Unique digital nomad travel adventures from around the U.S.
Unless you have been hiding out in the mountains away from civilization, you will have heard that August 21, 2017, is the day of the Great American Eclipse. The ‘Path of Totality’ or ‘POT” starts on the Oregon Coast and stretches its way through the …
I am currently in Kansas City for a week. The reason: work. Now, packing for business travel is very different than packing for a personal trip. In general, it requires more clothes. Luckily, I work for a very casual company and the dress code is …
If you read that title and are asking yourself, “Why would I do Disney World as an adult?”, I want you to know that you are asking a fair question. Disney is not for everyone and if the idea of visiting the ‘happiest place on earth’ either confuses you or leaves you in hives, I recommend you stop reading now. However, there are plenty of adults out there who love all things Disney—some I would even classify as obsessed. Although I am far from obsessed, I have a healthy respect for Walt and his legacy. And I am not alone. Lots of adults visit and enjoy Disney World, sans kids, every single day.
I recently spent a long weekend in Florida with some old roommates of mine. We had a blast! Time was spent at Disney World and considering this was not our first rodeo, I figured I would share some of our tips and tricks. But first, a back story:
During my sophomore year of college, I found myself getting a little burned out by school and the whole college scene. Needless to say, I was primed to embrace any legitimate excuse to take a break. It was during this time that a recruiter for the Disney College Program attended one of my classes and told us about Disney’s internship program. Although I have never been a huge Disney fan, I found myself intrigued by the possibility of an internship in Florida (far away from cold and snowy Idaho). I decided to apply and let fate decide. It was not long before I got the news that I had been accepted for an eight-month internship starting in January. (I found out later that getting accepted into the program is not terribly difficult.) I left Idaho with two suitcases and a stomach full of butterflies. So began one of the most unique experiences of my life.
Fast-forward 15 years. I have never forgot my experience working at Disney World. Best of all, I am still friends with the girls I lived with. A lot has changed since my time in Florida, but many things have remained the same. Lucky for me, one of my roommates still lives in Florida and her husband is a manager at Disney World. Not only can we crash at her place, but she shuttles us around and keeps us up-to-date on the latest happenings. This was the set up for our brief but delightful 15-year reunion earlier this summer and below is my advice, based on this trip, to help you plan your own adult-only foray into the world of Disney.
Our girls’ weekend happened in June. This is not exactly the best time to visit Disney World. I feel like we lucked out with both the weather and the crowds, but I would not rely on luck if you do not have to. And I would avoid summer at all costs. Basically, whenever kids are out of school, the park will be busier (think summer, Christmas and spring break). If you are not traveling with kids, why on earth would you go when all the kids are there!?! Back in my College Program days, February was dead. Although that is not really the case anymore, it is still less crowded than summer. The weather will be infinitely better as well.
Unless you are planning on spending a couple of weeks in Orlando, you are going to have to pick and choose what you want to do. Disney World itself has so much to offer and it takes a lot of time and money to see it all. Given that we were only there for a long weekend, we opted to visit Disney Springs (called Downtown Disney when I worked there), the Magic Kingdom, Epcot and a spa. Limiting our options allowed us to focus on the experience and our time with each other. In the end, we had a much more enjoyable time than if we had crammed our schedule full of everything Disney World has to offer.
Disney World is not cheap. Everything you do will cost you money—more money than you usually pay for things. I am sure there are blogs out there with tips and tricks for how to do Disney World on a budget. But in general, it is a very difficult place to be thrifty. So be prepared and save up a little extra before you go.
If money is not a huge concern, I recommend staying on Disney property. There are a lot of hotels to choose from and each has its own unique theme. Staying in a Disney hotel is especially a good idea if you do not want to rent a car. Their transportation is topnotch and it is easy to get around. Plus, they pick you up right at the airport and take you to your hotel.
If you are trying to save money, there are plenty of hotels just outside the park. But remember that you will have to pay to park. When you add that to your rental car and fuel, your hotel may not be such a good deal after all.
