The New Travel Thread: Now with write ups in the OP

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by Jax Teller, Apr 8, 2015.

  1. Vinegar Strokes

    Vinegar Strokes Fire Izzo
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  2. Goose

    Goose Hi
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  3. superfly0212

    superfly0212 Where are my testicles, Summer?
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  4. CC

    CC Waiting for moments that never come
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    I haven’t, but it really depends where you are staying. That’s a long way inland if you are going to be in the city or near the coasts. Also depending what time you get in and where you are going LA traffic might not be an issue anyway.
     
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  5. Vinegar Strokes

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    You fly Delta?
     
  6. Goose

    Goose Hi
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    When I’ve landed in LAX around/before noon I’ve had no troubles getting out to the Ontario area

    It’s direct so I sometimes take that one
     
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  7. Goose

    Goose Hi
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    Yeah
     
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  8. Vinegar Strokes

    Vinegar Strokes Fire Izzo
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    10 minutes from Ontario. I just google mapped it, and it’s 2 hours, 5 minutes from Lax (that’s assuming 2pm landing time)
     
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  9. Vinegar Strokes

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    Okay. My only options are through Atlanta or Salt Lake.
     
  10. CC

    CC Waiting for moments that never come
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    Oh yeah then that definitely makes sense. To be honest didn’t even realize Ontario had that much of a commercial presence.
     
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  11. Goose

    Goose Hi
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    Where are you headed?
     
  12. Vinegar Strokes

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    Ontario.
     
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  13. herb.burdette

    herb.burdette Meet me at the corner of 8th and Worthington
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    Depending upon where you are going in the Alps, it may be easier to hit the other side of Italy.

    We just got back from an Interlaken Switzerland to Milan Italy to the Cinque Terre coast. The Cinque Terre was awesome. Easy to reach by train.

    Stayed here

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  14. BleedinGreen

    BleedinGreen Detroit, Michigan State, and Celery
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    That looks pretty awesome. I know that it's on the wife's bucket list but we were possible going to save that for an Italy trip but might be pretty doable.
     
  15. herb.burdette

    herb.burdette Meet me at the corner of 8th and Worthington
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    Interlaken was really nice as well if you are looking for a spot in the alps. You can walk most anywhere in between the two lakes, and anyone staying at a hotel in town rides the bus system for free. Train station in town was very convenient, open, and easy.
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  16. xec

    xec Well-Known Member
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    In addition to the Cinque Terre, Lake Como would be a great spot to just relax. And Milan is 30 minutes away by train. Go see The Last Supper and catch a Serie A match. From Munich you can hit Salzburg or Innsbruck in Austria or head west and explore the Black Forest. If you are set on Switzerland then you can’t go wrong with Interlaken, as suggested above.
     
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  17. Tommy Jefferson

    Tommy Jefferson Well-Known Member
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    Will be in Minneapolis tomorrow for a wedding and have a day to burn. Tell me what to do.
     
  18. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    its going to be hot as fuck

    do you have a car? where you staying? what do you normally like to do?
     
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  19. ono

    ono Well-Known Member
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    I've had many pots.

    In Denver tonight, went to the aquarium and had a good dinner. hitting red rocks and most likely the goat Idaho springs for lunch en route to Dillon tomorrow.
     
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  20. Tommy Jefferson

    Tommy Jefferson Well-Known Member
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    No car. Staying downtown (Gateway District?). Good food, good drinks, anything unique to a city.
     
  21. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    I personally haven't done lots of the classic tourist things but walking across the stone arch bridge from where you're at and looping back across Hennepin would be nice with the weather, multiple places to dive into for coffee/beer/food along the way, Kramarczuks is a pretty well known place half way along that route for sausages/german.

    If wanting to get out of the city center hopping on the blue line to Minnehaha Falls is a good park with Sea Salt Eatery for some seafood. That place gets busy as hell and with the nice weather will be a line from when the doors open.

