Spontaneous Travel: Tips for Last Minute Trips

Spontaneous Travel: Tips, Tricks and Mistakes to Avoid for Last Minute Travel- Time to Talk Travel Podcast

[00:00:00] Narrator: Do you dream about your next trip? You're in the right place on the Time To Talk travel podcast. We come to you weekly to share places to go and what to do when you get there. Let's dive into this week's adventure.

[00:00:16] Nasreen: Hi, this is Nasreen and we're here with another episode of Time to Talk Travel. Today we have Des, Maureen and myself. Ciaran is not on with us today because we're talking about a topic that maybe isn't her favorite. We're going to talk about spontaneous travel and last minute trips and just jumping on something and going. Not that Ciaran doesn't love a great last minute cruise deal, but she really enjoys the planning part of it, which is why she's our planning pro.

And the three of us might be a little more like that is a fantastic deal. Let's go now. We are going to jump into some tips, some tricks, some mistakes we've made that maybe we learned from, or maybe we'll do again if it's a good enough deal.

Mo, let's just go straight to you, because

[00:01:06] Mo: You know this is my favorite

[00:01:07] Nasreen: I know this is your favorite kind of travel. Tell us, dive right into what you love about it.

[00:01:12] Mo: I think partially because I know there's only so much you can control. When you plan things out hour by hour, day by day, you can be disappointed because things don't usually go the way you plan. There are a few things that we've talked about on other episodes where you really do need to make sure you've planned out, but a lot of things can just be done spontaneously. I love to be able to just say yeah, let's go. And that might be, a way for a weekend with a girlfriend, with my husband on one of his business trips where I fly as a companion with him on Southwest. And you know what, I'll figure it out when I get there. I just want to be there. I don't even care if I get a chance to look at the top 10 things. Let's just go.

[00:01:58] Des: I'm with her. It's a go with the flow kind of thing. It's similar to parties for me. Sometimes the best parties are the ones you throw together at the last minute and the ones you planned for a year fall flat and you're like, oh, that was so much less than I was hoping. It's to me the same with a trip. If you book it and you're waiting and you're planning and, and those can be great too, but sometimes it really is just, you know what, we've got the weekend and nowhere to be. Let's go, it doesn't matter if it's throw a dart on a map and pick a place or, Hey, I heard yesterday,

[00:02:33] Mo: Yeah. Maybe we're not actually taking off spontaneously, but deciding to do it spontaneously is a part of it too. We've booked a weekend at this country concert in a field in Gonzales, Texas, and it was because we were talking about fun things, and this band came up, Red Clay Strays, that's the nearest concert that's coming up. It's a three day festival, I'm really hoping it's not like Country Burning Man but You know what? Eight of us, we're all in. We have our VIP camping site, because we're not that diehard.

[00:03:06] Des: It's who you're going with. And as long as they're not a stick in the mud, “I need to think about it”. I can't do wishy washy. It's just go. Let's just have a good time and we'll figure it out when we get there.

[00:03:17] Nasreen: It's an inspirational serendipity, not being able to overthink thing for me. Four kids, we all have four kids. Mine are a little younger and it involves planning.

A lot of times that is how we get away, when we can fit something in at the last minute that works out, that, oh, okay, we have these days free, we can go. It frees me from trying to overthink and plan everything. I don't like to line up an entire itinerary, but if I have enough time to plan, I feel like I should.

I was just in New York City this last weekend with my husband for our anniversary, and I booked it a little bit in advance, like a month, not a ton.

You'll have to tell me if you guys do this too. I make a menu to choose from. With those last minute trips, a lot of times they're shorter than the average trip you're going for a couple of days.

I don't want to spend my time when we're there figuring out what to do. Instead I make a menu of 20 ish things we could do that will be open on those days, things I'd like to see just general things to go do. I put them on a Google map. And then when we're sitting there going, what should we do today?

I can start with a list instead of starting with

[00:04:23] Mo: We might need to kick you out of this episode.

[00:04:24] Nasreen: No!

[00:04:25] Mo: You just wander down the street and go, that place looks cool. You walk in.

[00:04:29] Nasreen: I do that too, but if we're looking at each other what do you want to do? What do you want to do? At least there's a starting point. Hey, there's this cool thing. I know I'd love to take a picture with. Trust me, it's not a ton of overthinking. With New York, my husband wanted to go to the nine 11 museum.