Of course, this is easier said than done. It is hard not to try and do as much as you can when you are visiting the parks. Lucky for us, we had a momma-to-be in our group. This meant we walked a little slower and took more breaks than we normally would have. It was great though! Slowing down and just taking in everything around us (the people watching is excellent at Disney World) made for a much more enjoyable experience. We still ended up doing everything we wanted, but we did not cram activities into every second. If a line was too long, we skipped it and went somewhere else. Did we ride every ride in the park? No. But that wasn’t our MO. Did we enjoy each other’s company while moseying around the park and riding a ride here and there? We sure did.
I am sure this is very important when you take kids to the park. But that does not make it any less important without kids. During really hot moments, I was grateful to have a fan in my bag. When the rain came down, we pulled out our ponchos. You do not have to carry an over-sized backpack and be prepared for any eventuality. But you will have much more pleasant experience if you are prepared with things like a snack, fan, poncho, water bottle, etc.
It is hot and humid in Florida. You will sweat a lot. Bring a water bottle and refill it often. There are restrooms all over the park and finding one is never a problem. So there is no excuse for not staying hydrated.
Things change all the time at Disney World. The fast-pass system is very different today from when I worked there. But it is a great tool and if used properly, can make scheduling and planning your time in the park a lot easier. Also, there are good apps out there to help you plan. Disney’s own app makes scheduling fast passes and dinner reservations a breeze. You can also check the wait times for rides.
MagicBands are a relatively new thing. Basically, they are your room key, credit card, park pass, fast pass, etc. all wrapped up in one bracelet (kind of like a cruise ship card). I think they are very cool, especially if used to their full potential. We did not use them on this particular trip. But I have used them in the past and really enjoy their ease and convenience.
Unless meeting characters and getting your picture taken with them is really your thing, I suggest you skip it. Meet and greet lines are a huge time suck. Plus, you are taking time away the kids who really do want to meet the characters.
The parade is nicely done, there is no question about that. But it can be tough to find a good spot to watch it unless you want to set up camp really early. I would rather ride the rides during the parade. The lines tend to be a lot shorter at that time.
Disney spares no expense when it comes to their firework shows. They are well worth seeing. I am sure the lines are shorter for rides during this time, but I have yet to regret watching the pyrotechnics. Most people head home after the show anyway, so you can still ride a few rides afterwards with shorter lines.
Right after the firework show, the vast majority begins to exit the park. But before they go, they hit up the stores on Main Street for some final souvenir shopping. This the worst time to be on Main Street. Save yourself the trouble and go ride another ride or two. Wait for the masses to clear out and then make your way to the monorail.
No matter how easy you might take it, you are still going to spend a lot of time on your feet. And it is Florida, so the weather will be hot and humid most of the year. The combination will most likely leave you feeling exhausted. My recommendation: schedule a spa treatment on your last day. We discovered this great idea mostly by accident. However, it was the perfect way to end our fun-filled girls’ weekend at Disney World.
With a little preparation and planning, you can have an amazing Disney World experience without kids. It might not be for everyone, but where else is it okay, even encouraged, for an adult to act like a kid? Disney World really is unlike any place I have ever been. And I always leave with a smile on my face.
Tips and tricks for a strong summer music festival preparation. The weather is getting hot, the flowers are in full bloom and if you are really lucky, you are listening to a sweet riff on an electric guitar. Summer is upon us, which means (in …
Recently, I was asked to be on a panel at work to discuss work-life balance. Apparently, the organizers felt my tendency to travel whenever possible qualified me for the position. I was skeptical and not anxious to participate. However, I did not want to be …
A few weeks ago we had some out-of-towners come into the office for a business meeting. To get the introductions rolling, we each told our guests our favorite thing about living in Idaho. Most of the responses revolved around the outdoors (not surprisingly), but this conversation did get me thinking about why I choose to call Idaho home. Now, you might be thinking, “Wait…this blog is supposed to be about where you go when you leave home.” But when I Googled ‘how to choose where to live,’ the lists I found were written for a decidedly non-Jane clientele. Hopefully, this post will give Janes an idea of where they should call base camp, when they aren’t busy seeing the world.