    If wanting to avoid too long a walk head into the north loop for good food/drinks. Modist, Inbound, Fulton are all good breweries within a block of each other. Spoon and Stable is probably the most well thought of restaurant, can get a seat at the bar there when they open usually. Parlour is known for cocktails and the best burger. Bar La Grassa for Italian. Smack Shack for seafood and Black Sheep for pizza but neither of these are anything great imo. This entire paragraph is within a few blocks of one another.

    I also live in that neighborhood.
     
  22. tjosu

    tjosu This is kind of like the breakfast club, huh?
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    Finally getting to test out the CSR trip delay reimbursement. My first flight was delayed and we circled for a while. Landed at 7 in Denver and my 7:10 flight left 3 minutes early. Sprinted from one end of B terminal to the other and watched my plane taxi away. At least I’m getting free Hyatt points and in downtown Denver, there are worse places to have a night to kill
     
  23. Jimmy the Saint

    Jimmy the Saint The future is a benevolent black hole
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    I got an extra day in New Orleans mostly paid for by trip delay.
     
  24. Jimmy the Saint

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    Surly Brewing is a good choice as well.
     
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  25. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    if you go to surly the upstairs pizza is extremely legit
     
  26. Guns

    Guns horse paste aficionado
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    Lyrtch and BamaNug I couldn't find a your specific write up for Copenhagen using search. Could you link me? I'm headed there for 7 days in early September. Any restaurant and bar/brewery recs would be awesome. Also would it be worth sneaking into Malmo, Sweden for a couple of days?
     
  27. Jimmy the Saint

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    It was surprisingly good. Big fan of New Haven style pizza.
     
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  28. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    i dont think i wrote anything up, so i guess nows the time. didn't go to Malmo so can't help there though. will silo recs by location.

    Restaurant Barr was one of the best meals I've had in ages, basically high end versions of classic Danish food. In the old Noma space right across the water from Nyhavn (Noma was unreal, imagine if you're going here reservations are had already). Little food hall area right there as well with Gasoline Grill, unreal burgers, multiple locations around town, great space to sit on the publicly provided lounge chairs along the water with a beer. Kontiki Bar is a cool bar on a boat but kind of off the beaten path. Myers bageri is clutch for coffee/traditional danish baked goods in Nyhavn.

    Reffen is a food incubator area on the north eastern end of town, tons of food stalls and bars, we took the water taxi up from our hotel in Nyhavn for an afternoon. Highly recommend. Mikkeler bar there is a good time while you explore the food stall area. Broaden and Build is a high end version of a brew pub run by a former Noma person, also runs Amass if you like fine dining. They brew their own beer, largely with food waste from Amass as they try to run a completely zero food waste outfit.

    Torvehallarne is another food hall but on the western end of the tourist area, Sanchez is the renowned taco place run by a woman from the US. Funchs Vistue is a cool ollldddd locals bar up this way too, Bourdain went there. DOP is one of two of the best versions of the hot dog stands around town, don't miss DOP or Johns Hot Dog Deli. Aamanns 1921 is where we went to try Smorrebrod, outrageously good and based on site test theres a lot of shaky versions around town.

    Rest the recs will be in the hipster former red light district area Vesterbro. Good Mikkeler bar over here too on a gorgeous little street. Warpigs brewing is a Mikkeler/3 Floyds joint venture to bring American BBQ to this end of the world, with 7 days there you might want a taste of home and it's really good. Johns Hot Dog Deli and Kodbyens Fiskebar (really high quality fish) are in this same old meat packing area. Another Hija de Sanchez as well, when we were there the locations served all different tacos. Hart Bageri is the best bakery in town, but good bakeries are everywhere, the raspberry bars are what we liked best. Famous cardamom bombs are extremely strongly flavored.

    Tivoli is worth it. We went at dusk to catch everything lit up then fireworks.
     
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  29. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    7 days is a while if you don't have other stuff going on, but I could move to Copenhagen tomorrow and be happy. Lots of people say to do Roskilde or Helsingor day trips but we didn't get to do that.
     
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  30. CTownND

    CTownND Well-Known Member
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    Have an hour to kill at this hotel bar before I get access to my room in Dubrovnik, so a couple quick hitter thoughts on what I've done so far.

