One trip to California to see my newborn nephew, my first trip to Washington D.C. to support a local candidate for Congress (and take a very belated 8th grade field trip of the Capitol) and three trips to Las Vegas which, according to their tagline, I’m not at liberty to discuss.
I went to Wisconsin, for a week, to a cabin, on a lake. I had been there, one time before, in my teens, 29 years ago!
It was amazing to see the place, and the trees, so tall. The pointe in the lake was narrower but still there, more cabins. The best part was the generations of kids whose parents had these summer cabins, and the closeness and support all the residents have for each other.
Also, that flight, was the first time I had flown, in…5 years! How in the heck did I manage to not fly anywhere for 5 years??? I guess I had no where to go that I couldn’t drive to.
And after my glorious week in WI, I went to the most AWESOME Albuquerque balloon festival in New Mexico, for my 50th birthday.
Naturally, ( a favorite word I use), I drove there from AZ.
Flew from Portland to Central New York to visit family a couple of weeks ago (and tour one of the oldest breweries in the US) It was a long flight for a short trip. I love my family, but I can only avoid talking politics for so long.
Earlier this year I took a day-trip halfway across Oregon because my friend needed a ride to her final certification to become a wildland firefighter medic.
Otherwise I’ve been a bit of a homebody
@PocketBrain Second the motion. When I retired I emptied out my business travel suitcase (ready to go on a couple hour’s notice) and ceremonially donated it.
My wife and I try to take at least one big trip every year. We live cheap and put away a little from every paycheck, and then find deals. This year, we spent a week in August exploring Juneau. Lots of fun.
In July, we’ll be spending two weeks in and around Umeå, Sweden. We have friends in town with a guest room, and other friends with a cabin in the woods, so we can do it on the (relatively) cheap. I was worried about asking HR for a whole two weeks (not to mention the coworker who’s going to have to cover for me), but the general consensus was “you’d be crazy not to.”
We’re hoping for Italy in 2019. I want to explore my roots a bit.
Also, Tip #2 in today’s essay would be pretty hard for me to pull off. My mom hitchhiked from Milan to Oxford via Antwerp without knowing any French or Flemish and almost no Italian in 1972. She’s too adventurous to worry.
@hac Yeah, it runs in the family. Grandma got a job with the Air Force after she retired. They made her a staff Major, and she taught elementary school in Germany and Iceland (making sure we all got to come visit her at the latter). Then she taught English at Beijing Polytechnic for a couple of years without knowing more than about ten words of Mandarin when she started. (It was an immersion class, and most of the staff spoke English, so she got by until she could catch up.)
She also went skydiving on her 60th birthday.
The men in my family? Good guys, but pretty much regular Joes. The women? Total, total badasses.
As meh.com’s resident competitive air guitarist, I made it a point to travel to Washington, DC for the US Air Guitar national finals this year. (I also took a trip to Philadelphia for a qualifier.)
Last time I took a significant trip anywhere but to visit my folks was 2008, when I went to Cleveland for the DEVOtional fan convention. It was so nice to get away, be in a unique place, explore a city, buy a bunch of records, and drink lots of beer.
My plans for next year are to go to Oulu, Finland, for the World Air Guitar Championships, and also to hit up the US Air Guitar National Finals again. Not sure where the USAG Finals are in 2018, but I suspect they’ll be in Chicago, as the reigning US Champion is from that area.
if i could teleport, i think i would go more places. but sleeping away from home and my body don’t really get along. (and also, airfare and hotels are expensive.)
i said this yesterday, but in august my partner and i went to a lovely oceanfront inn for the weekend an hour away courtesy of his boss, and i look forward to being able to do that again next year, maybe for a bit longer. other places i would like to go include iceland, ireland, japan, and california for sdcc. but those are pipe dreams
@jerk_nugget Comic Con is fun, but it’s too crowded for me. I last went in 2002, and had a mild panic attack when I realized that there was something like five times the population of my hometown crammed in there.
@dannybeans yeah, i know it would probably quickly turn into a disaster for me to go (a friend of mine who cosplays at cons basically told me outright i shouldn’t go to any comiccon heh) but i’m a collector of vinyl toys and there’s always so many amazing releases at sdcc i’d suffer one day to shop. sadly they don’t sell this stuff in stores like they used to and the cons more local to me on the east coast don’t really have anything of interest to me. that’s really the only reason i’d go - beyond the toy vendors i really don’t care about the rest lol. (my partner and i are both avid comic readers and into general nerdery, i just have no interest in autographs or panels or dressing up and whathaveyou.)
