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

I still enjoyed parts unknown and its better than any other non bourdain travel show but am currently on season 5 of a no res rewatch and the overall tone is much more enjoyable for me. parts unknown would get really serious and heavy at points and no res is just peak Bourdain.

 

theres plenty of obscure places in no reservations. Definitely go back and watch them all. Hardest part is the first few seasons are standard def.

 

So, haven’t spent an August there in a long time (like 15+ years), but from what I remember, it would downpour for a couple hours in the middle of the afternoon and then clear up. It always feels really fresh after the rain stops, probably because of how dry it is but that’s what I remember from being a kid. Sometimes it would rain into the night though, so something of a gamble.

There are plenty of things to do indoors during the rain so you could be strategic like take your trips to the pyramids or xochimilco in the morning then come back and have a late lunch and then go to the archeology museum, castle or bellas artes or whatever. Lots of Catholic sites there too if that’s your thing.

I love Mexico City, but a trip for a Sun - Sat seems a little long. I think of it kind of like Rome, you can knock out the highlights in 3-4 days and get a pretty good feel for the core areas of the city and after that you’re getting into the weeds a bit. Which some people are into, just know I like to be on the move a little bit. So much food to try in Mexico City though, so you won’t hit all of it in 4 days or a week.

If it were me, I’d maybe start somewhere a quick flight away (Oaxaca, Puerto Vallarta, Huatulco, lots of options) so I could be in Mexico City on the Friday and try to leave Saturday on the later side if doable. Weekends in Mexico City are fun and if you’re able to visit Bazar Sábado on Sat, I think worth it (Sat only art market). Also Friday night is lucha libre which is pretty fun, though last time I went it was like the secret was out and there were a notable amounts of tourists if you care about that kind of thing. Still outrageous and dumb and cheap beers. I’ve always had fun.

 

pianoman Jimmy the Saint (any anyone else with thoughts)

Going through the past recommendations - my wife and I are trying to decide what to add on to a trip to Edinburgh for a wedding over Labor Day. Based on what y'all have said, I think we're looking at either two nights in Skye or one night around the Glencoe/Fort William area, any specific recommendations on places to check out or stay? We definitely want to see the highlands, although I'm kinda leaning Skye because we can drive through on the way to Skye, and trying to summit Ben Nevis sounds like work.

(Also, any Edinburgh recommendations more than welcome as well, looks like we'll be there for about five nights with three of them free of wedding activities)

 

Whoops, booked tickets wrong so now rather than me + infant-in-arms, wife and 4 yr old all together in one row, it's the two of them and me + baby on the other aisle in middle seat.

should be fun either convincing somebody to switch from aisle to middle, or just me being in the middle of two strangers for 4.5 hrs with a 16 month old on my lap.

 

I’m a fan of Departures, in addition to the shows already mentioned. Looks it’s on prime at the moment based on google.

 

I'd bring money to offer a person. I honestly that sucks. I'd try to change seats before hand if possible. Maybe call the airline and see if they can rearrange

Its hard to convince someone to go isle to middle. I've flown with my child at 16mo and I honestly can't imagine doing it with him in my lap, much less in between ppl. God speed

 

Yea I'm hoping delta can just force a switch or something ahead of time. 8 hr wait on the phone, but messaging service says 80 mins so trying that route. Going to bring money as well to try to bribe.

if all else fails, the flight is at his bed time so I'm hoping he sleeps for the majority of it, but it will not be fun.

 

I’d rather kill myself than sit beside a 16 month old, so your bribe may not be necessary.

 

That's the challenge though. The seating is:

A -(me and baby)-C >>>><<<< D-Wife-Son

so what I really need is the person on D who would currently be on an aisle seat beside my small, 110lb wife, to swap with me and be in the middle. I guess I could also get window and aisle of my row to swap to middle and window of hers but that's an extra person to convince

 

How long of a flight?