And that was great for him. I did not want to, I knew it was going to be too much for me and I did not want to go. I went to the pub nearby with him for firefighters. He's a firefighter. Seeing the plaque of all firefighters who perished with all their mustaches was difficult and I knew I couldn't do the museum But there were a couple of things I wanted to do.

I knew a specific pizza slice I wanted to have. I knew a couple pictures I wanted to take. That was all that made the list, And a couple other cool things that we might do Left room for spontaneity. We ended up scoring daily show tickets like three hours before the recording and worked that in

[00:05:17] Mo: And it depends on who you're with, too, right? I've spontaneously ended up in New York, in Times Square several times, but, it's usually with somebody who hasn't gone, and we've got a layover, Let's just take the train and go in, and you can go in and have lunch, see the sights, especially if you've never seen New York, and you've never seen Times Square.

That's all you need. It could be a two hour pit stop, and you're like, Hey, you know what? When I took my son, we're on our way to Italy. And he’s can we? And we were so tired. We were ridiculously tired. But we went in, we had a blast, we had an awesome lunch, and then we took the train back out and flew the rest of the way to Italy.

But, he's now been to Times Square.

[00:05:52] Des: Yeah, you hit on something good there. Because a lot of times it's layovers and delays. I know when my daughter and I were flying to Barcelona probably. Gosh, eight years ago now. We had a layover in London. It was supposed to be three hours, ended up overnight.

We got a hotel at the airport to make it easy the next morning, but we got on the train and we headed into London. I was like, let's go see Big Ben. Let's go see, the tower bridge. We ended up with eight hours before bedtime. We just said, let's do it. And sometimes it's not even by choice that it's spontaneous, but why not make the most of it?

If you're there, go for it. And I think my other thing is it doesn't have to cost a bundle. I think a lot of people think last minute means, Oh, you're going to pay more for airfare. You're going to pay more for hotels. That is not always the case. A lot of times you get better deals because they have availability that they weren't expecting. Don't assume it's going to be more just because you're planning it at the last minute,

[00:06:51] Mo: flexible, like if you're flexible, like I think we all have the friend who struggles with flexibility, and I don't mean in yoga with not knowing necessarily exactly where you're going to stay or where you're going to eat or what we're doing each day. As we've established I like to just go with the flow, see what we feel like doing that day, but to the extent I've also learned that, you know what, it is stressful to be the tour guide especially if you're, the mom and everyone's looking to you to figure out what you need, what we're going to be doing.

Not a bad life lesson for kids and maybe for some friends to relax a little bit and go with the flow and not worry. There will always be a restaurant to go to. And maybe you'll find that jewel of a local gem, where the locals eat.

I just did Playa del Carmen twice, once as a total tourist and once with people who live there, four months of the year. down the same street both times and I saw entirely different places. As a tourist, I was like, Oh, it was just dazzled by everything, sparkly and shiny and fun. But then when you walk around more like a local and they have spent enough time there to get, to have locals share those places, I wish I did a little more walking in a little bit more exploring that way.

[00:08:07] Des: Agree. I remember going to Aruba with girlfriends. I had a friend who owned a house down there. They lived in different parts of the country. We all would just meet down at the Aruba airport. And because she had a house there, she had a relationship with a lot of the locals.

It was a totally different experience than people flying in who knew no one. And I almost feel bad now when people go, because I want them to know,

Ciaran, who works

at Salt N Pepa's and Jim who runs the wind surfing boat. I would climb on the boat with him and ride all day back and forth along the shore.

And, that's fun. When you can connect with the locals whether it's spontaneous or otherwise that's always an added bonus, but do know your crowd, do know who you're traveling with because you're right. I have four kids, two of them, you. are horrible travelers. If there's a delay, they're going to whine about it for the next three days, and then the other two are like, what, so no, your audience, because it's not fun traveling with somebody who isn't going to be flexible.

It doesn't have to be the five star restaurant. It doesn't have to be the fanciest hotel. Just let's make the most of it. See who we meet, and the memories we make.