Best trip of the year was driving about 6 hours to get into the path of totality for the solar eclipse in August. If you ever have the means to experience one, I don’t have to the words to describe how amazing it is to see.
China in May (clay warriors, pandas, Three Gorges dam), Crete in July (beaches, tavernas, sunsets), Total Eclipse at Oregon in August (Wow!), Sicily and southern Italy in September (food, gelato, food, gelato, repeat daily), Ashland, Oregon for some Shakespeare in October (“Out, out damn spot”…), and home for the holidays. Phew!!! Celebrating our 50th year of marriage.
I don’t really like to travel, but I like seeing friends, get invited to a fair amount of stuff, and have to do some for work, so I end up doing it a fair amount (little less than the previous year, though). Home base is Portland, OR.
-Business trip to Missouri for a week.
-3-day road trip to northern Washington (state) for a Spartan race.
-5-day trip to Santa Cruz to visit a friend.
-6-day whirlwind trip to NY/MA/RI/CT with my brother.
-Another week-long business trip to Missouri.
-4-day road trip to Vancouver/Squamish in BC.
-10-day combo wedding/cruise in Florida and the Caribbean for my buddy’s wedding.
-I’ll be spending Christmas in central OR again with friends.
In addition, I did several 2- to 4-day road trips to relax with friends at the coast or play in ultimate frisbee tournaments in Oregon and Washington. I have two friend groups trying to get me to take trips to Mexico next year, but I’m not really interested. My brother wants to go to Italy together (he knows someone there), but a lot of stuff would have to line up to get me to go.
@Kabn yeah PreCheck is awesome. I am always bummed if I fly out of ATL after they close the PreCheck lanes for the night, even though the regular lines are super short then.
Vancouver/Whistler back in Feb/March, a couple of drive up ski trips to New York and Vermont, and Memphis in October. Road trip back to Vermont in a few weeks, followed by a ski trip to Austria the end of January, and off to Winter Park, Colorado three weeks after that. Planning on visiting friends near Los Angeles late spring if it hasn’t all burned to the ground by then. Who knows what the fall will bring?
No good trips this year. Just one unhappy one. But at least no work trips (I have hopes those are a thing of the past now). And no flights, so no dealing with security kabuki or buying tickets for my luggage.
Next year we may manage our first vacation in 7+ years.
The only trip I made this year was a Trip from here in Buckeyeland, to the the Middle of nowhere Okla.(Ft.Sill/Lawton), with my buddy to go to his “little” Brother’s Graduation from basic training…
the 2 of us drove(2 days each way, 3 days there),stayed just off base.
The rest of his family flew in to Okla. City(Mom and her GF, From Rural AK, and Sis & Dad From Cleveland), and stayed with a family friend who had relocated to Norman, and Drove the 1.5hrs back and forth each day in a rental Cruze.
Not as much as usual. Went to Florida in March to visit elderly relatives and took a cruise to the Bahamas. Went to gaming and Sci Fi cons in Denver, Dallas, Tuscon, Phoenix, and Albuquerque. Went to Austin to visit friends. Made a number of trips to various towns in NM for special events.
yeah… looking back we did travel a good bit this year!
Jan: Nashville for granddaughter’s birthday (3days)
March: Orlando/Legoland for a week with grandkids
(gave them 2016 Christmas present of ‘Awesomer’ annual passes to park)
April: Atlanta (weekend)
May: St. George Island (week) OK, techinically this was
just the wife really… getting together with her YaYa
friends/relatives. I stayed home (Alabama) to watch the
grandkids so daughter could attend.
June: Kansas city area for wedding (5days)
July: New Orleans (3 days)
Aug: (big trip for 40th anniversary) Atlanta-St. Lucia-
Trinidad-Grenada-St. Lucia. 5 days in Trini at an
AirBnB, 7 days sailing cruise Grenada to St. Lucia,
overnight stay in St. Lucia at the end. (2 weeks)
Sept: Hilton Head Island (3 days and just left in time for
IRMA to hit…)
Oct: Memphis with another couple-again AirBnB (5 days)
Nov: back to Orlando/Legoland for a week with grandkids
(and their parents this time)
Dec: North Carolina to hear SIL speak to the Gideons
and visit BIL and his family (5 days). Next week
finishing out the year at a cabin in Unicoi state park in
north GA.
On a sadder note we also did 3 quick trips to Savannah, Mobile and Destin for funerals for friend’s parents.
Did I mention we LOVE to travel…?
@f00l Flexible schedule and lots of “off days” is definitely one of the perks that comes with working 7on/7off in the local ER. This is a “bonus year” since Christmas and New Year’s Eve both fall in my off week! (but I do have to work Christmas Eve and New Year’s day.)