 

the honorable thing to do would be to put your wife in B and give the 4 year old NyQuil

the better play would be to put the four year old in B and let god sort it out

 

ATL >> SNA. Scheduled for 4:48 duration

As I say it, I think the play is for me to take the middle seat next to my son AND hold baby. Put wife in the random middle. That makes the person in the aisle next to me desperately want to move (I hope)

 

Speaking as a former gate agent, there should be a row or two that are blocked from general seat selection for situations like this, just ask day-of. Also, what I would normally do is make the educated assumption that the aisle in the DEF row is a single and bump them up to a better seat and put you into that vacated seat. Never once did I call someone up to tell them they got a better seat to have them get mad. Occasionally , you’ll see companions book double aisles, but you can usually sniff that out in advance.

Long story short - ask and they should get you all fixed up.

 

Make sure you spend some time seeing the Highlands be it a tour or DIY.

Edinburgh Castle is a must. Try Haggis if you’ve never had it before.

It’s a really great city. Just walking around and hitting some pubs is a memorable time. I believe the Sheeps Heid Inn is supposedly one of the oldest pubs in Scotland/the world.

 

Just hope you don't wind up next to BamaNug

 

This is the content I pay for. Going to try, I'll report back how it goes.

 

Depends on what you’re looking for. That’s a great time to go to Skye if you’re trying to do hikes and get away from it all. We stayed at a B&B near Dunvegan on Skye and the owners told me summer is miserable there because they have tons of one lane roads because of how sparsely populated it is but during the summer the tourists create huge backups. He always recommended coming in September or early October because the tourists were gone and winter hasn’t set yet. Though the later in September you get the more restaurants will have closed for the season. We did stop in Fort William on our way back from Skye. Great little town. Some nice restaurants and shops to explore. Glencoe is gorgeous even if you’re just driving through. Can’t recommend much about Edinburgh as we just used it mainly for a lunching point, but hit up Edinburgh castle for sure. If you do hit up Skye make sure to stop at Elian Donan Castle on the way.

 

So just got a flight to Spain for two weeks in Oct. Any recommendations will be appreciated.
landing In Madrid will prob hit Barcelona maybe Seville. Or hit Portugal for a few days IDK. Food ideas, wine. will look into some hikes as well.

Also seems like I need a negative COVID Test to get back into the US as of now? Do I need to get one there or will it work if in bring one of the at home tests and take it there?

 

Mercado San Miguel in Madrid, also if you end up checking out the Royal Palace (it’s ok) and you’re up for some random Egyptian history, Templo Debod is cool to check out. Also I found it pretty easy to get into a Real Madrid match (and there were lots of reasonably priced tickets on the secondary market) - I didn’t try Atletico but I imagine it’s much the same, Barcelona might be a bit tougher ticket though. But definitely worth going.

Wouldn’t worry about Covid protocols until summer, they’ll change 10 times between now and then.

 

Def want to go to a soccer match. Guessing Stubhub works over there?

 

viagogo - but I got the tickets direct from Real Madrid; the Monday before league matches, the club re-sells returned season tickets at face value. The week we were there, Madrid was playing Levante, so there were plenty of returned tickets to choose from. Might get harder/pricier with a more premier opponent.

(thanks to nexus for these tips, he may know more)

 

when I lived in Madrid right out of college we’d have botellóns near templo debod quite frequently. Always thought it was kinda funny we’d be just drinking in the streets near an old Egyptian temple

 

If you go to Porto try to do a cruise on the Douro into the vineyard hills. The Port wine cave tours at Porto are interesting. The city center is great. It’s a lot smaller than Lisbon, Madrid and Barcelona, is walkable and more relaxing. Take in a FC Porto match, one of the storied clubs in Europe.

 

Going to spend a couple of days in Athens in the fall. What do I need to know and visit?