    Budapest (Sat night to Tues AM)
    -Awesome city, maybe my second favorite in Europe that I've been to so far
    -Stayed in the Jewish district (District VII) and it was perfectly located. Ate at Mazel Tov which was fantastic, went to a few ruin bars - Szimpla Kert probably my fave even though it's the most famous, but for good reasons
    -Went to both Rudas and Szechenyi Baths - both were great for different reasons. Maybe a little too fratty, but did a beer bath at Szechenyi where for 50 euros you can drink unlimited beer for 45 minutes while sitting in a tub of water infused with hops, malt, salt, etc.
    -House of Terror was a little overrated... kind of overcrowded with misery tourists, not having AC made certain rooms borderline unbearable, and was a bit hard to follow the structure without reading a full two page guide in each room (audio guides were "sold out" when I went...)
    -Exploring Buda is a must; far from touristy, calm, great overlooking the Danube

    Plitvice Lakes / Split (Tues AM to Wed afternoon)
    -We ended up renting a car, driving to Plitvice, then going to Split. Car rental was 800 euros and we talked to a guy in Split who said he would have done the full day via transfer for us for 600 euros, so thanks for the tip to whoever suggested we could do that - just didn't put enough effort in to look into it
    -Plitvice Lakes was great, but super overcrowded. July I guess? It was shoulder to shoulder for a lot of the walkways - lot of gawking tourists clogging up the pathways, selfie takers, etc. I guess they have no incentive to do this, but it would be nice if they limited the amount of people in at any time
    -Ideally, we should have stayed overnight in a hotel nearby, gotten in right as they opened and beat the gawkers, but kinda glad we didn't sacrifice a night in Budapest for that
    -Split surprised me! We had a killer AirBnB with a rooftop terrace, super friendly hosts who gave us beer and food, got great recs on local food, etc. Honestly could have spent another day here and was bummed we left early

    Hvar (Wed afternoon to Fri morning)
    -Hvar was a tale of extremes for me... the good was excellent, the bad was really bad
    -Thursday we did an all day boat trip on a 8 person boat with a local who took us all over the place (Blue lagoon, Blue cave, bunch of small beaches, Paklinski islands, etc.) and it was a trip highlight. We were on the water from about 10:30 AM to 6:30 PM, amazing day
    -The night was really cool; you can just buy booze from a liquor store and drink in the pier, so we just did that and got tanked downing a bottle of whiskey and champage and talking to people by the pier
    -On the bad stuff, maybe I'm just a bit over the ideal Hvar age? I'm 31 and had fun at Hula Hula, but it's just like a Vegas club and all English speaking folks. It's like a huge party island full of lads on tour, which I guess is great, but also kinda boring to me. Luka's Lodge was also a disappointment to me. Maybe it's because it was blisteringly hot with no AC and I barely slept, but didn't really pick up on the community/service aspect everyone raves about. I think my hostel timeline is done, should have just ponied up more for a hotel
    -Told my buddy this, but think we did the perfect amount of time on Hvar, any longer and I would have felt it was too much. Had fun but not sure I'd want to go back, which isn't a criticism, just can't see a scenario where I wouldn't want to try something new (Mykonos? Mallorca? I'd prefer to do Capri again over Hvar...) instead of going back

    Ferry to Dubrovnik was nice and easy. In a shocking coincidence, my parents are on a European cruise and they just happen to port in Dubrovnik tomorrow morning, so we're going around city walls, etc. with them, then back home Sunday.
     
  31. CTownND

    CTownND Well-Known Member
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    Oh and thanks again to Arkadin and everyone else that gave me tips for this. Hugely helpful!
     
  32. Guns

    Guns horse paste aficionado
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    What neighborhood was your hotel in and would you recommend hotel or AirBnB?
     
  33. steamengine

    steamengine I don’t want to press one for English!
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    San Andres the island or is there one on the mainland?
     
  34. Arkadin

    Arkadin inefficiently efficent and unclearly clear
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    I enjoyed cartagena a lot
     
  35. Arkadin

    Arkadin inefficiently efficent and unclearly clear
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    Yeah July is high season and all the main attractions in Croatia are slammed
     
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  36. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    we splurged the first two nights and stayed on the pier in Nyhavn, was really cool. the postcard view of copenhagen is that area.

    stayed at Andersen hotel in Vesterbro, which was nice and reasonably priced on the back end of our trip. when somewhere for 4+ days we like to swap hotels to experience a different neighborhood.