I am a homebody, do not care about traveling.
It is mainly because of my home situation, do not want to go anywhere with him. We have been in the same car, one time this year. That was to get my pup because I did not want to drive in the traffic, quiet three and a half hours up and back. And I like to talk.
We went somewhere every year when son was younger. Then parents got sick and they needed me close by. I did not mind.
We have gone on short trips to Six Flags or waterparks, maybe overnight or just the day but not for about four years.
I also have five dogs and four cats and no one to take proper care of them. They are not used to strangers.
@chienfou My motto, this too shall pass. I am the master of my ship. I really like staying home, have the things I love to do. My backyard is a staycation spot. I am older and have traveled and I am not finished!
Never had the want of overseas travel, who knows?
/image Amtrak lakeshore
I went to Cape Cod for a wedding, but I prefer to travel for the journey. I took a train from Cleveland to Albany, a bus from Albany to Boston - CSX was working on the tracks to Boston - and an uberlyft to Yah’muth. It was fun, and I want to take that trip again if only to ride a train from Albany to Boston.
/giphy "traveling light"
/giphy "light traveling"
@f00l
/giphy travelling light, or light travelling?
@mflassy
Either/Or.
The Dr. is in.
Bringing my son and stepmum to the Boston opera house to see the nut cracker!
Traveling now but only because I am dads chauffeur up in Austin area, (while there home is being repaired thanks to Hurricane Harvey).
One trip to California to see my newborn nephew, my first trip to Washington D.C. to support a local candidate for Congress (and take a very belated 8th grade field trip of the Capitol) and three trips to Las Vegas which, according to their tagline, I’m not at liberty to discuss.
@ciabelle That sounds exciting! Do you think you’re all ready for the 9th grade now?
Flew to San Diego and Montana this year. That’s one plane trip more than I’m usually comfortable with in a year.
I haven’t left my home state in over four years… I feel like I just said that.
I went to Wisconsin, for a week, to a cabin, on a lake. I had been there, one time before, in my teens, 29 years ago!
It was amazing to see the place, and the trees, so tall. The pointe in the lake was narrower but still there, more cabins. The best part was the generations of kids whose parents had these summer cabins, and the closeness and support all the residents have for each other.
Also, that flight, was the first time I had flown, in…5 years! How in the heck did I manage to not fly anywhere for 5 years??? I guess I had no where to go that I couldn’t drive to.
And after my glorious week in WI, I went to the most AWESOME Albuquerque balloon festival in New Mexico, for my 50th birthday.
Naturally, ( a favorite word I use), I drove there from AZ.
Does driving from Des Moines to Omaha count?
I also made the trip to Dallas, twice; once by car and once by plane.
@TheCO2 It only counts if you go to the old market. That’s my favorite part of Omaha. There are a few places I like on Dodge street as well.
@JoetatoChip I love the old market. Unless the area is REAL busy, I try to get down there whenever I can.
Flew from Portland to Central New York to visit family a couple of weeks ago (and tour one of the oldest breweries in the US) It was a long flight for a short trip. I love my family, but I can only avoid talking politics for so long.
Earlier this year I took a day-trip halfway across Oregon because my friend needed a ride to her final certification to become a wildland firefighter medic.
Otherwise I’ve been a bit of a homebody
I usually travel on bidness. Makes me dread travel.
@PocketBrain Second the motion. When I retired I emptied out my business travel suitcase (ready to go on a couple hour’s notice) and ceremonially donated it.
My wife and I try to take at least one big trip every year. We live cheap and put away a little from every paycheck, and then find deals. This year, we spent a week in August exploring Juneau. Lots of fun.
In July, we’ll be spending two weeks in and around Umeå, Sweden. We have friends in town with a guest room, and other friends with a cabin in the woods, so we can do it on the (relatively) cheap. I was worried about asking HR for a whole two weeks (not to mention the coworker who’s going to have to cover for me), but the general consensus was “you’d be crazy not to.”
We’re hoping for Italy in 2019. I want to explore my roots a bit.
Also, Tip #2 in today’s essay would be pretty hard for me to pull off. My mom hitchhiked from Milan to Oxford via Antwerp without knowing any French or Flemish and almost no Italian in 1972. She’s too adventurous to worry.
@dannybeans that sounds pretty badass. Cool mom!
@hac Yeah, it runs in the family. Grandma got a job with the Air Force after she retired. They made her a staff Major, and she taught elementary school in Germany and Iceland (making sure we all got to come visit her at the latter). Then she taught English at Beijing Polytechnic for a couple of years without knowing more than about ten words of Mandarin when she started. (It was an immersion class, and most of the staff spoke English, so she got by until she could catch up.)