[00:09:11] Mo: I love my itinerary friends for an itinerary trip. I am more than happy to go with the flow if somebody else has a plan that they'd like to make happen for us. Fabulous. Let's go with it. But spontaneous travel with a plan is pretty tricky to do.

[00:09:29] Nasreen: yeah I think a lot of my initial spontaneous travel experience was in business travel. My mother is not a spontaneous traveler. We went to Disney and she bought the book because you didn't go on the web back then and planned out every day and organized the luggage by the day.

She had a printed typed itinerary. When I started business traveling, it seemed like a shame to be in all of these different places and not see things.

I would stop and swing by and see something and take a picture or find a cool restaurant to try. I remember thinking at one point in time in Kentucky, I may have carried it a little too far. I had seen on the highway that there's a place with bison coming up.

And I'm like, Ooh, I want to see a bison, Buffalo, whatever. And so I stop. I've got on black dress pants and black loafers and whatever dressy top I have, right? I thought they were just gonna be right there.

I'm huffing up this muddy path. It had just rained, my loafers are getting all covered in mud, and then I round the corner and there's a whole bunch of bison. Okay, this is cool. I guess it was worth it. But for a minute there, I'm like, I'm going to get murdered out here or fall down on my butt or be covered in mud for the rest of the day.

But I worked it in. I saw some buffalo. I know. It was just something else to add on to see the place. And honestly, I think that doing those little stops and seeing things and stopping for historical markers connects you more with the area, like you were saying Des with the knowing all the different locals and the places to go.

[00:10:54] Des: Naz, that brings up another good point. Being spontaneous does not mean being stupid. You still have your brain about you as far as, don't go down the dark alley in New Orleans, there are streets that are totally safe, and not just New Orleans. There are dark alleys in every city, I think, these days.

It doesn't mean, throw caution to the wind and go have a blast. You still need to be smart about what you have on you and what you bring along and even the flights you book. The being safe part doesn't go out the window just because you're being spontaneous. Do keep that in mind.

[00:11:27] Mo: you're right, Des. I think I totally agree with that. You actually need to be a little bit more aware because you likely haven't done your research. You don't know where you are. You don't know where those sort of, sketched neighborhoods are and where the nice ones are. You might turn a corner and be like, Ooh, this is be aware of who's around you and what's around you. The first time we went to Berlin, I think I had a day and a half notice. Husband was going for business and everybody else that was supposed to be going wasn't going. He had a hotel for three days for free. So let's go. That was probably one of our best trips, but we really did have to be aware because we had done absolutely no research, we just knew that there were places we wanted to see, and we would find them as we went. We just arrived and we're like, Hey, Berlin, what you got?

[00:12:14] Nasreen: And there's a read the room energy to being spontaneous because even if you think you're familiar with an area, it can change. And if you're not familiar with an area, you can realize. I know that I was in Louisville. I'm walking. I'm walking. I cross under a bridge on the street and I'm like things just changed. I'm going to turn back around and go the other way. And it was very easy to recognize. And then my husband and I were in San Francisco . I've been to San Francisco a million times. One of my companies that I worked for was based there. I was there every quarter for meetings.

I'm very familiar with it. We were staying in an area that I was familiar with, walking around areas I was familiar with. They had changed drastically. As soon as you're aware that a situation may not be great, you're not going to push forward just because you've been there before and it was fine.

Know when to walk away, know when to be like, okay, this is just an area I'm not going to go into right now. It doesn't feel right. Like you got to have a gut to do spontaneous travel.

[00:13:05] Des: And it doesn't hurt to do the safety things again. I've talked on previous podcasts, when I was in Barcelona and I was alone and decided to go climb Montserrat, which was an hour and a half train ride and by myself I'm wandering a mountain.

I pass a sign, missing boy. And I'm thinking, wow, did someone push him off? Did he just get lost? You know what?

Probably should have notified somebody that, Hey, I'm going to be here today.

[00:13:29] Nasreen: The mountains though? Because I have the mountain story too. Sometimes when I get angry, I go hiking by myself, burn off some steam, especially when I was younger. Okay. Or that was the only time I ran.

It was like my hot girl run to work it all out or whatever. I had just gone through a breakup. I was pissed and I'm like, I'm going to climb Mount Washington. And you're all like, what? I did.