Remember that song by the Beach Boys that describes how girls from different areas are different? Well, I might not know about all of their conclusions (do Mid-West farmer’s daughters make you feel alright?), but they do bring up a good point; our country can be broken up into chunks and people who are from those chunks do behave in similar ways. I have known for a long time that at heart, I belong in the West. I am not fashion forward, I spend very little time getting ready for the day and I enjoy that I live in an area where lots of women have similar values in those respects. Think about the cliches that exist for certain regions of the U.S. (or world). If you find that a certain cliche describes you, you might want to think about living in that area.
Do you enjoy being a big fish in a little pond or a little fish in a big pond? Is a raging nightlife important to you or are you totally content hanging out with yourself when the town shuts down at 6:00 p.m.? Do you mind spending mind-numbing amounts of time stuck in traffic?
This criterion is a biggie for me. I prefer a small, feeling-bigger city. Have you ever been to a place like that? They have all the modern amenities of a bigger city, but it still feels like a town. I have lived in my beloved B-town for about 26 years. In that time, we have experienced tremendous growth and sadly, Boise is losing its small-town feel. To be honest, during that business meeting with the outsiders, I wanted to tell everyone to just be quiet. I don’t want anyone else moving here! It’s not really up to me though, so I sense there will be a time in the future when I have to find my next small (big) city.
Just how certain geographic regions are known for certain things, towns are known for their vibe. If you are into music, you will probably love getting down in Memphis, NoLa, Nashville or Austin. How many Southern coastal towns in California are full of laid-back surfer types? Heck, Portland has a whole slogan about how weird it is. You will feel happiest in a town whose vibe you can fully appreciate. If you want to know the feel of a town, you can listen to locals describe their home. Most people will come up with roughly the same answers if you ask them their favorite things about the place.
There’s a funny part in Bridget Jones’ Diary (the book) when Bridget realizes that even if her friends don’t make up a traditional family, they are still each other’s people. If you find a place to live that meets all of your needs and your family happens to live there, that’s terrific. But if that place meets your needs and you have no blood relatives around, you can still build a tribe and be happy. Most of my family has moved away from Boise and for most of the year I am the only one in town. But I have met up with others in the area and together we have made our own tribe.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this before, but I loathe humidity. I get red, sweaty and frizzy…not my best look. My ideal climate is dry and I would much rather slather on lotion to prevent dry skin than live in a humid climate where lotion and chapstick are unnecessary. Also, I love four seasons. This can get tricky when, for example, my sister doesn’t want to live in a place with summer and her husband would prefer somewhere without winter…eek! Another thing to think about is elevation. If you go high enough, you can knock off quite a bit of heat. My favorite place in Idaho is over 6,000 feet, and it gets mighty cold there at times.
A huge priority for B and me (and should be for everyone) is how easy it is to get out of dodge. For us, we can actually walk to the airport, so that’s real easy. But Boise itself is not a big airport. Most of the time we have to fly to bigger airports and connect on our way. If you live a few hours away from an airport then you have to add that time in when you are thinking about your adventures. I like to visit family in the Seattle area and fortunately, there are a few direct flights from Boise to Seattle that only take 1.5 hours. Seems quick, right? Well, you tack on a 30-minute lightrail ride followed by a 45-minute ferry ride followed by a 30-minute car drive and quick 1.5-hour trip gets a lot longer.
Not everyone will be able to have an airport in their town. But when you are picking somewhere to live, you might want to think about if there is a major airport nearby. It usually takes us a few hours to get to the next big flight hub on our way somewhere. So even if you live in a small town that you have to drive several hours to get to the airport, you still might be better off than us if that airport is a major one with lots of connecting flights.
B and I are not loaded, but neither do we need to count all of our nickels and dimes. We live in a town with a low cost of living, which is very helpful when in saving up money for new trips and adventures. You might argue that you can save up a commensurate amount if you earned more and lived in an expensive town. But for us, a low cost of living really helps sock away money if our rent is on the lower end.