She also went skydiving on her 60th birthday.
The men in my family? Good guys, but pretty much regular Joes. The women? Total, total badasses.
As meh.com’s resident competitive air guitarist, I made it a point to travel to Washington, DC for the US Air Guitar national finals this year. (I also took a trip to Philadelphia for a qualifier.)
Last time I took a significant trip anywhere but to visit my folks was 2008, when I went to Cleveland for the DEVOtional fan convention. It was so nice to get away, be in a unique place, explore a city, buy a bunch of records, and drink lots of beer.
My plans for next year are to go to Oulu, Finland, for the World Air Guitar Championships, and also to hit up the US Air Guitar National Finals again. Not sure where the USAG Finals are in 2018, but I suspect they’ll be in Chicago, as the reigning US Champion is from that area.
if i could teleport, i think i would go more places. but sleeping away from home and my body don’t really get along. (and also, airfare and hotels are expensive.)
i said this yesterday, but in august my partner and i went to a lovely oceanfront inn for the weekend an hour away courtesy of his boss, and i look forward to being able to do that again next year, maybe for a bit longer. other places i would like to go include iceland, ireland, japan, and california for sdcc. but those are pipe dreams
@jerk_nugget Comic Con is fun, but it’s too crowded for me. I last went in 2002, and had a mild panic attack when I realized that there was something like five times the population of my hometown crammed in there.
@dannybeans yeah, i know it would probably quickly turn into a disaster for me to go (a friend of mine who cosplays at cons basically told me outright i shouldn’t go to any comiccon heh) but i’m a collector of vinyl toys and there’s always so many amazing releases at sdcc i’d suffer one day to shop. sadly they don’t sell this stuff in stores like they used to and the cons more local to me on the east coast don’t really have anything of interest to me. that’s really the only reason i’d go - beyond the toy vendors i really don’t care about the rest lol. (my partner and i are both avid comic readers and into general nerdery, i just have no interest in autographs or panels or dressing up and whathaveyou.)
Best trip of the year was driving about 6 hours to get into the path of totality for the solar eclipse in August. If you ever have the means to experience one, I don’t have to the words to describe how amazing it is to see.
I moved across a whole ocean.
@alphapeaches
Tell!
(If you are willing)
@f00l From California to Baden-Württemberg
@alphapeaches
Armed Forces?
Enjoy!
[I hear they have some history and scenery and culture and art and food and drink over thereabouts.]
@f00l Here to study and possibly save the planet, we’ll see what comes of it when it happens (as with everything else).
@alphapeaches
Great opp! Hope you find all kinds of ways to go forward.
@f00l Oh I will. I just need to get through this Bureaucracy Traffic first…
Sicily, it was AM-AZ-ING
San Francisco for a few days in November. I should have taken more time, but it was lovely.
Hoping to travel a lot next year, though.
China in May (clay warriors, pandas, Three Gorges dam), Crete in July (beaches, tavernas, sunsets), Total Eclipse at Oregon in August (Wow!), Sicily and southern Italy in September (food, gelato, food, gelato, repeat daily), Ashland, Oregon for some Shakespeare in October (“Out, out damn spot”…), and home for the holidays. Phew!!! Celebrating our 50th year of marriage.
I don’t really like to travel, but I like seeing friends, get invited to a fair amount of stuff, and have to do some for work, so I end up doing it a fair amount (little less than the previous year, though). Home base is Portland, OR.
-Business trip to Missouri for a week.
-3-day road trip to northern Washington (state) for a Spartan race.
-5-day trip to Santa Cruz to visit a friend.
-6-day whirlwind trip to NY/MA/RI/CT with my brother.
-Another week-long business trip to Missouri.
-4-day road trip to Vancouver/Squamish in BC.
-10-day combo wedding/cruise in Florida and the Caribbean for my buddy’s wedding.
-I’ll be spending Christmas in central OR again with friends.
In addition, I did several 2- to 4-day road trips to relax with friends at the coast or play in ultimate frisbee tournaments in Oregon and Washington. I have two friend groups trying to get me to take trips to Mexico next year, but I’m not really interested. My brother wants to go to Italy together (he knows someone there), but a lot of stuff would have to line up to get me to go.
TSA PreCheck was the best $80 I ever spent.
@Kabn yeah PreCheck is awesome. I am always bummed if I fly out of ATL after they close the PreCheck lanes for the night, even though the regular lines are super short then.