[00:13:49] Mo: I don’t think I've ever had that

[00:13:50] Nasreen: Yeah okay, this is what I did, and I do outdoor stuff, it's not like I'm never hiking and I'm just all of a sudden I'm gonna climb it.

I did basic research the night before, I packed everything up, I had myself ready, I lived fairly close, I go. I get there and I've looked up like what time I should arrive and start. And when the weather turns, I'm going in August. It's one of the best months to go.

Cause it's warm and there's only a light chance of hail and snow when you get near the top. I've done all my research, great hike. Go up. Fantastic. Making great time. Hide under a rock for a while it hails. No big deal. Get up to the top. Get back down. Do you know what I missed out of all of this?

Apparently, they have a sign in book where you're supposed to leave your license plate number and your car and your contact number so if you don't come off the mountain, they can call someone for you or they know That you're missing, that you went on the mountain, that you didn't just leave the car there and go somewhere else.

Yeah, oops.

Not my brightest moment, I made it, but I didn't do the safety precautions

[00:14:48] Mo: I love that was your angry, non planned plan. Your spontaneous hike required that much research.

[00:14:54] Nasreen: Not even, I just want to know,

I probably just go to Target or something,

Yeah, I don't know. I think I wanted to do something big and make a statement and take a picture on top of a mountain or something, I don't know. It

[00:15:03] Mo: Okay, that makes more sense. Got that.

[00:15:05] Nasreen: I have a picture of me on top of it like, Grrrrrr!

[00:15:08] Mo: Des and I are in front of the bedding!

[00:15:10] Des: Naz, Look, the great purse I bought today. Another spontaneous tip, just because you decided last minute doesn't mean you can't do a tiny bit of research either before you leave or on the way. I will tell you, I made a stupid move. Two weeks ago I had to go down to Florida. My daughter is in college. I stopped in Gainesville to see her for the night, knowing the next morning I can get up early, take off, go get to my mom and Vero. I stay overnight at this hotel. It's a Sunday. Monday, I leave Gainesville One o'clock and head down to Vero. For whatever reason, when I pulled up nav, it said the turnpike was going to take an extra hour to go. I needed to go toward 95 down the coast. Fine, I'm gonna pay attention. I do this, but, not realizing by the time I get to the coast, it's added an hour to 95.

What had happened was there was the Daytona 500 race on that Sunday and there was a rain delay. The race, instead of happening Sunday, was happening Monday. I put myself in the middle of all of the Daytona 500 traffic. I felt like a moron. Like, how dumb am I? I even knew there was a chance this race was gonna be delayed because I work in weather.

My point is, if you're picking a place to go, you might want to check to see if there's a massive festival or sports event happening that weekend.

[00:16:31] Mo: It's more fun.

We took friends down to Galveston to show them around, thinking it would be like a quiet day in Galveston. It was the Lone Star Biker Rally. There were like 10,000 motorcycles and bikers down there.

And we were oh, should we, shouldn't we? It was a great time. It was great fun. Awesome people watching.

[00:16:48] Nasreen: Oh, see, I'm the opposite. I'm all like, oh, spontaneous travel, so and so conference just canceled their convention in this city. Hey, there's gonna be some great deals there now. Every time I see a big cancellation where someone pulls out and there's news headlines, I'm like, oh. Opportunity.

[00:17:08] Mo: And that can be a great way of traveling too if you just go, Hey, you know what? For whatever reason something got canceled or you just sometimes just one of those free weekends pops up and you can instead of deciding, when you can go somewhere decide where you can go when you're available.

Don't have a set idea as to where you want to go. Through Google so you can find just cheap flights to somewhere for whatever date works for you

[00:17:34] Nasreen: Kayak has an explore function that I've used before where you can put in how far how many connections all what your budget is and look there and then actually Des and I were just talking earlier about Roame, it's roame.travel. That is a points redemption awards type deal where you can put in where you're looking to go, what you have points on, and it'll tell you how to maximize it or what you might be able to redeem it for if you're trying to get the best value.

But I know for me, I tend to like places off season or when they're not as popular. And I also like to look towards areas that are less served at the time. We stayed down near wall street, like all the way down near the Staten Island ferry when we went to New York city and it was fantastic.

