. Happy to provide food/bar/dispensary recommendations as needed. Lemme know when you've got dates/details - hopefully there will be some decent shows when you're in town, and even if there aren't we should get drinks or something when you're here.
|
|
|
Post by nowimnothing on Mar 16, 2022 12:21:32 GMT -5
Looks like I will be going to Portland for a library conference in March. First time for me in the PNW. I won't have a lot of free time but what should I try to make sure and check out? Any recommendations? Djse (and a Sack of Cats) ? AW YEAH. Kind of depends on where you'll be in town. My standard Portland recommendations are usually... - Powells (the giant bookstore) - The Japanese Garden (just a cool place to wander around) - The International Rose Test Garden (another cool wandering place) - Multnomah Falls (potentially less cool and more crowded now that reservations are required) - Wyrd Leather And Mead (it's a bit of a trek from downtown, but worth it) - Live shows - venues in or close to downtown include the Star Theater, Dante's, the Doug Fir Lounge, and the Roseland Theater ...not necessarily in that order. Happy to provide food/bar/dispensary recommendations as needed. Lemme know when you've got dates/details - hopefully there will be some decent shows when you're in town, and even if there aren't we should get drinks or something when you're here. I will be there next week from Wednesday to Friday, leaving early on Saturday. I have a library thing Thursday night, not sure about Wednesday or Friday yet.
|
|
|
Post by Pedantic Editor Type on Mar 16, 2022 12:53:14 GMT -5
Oh hey vacations! Remember those!
We actually took one last year to Key West in June, which was fun but very hot. I have a ton of recommendations for Key West now, though!
This year, we're going to LA in late June. We had originally tossed around different plans, but then one of our friends announced she and her longtime partner are getting married. Not really an actual wedding - they're going to the courthouse and then his family (who's in LA) is having a big ole party. So we'll spend a few days with them (in Whittier) and then do two days at Disneyland before we come home.
It has been well over 20 years since I've been to Southern California (we did a whirlwind weekend in Sonoma County back in 2012 for a wedding) so I am looking forward to seeing the area again.
|
|
LazBro
Prolific Poster
Posts: 10,011
|
Post by LazBro on Jun 12, 2023 8:23:14 GMT -5
I leave this Saturday for Alaska.
I've been twice before, including once with the Mrs., but my kids have never been so I'm looking forward to that. Alaska is super pretty and not hot, and this time of year that rules.
My wife and kids leave on Wednesday along with my parents and my sister's family. They're doing a couple days of national parks. Then I'll join them on Saturday when we all get on a cruise ship for 7 days along with an extended group of old friends. There's something like 19 of us, all in. I'm not going for the first few days because 1) I don't have the PTO for it, or rather, I do but I'd be pretty strapped for the rest of the year and don't want to put myself in that position, 2) work is crazy right now, and while PTO is a benefit you should never feel bad for taking, being gone for 3 additional business days seems like an absolute nightmare to me, 3) I don't really care about national parks and hate being outside, and 4) it saves money on boarding the dog.
|
|