    I didn't research AirBnB so not sure how it is there. All the tourist sites are closer to Nyhavn so just matters if you want to rent a bike or transit over, or if you're comfortable with 30 minute+ walks to most the sites. City is comically well set up for renting a bike, but imo the mass transit is lacking compared to lots of other cities.
     
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  37. ohhaithur

    ohhaithur e-Batman
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    Finally my hottest Travel Thread take is not alone

    Sorry you didn't enjoy it though
     
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  38. Arkadin

    Arkadin inefficiently efficent and unclearly clear
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    Never did Lukas team josko
     
  39. Guns

    Guns horse paste aficionado
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    stayed at Luka's in 2015. He chilled with us for one night but never did the big group dinner. Told us some crazy stories about the war in the 90s. Hvar was fun but is definitely built for a younger, party crowd.
     
  40. Arkadin

    Arkadin inefficiently efficent and unclearly clear
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    Yeah. That's honestly what I thought he was looking for based on my reading of the information
     
  41. CTownND

    CTownND Well-Known Member
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    Yeah, admittedly I'm not a huge hostel guy, typically have done hotels ever since I started traveling to Europe around 2014 so don't have a ton of reference for it. But my buddy I'm with this week is a HUGE hostel fan, has been in Europe for 5 weeks staying predominantly in hostels, and even he said it was a 5 out of 10 hostel for him. Other than decent location, not sure the appeal - especially since these guys we met on the boat the next day said they had an amazing air conditioned wing of a big house they found on AirBnB right near Luka's for 2/3 of the cost. Just didn't research enough.
     
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  42. CTownND

    CTownND Well-Known Member
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    Definitely don't regret any of the recos so don't feel bad. Maybe I didn't mention we're both 31 so maybe a little old for Hvar even if it was cool for a couple nights. We enjoyed partying Wednesday night and got hammered at the boardwalk and thought ~36 hours was the perfect time in Hvar, we were just kinda dying that it was +80 degrees all night with no air conditioning plus our room was pretty subpar and the staff wasn't great to us at Luka's (e.g. we put in a laundry bag request and they told us folding wasn't included and so we had to fold ourselves off the racks in the back trying to find our stuff among everyone else's stuff when there was many other piles of folded laundry on the couch already waiting to be picked up).
     
  43. Festus McBadass

    Festus McBadass Cool ass dog and 5 star recruit
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    The island
     
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  44. Jimmy the Saint

    Jimmy the Saint The future is a benevolent black hole
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    House of Terror was one thing we didn't end up being able to do, guess we didn't end up missing much. Opted for the communist memento park instead which was cool but kinda on the outskirts.

    You have any Hungarian food there?
     
  45. night_fury2121

    night_fury2121 Active Member

    I traveled to Algonquin Provincial Park in southeastern Ontario, Canada last sept. Great place actually.
     
    #18795 night_fury2121, Jul 27, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2019
  46. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    $1100 non stop from MSP to HND in economy

    $1360 for Premium Select

    that margin is enticing
     
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  47. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    thinking of changing my flight to go straight to Osaka, train to Tokyo, then fly out of Tokyo

    basically every itinerary write up acts like just training back and forth is as easy or easier than domestic flights
     
    #18797 Lyrtch, Jul 27, 2019
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2019
  48. southside

    southside Well-Known Member
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    It’s easier than a flight for sure
     
  49. Lyrtch

    Lyrtch My second favorite meat is hamburger
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    idea was to fly straight to Osaka to start the trip, train to Tokyo for back end of trip, fly out of Tokyo

    saves a 3 hour train trip and only adds a 2hr layover and 1hr flight on the front end as part of initial itinerary
     
  50. BayouMafia

    BayouMafia Thought Leader in Posting
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    We were supposed to visit my brother in Nashville this weekend but he had some work things come up so here we are in Roatan instead
     
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