The room rate, the point value was super low because it's not a popular time for them. There's so many subway lines accessible right there and because it wasn't a huge tourist area, there were a ton of great restaurants right near the hotel that we could walk into and just get a seat and it was fantastic.

[00:18:38] Mo: A lot of business areas on the weekend are amazing.

[00:18:41] Nasreen: Yeah, look for the financial district. They're the best. And they always have the happy hour specials at the pubs there.

[00:18:47] Mo: A lot of the hotels do the complimentary happy hour

too, because you're a business traveler and you're bored and you're alone and might as well have a free glass of wine or free

[00:18:56] Nasreen: yeah, exactly. I went to a lot of Irish pubs and had a lot of pints and with no lines, no waiting and lots of happy hours. So good times.

[00:19:06] Mo: Pub. That is one thing Texas does not have, or I've yet to find.

[00:19:10] Des: yeah, the other thing is be flexible if you can with days. There's no rule that says get away weekend has to be Thursday to Sunday. You could do Saturday to Tuesday and pay a lot less,. The whole point is if you're sitting there going, man, I really wish I could take a trip and you've got the time,

just do it. Take the page from Nike. Just do it.

[00:19:33] Mo: A change of scenery, what is it? I'm going to screw up the line. Change of latitude, change of attitude. Like sometimes you just need a different place

[00:19:42] Nasreen: Are you going to embroider that on a pillow, Mo?

[00:19:44] Mo: It is, totally on every nautical pillow in every beach community you will ever go to.

I think it's probably Florida's other tagline.

[00:19:54] Des: It's one of my favorite songs. If we wouldn't laugh, we would all be the same. Yes.

[00:19:58] Mo: Really could be that. So even, some people think, oh it's so far to go for only a day or two. No. Day or two anywhere. Some

places that is enough. There are a lot of places I don't want to go to for more than a day or

[00:20:10] Nasreen: Absolutely. I don't think we've utilized Amtrak enough myself in the Northeast. It's fairly prevalent, and we can go right down to Boston and take Amtrak . I can catch it in New Hampshire and go up the coast to Maine. But. Amtrak has been running a lot of specials lately, for adding kids onto tickets or also early morning or late night owl tickets.

Our Amtrak tickets were 30, which is, I know,

[00:20:35] Des: not a thing here. If you're getting on Amtrak here or you're it's no

[00:20:39] Nasreen: You have to book a little in advance with them. Usually about 14 days out is the closest you can go and actually get a great deal.

[00:20:48] Des: We did the Amtrak, I want to say Starlight train that we flew to Seattle to intentionally take this. It was a big Pinterest craze years ago. I think it was 32 hours all the way down into L. A. And we decided 32 hours. This is too long to sit on a train. We liked the San Luis Obispo to L.A. part. That was nice north. Just a lot of brown and the ugly side of America. The backside of every train station. Daly and I both were like, we're glad we went. We know we don't ever want to do that again.

[00:21:23] Nasreen: And New York, like Boston to New York, it's not even about, it has nothing to do with the scenery or anything. It's that it takes four hours, and it would take that long to drive, and then I would have to pay to park and find parking and all of that, where I can either take a train or bus to Boston, or we used SpotHero and found parking that was the cost of one night in New York to park for the whole time.

And it was so easy and no traffic. Last time we went to New York, it took us like six something hours to drive back and there was a lot of swearing,

[00:21:54] Des: yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah. Trains from here don't really go anywhere. It's not, need to work on that in the South. Maybe it's different in Texas. I don't

[00:22:02] Mo: what there is a train.

[00:22:04] Nasreen: There are trains in Texas. There's one that goes from Houston all the way out towards Big Bend. But it takes a long time. I know we looked at it a couple of times. There are routes through Texas, but a lot of times the Greyhound in Texas, Mo, have you done that yet?

[00:22:18] Mo: that's not going to happen.

[00:22:19] Nasreen: Okay, so I did it

[00:22:21] Mo: just not going to happen.

[00:22:22] Nasreen: I did it once and it was an experience and you should do it once just for fun. This is when all you and your friends do your themes. No, you want to do this Mo. Okay. I took the train from, I think it was like college station up to. Dallas and I was doing it because I was getting a car loaner for an auto show and I had to pick up the car. Okay, I'll take the bus up and then I'm going to drive the car back.