 

If you end up in Seville let me know. I was there for several days 3 years ago. I stayed in an AirBnb right on the main square where all the restaurants and bars are. Do not recommend staying in that area, Spanish guys stay out until like 5 in the morning and I could not get any sleep with so many people still out all night. If you have time go down to Gibraltar. That was my favorite part of the whole trip. The drive from Seville to Gibraltar was incredible.

 

My Dad is turning 65 this year. My wife and kids will be out of town the weekend of his birthday so planning on doing a 5 day trip somewhere with him. Gave him several ideas and he wants to go to Cabo. Any recommendations for areas to stay in, restaurants, must do stuff?

 

I was there for a few days. I got an Airbnb In the Plaka region. It was pretty quiet at night. I hit all the tourist spots. It’s pretty walkable. I don’t remember any restaurants but I was pretty sick as it was towards the end of a 3 week trip so I get like shit.

 

They'll let you tailgate right by the library which is pretty cool. Avoid anyone selling single cigarettes.

 

A bit off topic but just south of Barcelona this morning there were a few flakes of snow falling. Nothing at all really but some unseasonably cold weather here for April.

 

Definitely Skye, I also really enjoy Inverness as a stop over spot toward the northern islands.

 

I just got back from 4 days in Barcelona and 3 in Madrid on Saturday. Much preferred Barcelona to Madrid

You can do the covid test at any local testing spot or if you do a self administered you need to have an online service proctor it for you to provide official results. We used eMed tests without any issues.

 

Where you staying?

 

France trip got axed, we found cheaper flights to London and are taking the train up to Edinburg, which will be our base camp for 4 days.

We’ll be staying the arrival day/night in London and the day prior to departure for Covid tests. Assuming that’s still a thing, I believe Covid test prior to coming into the US expires the 18th and we fly out the 19th.

Leaving next week.

 

Have fun but take the covid stuff seriously. All 4 friends went for a week last week, came back with the new variant. No symptoms but just an ordeal.

 

So did they have to just hang out in Europe for a week?

really don’t want that to completely fuck my pto with work.

 

Hopefully the US drops the stupid test requirement to come back into the country. Makes zero sense to force someone to stay in a foreign country with no symptoms when we haven’t cared about covid here in forever.

 

We spent 2 nights in Athens last October. We did a guided tour of the Acropolis and visited the Acropolis museum.

We stayed here and really like it and the location. https://perianthhotel.com/

We ate at hydra as well and thought it was worth the money. We did the cocktail pairing.
https://www.hytra.gr/

 

The covid test thing is such a hassle and stress. We fly home Friday so I’m just sitting here nervous until I take the test Thursday that we’ll be stuck here. Everyone feels fine, but you never know.

 

Waiting the 5-10 minutes for the results is anxiety inducing.

 

BamaNug

Think I'm going to back to Santa Teresa in August for my 10th anniversary. Really disappointed that Product C is gone and Chamico's is "temporarily closed".

 

Maybe it'll be back by then? They informed me they were just changing locations, getting out of that strip mall.

Like 1/2 the restaurants were closed when I was there throughout November, mostly for Covid. Would think some would open back up.

 

I'm trying to convince the GF to quit her job and take off to Patagonia for 2-3 months next winter.

Will need to stay in relatively the same timezone while digital nomad-ing until I get enough passive income.

 

Their facebook page made it seem like they were done and "on to their next adventure" or something.

Hopefully stuff opens back up soon.

 

I’m flying to Toronto today and just had the BritishAirways check in agent insist I needed to download some DPD declaration app in addition to the Canadian one. She tells me to search the app store, which I do, and the only DPD app is “Australia DPD” developed by the Australian government. I show her this and she’s like oh nevermind.

Airlines are a complete mess right now. Spent 20 minutes uploading all of my vaccination proof to the BA app + their third party Verifly app and get a message that my vaccine has been verified, only to not be able to check-in online due to my vaccine not being verified.

It doesn’t help that many governments still have nonsensical covid entry requirements and verifications that are constantly changing.

 

There's usually express lanes at the ticket desk for Verifly users. It's a really quick line.