Vancouver/Whistler back in Feb/March, a couple of drive up ski trips to New York and Vermont, and Memphis in October. Road trip back to Vermont in a few weeks, followed by a ski trip to Austria the end of January, and off to Winter Park, Colorado three weeks after that. Planning on visiting friends near Los Angeles late spring if it hasn’t all burned to the ground by then. Who knows what the fall will bring?
@cinoclav
Well damn!
@f00l
@cinoclav
But better late than never…
@duodec So true.
No good trips this year. Just one unhappy one. But at least no work trips (I have hopes those are a thing of the past now). And no flights, so no dealing with security kabuki or buying tickets for my luggage.
Next year we may manage our first vacation in 7+ years.
The only trip I made this year was a Trip from here in Buckeyeland, to the the Middle of nowhere Okla.(Ft.Sill/Lawton), with my buddy to go to his “little” Brother’s Graduation from basic training…
the 2 of us drove(2 days each way, 3 days there),stayed just off base.
The rest of his family flew in to Okla. City(Mom and her GF, From Rural AK, and Sis & Dad From Cleveland), and stayed with a family friend who had relocated to Norman, and Drove the 1.5hrs back and forth each day in a rental Cruze.
No, I did not travel at all. But I’ve already decided I am traveling next year, and I am going to… Iceland. I know nothing about Iceland, but I do know that my local airport has recently started offering $99 flights (one way, no extras) to Iceland. And by God, I’m going to Iceland!
https://www.cincinnati.com/story/money/2017/08/22/another-new-airline-coming-cvg-who-time/591645001/
@cpierce
My Esteemed Younger Brother and His Entirely Excellent Wife spent a week there a few years back.
I don’t know exactly what they did, I think they visited volcanos and wandered around amazing geology.
I do know they loved it.
/giphy iceland volcano
Not as much as usual. Went to Florida in March to visit elderly relatives and took a cruise to the Bahamas. Went to gaming and Sci Fi cons in Denver, Dallas, Tuscon, Phoenix, and Albuquerque. Went to Austin to visit friends. Made a number of trips to various towns in NM for special events.
yeah… looking back we did travel a good bit this year!
Jan: Nashville for granddaughter’s birthday (3days)
March: Orlando/Legoland for a week with grandkids
(gave them 2016 Christmas present of ‘Awesomer’ annual passes to park)
April: Atlanta (weekend)
May: St. George Island (week) OK, techinically this was
just the wife really… getting together with her YaYa
friends/relatives. I stayed home (Alabama) to watch the
grandkids so daughter could attend.
June: Kansas city area for wedding (5days)
July: New Orleans (3 days)
Aug: (big trip for 40th anniversary) Atlanta-St. Lucia-
Trinidad-Grenada-St. Lucia. 5 days in Trini at an
AirBnB, 7 days sailing cruise Grenada to St. Lucia,
overnight stay in St. Lucia at the end. (2 weeks)
Sept: Hilton Head Island (3 days and just left in time for
IRMA to hit…)
Oct: Memphis with another couple-again AirBnB (5 days)
Nov: back to Orlando/Legoland for a week with grandkids
(and their parents this time)
Dec: North Carolina to hear SIL speak to the Gideons
and visit BIL and his family (5 days). Next week
finishing out the year at a cabin in Unicoi state park in
north GA.
On a sadder note we also did 3 quick trips to Savannah, Mobile and Destin for funerals for friend’s parents.
Did I mention we LOVE to travel…?
@chienfou
That sounds really nice.
@f00l Flexible schedule and lots of “off days” is definitely one of the perks that comes with working 7on/7off in the local ER. This is a “bonus year” since Christmas and New Year’s Eve both fall in my off week! (but I do have to work Christmas Eve and New Year’s day.)
I am a homebody, do not care about traveling.
It is mainly because of my home situation, do not want to go anywhere with him. We have been in the same car, one time this year. That was to get my pup because I did not want to drive in the traffic, quiet three and a half hours up and back. And I like to talk.
We went somewhere every year when son was younger. Then parents got sick and they needed me close by. I did not mind.
We have gone on short trips to Six Flags or waterparks, maybe overnight or just the day but not for about four years.
I also have five dogs and four cats and no one to take proper care of them. They are not used to strangers.
@Calabama
@chienfou
My motto, this too shall pass. I am the master of my ship. I really like staying home, have the things I love to do. My backyard is a staycation spot. I am older and have traveled and I am not finished!
Never had the want of overseas travel, who knows?
/image Amtrak lakeshore
I went to Cape Cod for a wedding, but I prefer to travel for the journey. I took a train from Cleveland to Albany, a bus from Albany to Boston - CSX was working on the tracks to Boston - and an uberlyft to Yah’muth. It was fun, and I want to take that trip again if only to ride a train from Albany to Boston.