It was the perfect way to do it. When people get out of prison, they put them on the bus. And they, you can tell because they give them the oyster bags and they put all their clothes or the. They're crawfish bags. They're like mesh bags, whatever. Honestly, they were really nice and fun.

But they had a lot of stories. There was this tiny little Hispanic grandmother sitting across the aisle from me who kept crossing herself and whispering, Oh Dios Mio. And it was like the best bus ride ever. It drops off in a really interesting area of Dallas. All I'm saying is take the Greyhound in Texas.

It's really interesting. And every, again, Everyone was nice. It wasn't, it didn't feel dangerous. There were just a lot of stories. You sit quietly and you listen.

[00:23:29] Mo: That's Des’thing, listening in airports.

[00:23:31] Des: I do. And I, again, you could probably write a whole book. I, I took a bus once I was going to TBEX, which is a travel writers conference up in Toronto. And I couldn't get a flight. I decided last minute. I got a flight into Buffalo, and then took a MegaBus which was all the craze back then. The college kids would jump it. It was a dollar to get on a bus, cross the border, and it would get me into Toronto when I needed to. I got there and the MegaBus didn't show up at the time. And so there was a Greyhound I jumped on it and it was enough for me to say that's the only time I need to go. Like

[00:24:07] Nasreen: I don’t think I’d border cross in a greyhound.

[00:24:09] Mo: I’ve been on a bus, I've taken a bus before. I just am not taking one across Texas.

[00:24:14] Des: The bus stations and the train stations of America are not fun places to hang out. Sorry. In my experience,

[00:24:21] Nasreen: But they’re interesting. They're interesting. It's all about the plot.

[00:24:26] Mo: I'm all about people watching. I do love people watching, but

[00:24:30] Des: I'd have to schedule one.

[00:24:31] Mo: You're gonna have to work on me on that.

[00:24:33] Nasreen: I've taken a lot of bus rides.

We need a Greyhound sponsorship. I'm just gonna drag you guys around to different stations. However, there is, in Texas, Vonnlane Bus. It is a business luxury bus. They go between Austin, Houston, Dallas. And you get a giant leather chair.

There's tables, there's wifi.

[00:24:54] Des: . It's more your style.

[00:24:55] Nasreen: It's for business people who don't want to go through TSA who want to be able to work on the bus

[00:25:00] Mo: okay. I'll add it to my bucket list to take a Greyhound bus or a Vonn.

[00:25:04] Nasreen: We should make a bingo card, like a bingo card of travel for 2024 that we're all going to do. Maybe we should make it for each other.

[00:25:12] Mo: Oh.

[00:25:13] Nasreen: Oh, that might be

[00:25:14] Des: It's looks confused and like travel challenges, not really bingo card. Just, you gotta do it once,

[00:25:20] Nasreen: because one of us has to win when we get bingo.

[00:25:23] Des: Oh, you are so competitive, you are. I'm just thinking experiences,

[00:25:28] Nasreen: I like those too, but it's fun if we were more driven if there's like an end result.

[00:25:34] Mo: I like it. There could be prizes involved.

[00:25:36] Nasreen: Like somebody has to slide down the middle of an escalator in a sparkly dress without spilling their drink. Mo's already done that. She can cross it off.

[00:25:43] Mo: I win! I think it could do both because if you did an experiential one, your favorite experiences each, that would be cool to share with people and then maybe do another one where it's like, all right, let's take you out of your comfort zone. Bingo.

[00:25:56] Nasreen: This is the you won't get in trouble, but you're going to walk a fine line here. Bingo.

[00:26:01] Mo: By the sounds of it, we're going to be doing some of these podcasts recordings from various places coming up. I even took my mic to Mexico in case we needed to do one. She’s been outside the country now. She's a professional traveler

[00:26:14] Nasreen: Fun. We've covered a lot of spontaneous travel and I have to tell one story and maybe I'll cut it later if it doesn't fit but I have to tell you, because we're on the Amtrak on our way back from New York and these folks sit down in front of us.

I know it's good to be spontaneous. I get it. But I've never been on a train where they're like, it takes four hours to get from New York to Boston? Of course I thought it was faster than that. Now they were from Europe. And they were Absolutely flabbergasted that it was going to take four hours to get between these two places.