My favorite thing about my town is….well, I don’t want to tell you in case you want to move here. 🙂 But I will say I very much enjoy being outdoors and hiking and biking. A place that has pretty mountains to climb all over is pretty important to me. Other people might care most about how many major league sports teams are around because they like to go to all of the games. It is not rocket science to think about living somewhere that boasts your favorite past times. However, I don’t think many people write down a list of things they like to do and then find a town that has these things. I think they should!
Neither B nor I are foodies, which is probably good because our town’s cuisine is not super robust. If you are really into food though, you might want to think about that when you are contemplating a move. This past weekend B and I were visiting some of the more remote areas of central Idaho. Before we set out I stated we could eat lunch in X-town. She asked if I knew whether there were restaurants there. I grew up in the city. B grew up in the country. She understood that just because a town is on the map, that doesn’t necessarily mean there will be food available there. Weird, right? So even if you don’t need a thriving food scene, you probably want to make sure there is at least somewhere to eat when you don’t feel like cooking.
Idaho is a fairly homogenous (read white and conservative) state. This we know and we have accepted. You don’t have to agree with everything in your chosen place, but you have to able to accept it. I understand that when I go to the polls and vote, I have roughly the same chance of choosing a winning candidate as I do pulling a winning handle on a slot machine. That’s just how it is and there is enough other reasons to keep me satisfied living here. Make sure you take a good hard look at the politics, demographics, etc. of a town before you live there and decide if you can be at peace if you are in the minority.
The above list is not all inclusive, and there may be other priorities for you that rate higher. But if you find yourself in a situation where you have to relocate, it can be helpful to research and analyze different things that might fit your life situation as a travel-happy Jane.
Travel with parents, grandparents, first-timers and other novices is a different experience and requires a little different preparation. A couple of weeks ago, I traveled to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with my parents. My dad has Lyme disease and we were told a specialist there might …
Have you ever got back from your vacation and thought, “Man, I need a vacation?” B and I like to pack as much into our travels as possible, but it’s important to remember that a key part of a vacation is relaxation. One way to …
One of the main things people ask when B or I return from a foreign country is ‘how was the food?’ Food is something everyone can relate to because no matter where you go and what you see, you still gotta eat. This post offers some foreign food advice on how to survive and enjoy the cuisine of foreign destinations (and will hopefully help you not to get sick while you are adventuring).
Foreign cuisine can be pretty intimidating for a lot of people because what’s perfectly normal to person in country A can be perfectly repulsive to person in country B. A friend’s dad once told me a story about how when he was living in South Korea, he won a bet with some locals because he ate some rice with milk poured on top of it. What was rice pudding to him was in fact dog food to the South Koreans. Tomato, tomahto.
Disclaimer: Neither B nor I are foodies. We enjoy tasty food, but are not going to spend a lot of money procuring it or a lot of time eating it.
A travel friend gave B this advice a while ago and we’ve tried to follow it since then. The idea is that when you get to another country you should immediately eat the local yogurt. We’ve all seen the commercials talking about probiotics and live cultures that live in yogurt. So when you first get to a country and ingest the local good-for-you-stuff in yogurt, it will build up resistance in your gut for when you try to eat other local cuisine. If a local bad-for-you stuff gets into your system, the yogurt goodies can take it out, and you will not get sick.
Of the two of us, I have more trouble with getting sick than B, but I feel like the yogurt trick is helpful. Bonus–yogurt is tasty in pretty much every culture. In Iceland, where the cuisine is less than ideal (and rightly so, it would be greedy for Iceland to do everything well) the skyr (yogurt) was a life saver. We ate it as much as possible. Even now, if we can find it in grocery stores we will pick up skyr instead of greek or other yogurt.
During the last two weeks I went on two business trips to a certain town in Idaho. On the first trip, we looked up some reviews on trip advisor and yelp for the best places to eat in this small town. One of the highest rated was an italian place that shared a building with the Chevron gas station. We thought what you are probably thinking…no way can that be good and instead ate really subpar pizza at a different restaurant. When we returned this week, we were at a store and asked the cashier for a recommendation and lo and behold, the Italian gas station was her first recommendation. So, we went. And it was really good. Lesson learned–go where the locals tell you to go.
You can also use this trick even when you can’t speak the language and don’t have the internet or a guidebook at your fingertips. If you are standing in front of two restaurants and one is packed with locals and the other has only a handful of people there, you should resist your urge to not stand in line and go where the crowd is. They know what’s up. You still might get sick, but it will at least taste good!
Some places are known for certain things. Can you imagine going to Italy and never having pasta? Sacrilege! Some things are obvious like that, but others might not be. We are preparing to go to Belgium for Christmas. After we made our plans, we started to research what the local specialties are foodwise. Did you know Belgium is renowned for beer, french fries, mussels and chocolate (in addition to waffles)? Now, none of us are super mussel enthusiasts, so we probably won’t be sampling that particular specialty. But man oh man, I cannot wait to try a cone of delicious french fries and sip hot chocolate as I walk around the markets.
To find out what places are known for, a guidebook or the interwebs will give you the information you need. Just goog it…’what to eat in XXXX’ and you are sure to find lots of websites answering that very question.
‘Don’t drink the water’ is my Number 2 rule of travel, followed shortly after ‘use a bathroom whenever one is presented to you.’ Sure, in some countries it is perfectly safe to drink the water and we advise you to save the earth and do that instead of buying bottled water. But in countries where there is a shred of a chance of you getting sick, it is just not worth it (even if you see locals drinking away). Their bodies are conditioned to handle the microorganisms in their neck of the woods, just as ours are for where we live. When we mix it up and go all loosy goosy drinking right out of the tap, we can all get ourselves in trouble (and need to refer to my Number 1 rule of travel).
Another thing to look out for is produce that has been rinsed in water. I remember spending a month in Central America and not being able to eat any salad. You never know how much you’ll miss something until you can’t have it anymore! Cooked vegetables and items with skins you peel off should be okay.
And while we’re talking about it, you should be careful about the ice you get in drinks or smoothies. I don’t really care about tepid drinks, so I am fine ordering them without ice. But fruit smoothies are so delicious I really have to restrain myself unless I know for sure the ice cubes that went in it are made with purified agua.
If those paragraphs freaked you out, I have something that will help ease your mind. Instead of dirty water, you can drink Cokes. Have you heard about how when you leave a nail in coke for a few days it will dissolve? Well, I’m not really sure, that might be an urban legend, but there is definitely some ingredients in Coke that can kill unwelcome visitors in you if you drink it. This is a little worrisome in everyday life, but a desirable attribute in a foreign land.
I am a big fan of passion fruit. Strangely, good ol’ Idaho isn’t renowned for this particular treasure. That makes it insanely awesome when I go somewhere and passion fruit is a native species. If you are visiting a place that produces a certain item, you need to maximize your intake while you are there. This does lead to some unfortunate side effects. For example: eating so much pineapple in Guatemala that your mouth actually gets sores. But really, when it is all said and done and you come back home to your arctic tundra, you aren’t going to regret drinking all of those pina coladas.
While we were relaxing at our hotel pool in Bali, one of the guys on staff climbed up a tree and knocked down some coconuts. He then proceeded to hack them open, squirt in some lime, add a straw and presented us with our very own slice of heaven. If you are in the tropics, why wouldn’t you drink fresh coconut water? It’s a no brainer.
B enjoys herself some seafood. So one day in a seaside town in Morocco, we visited a restaurant next to the water. There wasn’t a specific catch of the day on the menu. Instead, the waiter brought out an enormous iced tray with all sorts of different fish and seafood that had just been caught out back. Again, being as we don’t have any of these salt water delicacies in Idaho, we were able to take advantage and get a very different food than what we are used to. (P.s. our fish was dang tasty–even to a non-fishy food eater like me.)
One of the main ways you can experience a new culture (which is one of the big motivators for travel, after all) is to try out the local food. Sure, not everything will need to happen (like that fermented shark specialty in Iceland). But if you do step out of your comfort zone, you will be rewarded by a full belly and a good story. And who knows, you might just find a new favorite food.
On Jane Sees the World we’ve casually mentioned planning a trip in pretty much every post. Then again, it is a travel blog, so this probably makes sense. Both B and I have been asked many times over the years how we pick where to …