They spent the beginning of the train ride Googling the miles, looking at the map, looking online to make sure it was really that long. Oh no, it must just be a time like they must get there faster. Then they're talking about their hotel when they get to Boston and like, where is it? And where is it in relation to the station?

And they've bought a ticket to the station that's further away. And I'm like, I, my mind. I am vacillating between do I talk to them because I write travel or is this so far gone that it's remedial and I don't think I can get involved because I'm so baffled and I just want to listen. And then the whole

[00:27:23] Mo: to be fair, you did step in though?

[00:27:24] Nasreen: No, they started to figure it out a little bit and I couldn't get involved because I realized the hotel they had booked wasn't actually a hotel.

It was like a Airbnb type thing. So they're talking about drinking in the bar of the hotel and I'm sitting there going, it's over a Shake Shack and it doesn't have an elevator. I wonder if they know they're going to have to climb the stairs with their suitcases. And I just didn't want to. I'm like, this is going to turn into a therapy session and I don't have it in me right now.

Shout out to the people from Portugal. I hope that you did okay in Boston. You seemed excited about the museums. You seemed like you were going to figure it out. You got on a train without knowing how far it was or where you were getting off. I feel like you landed on your feet.

[00:28:04] Des: I get it, though. I can totally sympathize. Because when I went to Ireland the first time, I couldn't believe how small it was. We were going to drive from Dublin down, to Cork, I guess it was, or Wexford. And I thought, okay, this is going to take us four or five hours.

Because I grew up in Florida, where going anywhere just to leave the state takes six hours from where I live. We were there in under two. And I went, whoa, we have a whole day. In Europe, everything really is close and it's a quick dream ride.

[00:28:33] Mo: We had the opposite in Spain because, sure, it looked this far on the map, but the road went like this

along the coast. Yeah, that, that road, if you stretched it out, we probably could have driven halfway across Europe.

[00:28:44] Nasreen: Yeah. That was what baffled me, like you buy the ticket from one station to the other and it tells you where you're getting off and what time you get there. It's like buying a plane ticket.

And sure, you can be fuzzy on what the landing time was, but you knew it at some point.

[00:28:59] Mo: No,

I did that.

[00:29:01] Nasreen: Okay. Wow.

[00:29:02] Mo: So the one time I got to be fair, it was a very busy night. We were flying from Miami to Uruguay .

I got on the plane and I looked at my daughter and on the little screen it says how long the flight is.

I'm like, nine hours? Oh no! I was totally that lady. And I said to my daughter, we do not have enough snacks. We're not gonna make it. Thankfully, they fed us and I was only in charge of ten other people's children, but it was fine. We made it. We're great.

[00:29:29] Nasreen: But you're the kind of chaperone everyone needs, okay? Because everybody else is stressed and you're just like, Nine hours? This is gonna be bad with no snacks. We're good.

[00:29:36] Mo: That was my biggest concern. That is the only thing I will Worry about is having snacks and water on a plane because if

They don't feed and drink me I'm

[00:29:44] Nasreen: That is where my planning husband comes in because I love, I like the snacks and everything, but the man showed up and we're going to go walk to the Amtrak train and he whips out a paper bag. It's got a little, drawing on it and it's got Swedish fishand peanut M& M's and all this stuff in it that he knows like it is filled with snacks. The man brought me a big bag full of snacks for the train ride and I had definitely only grabbed a pack of applesauce and a thing of peanut butter crackers so I was super excited. So

[00:30:13] Mo: It's good a

man right there, that's right

[00:30:15] Nasreen: that's what you need, someone who brings you snacks and likes to travel, that's all I need.

[00:30:19] Des: I actually saw a picture of this bag on Facebook, and he didn't just be snacks He drew a very cute little stick figure couple

[00:30:28] Nasreen: There were stick figures on our anniversary date because it was our anniversary trip so yeah. Very festive.

[00:30:34] Des: While very nice you did he did you did well pick

[00:30:38] Nasreen: I know. Yeah, the snacks are the most important part. Even in spontaneous travel, you

[00:30:43] Mo: Maybe the Amtrak people Forgot their snacks.

[00:30:45] Nasreen: They went to the Amtrak cafe car and came back and talked about how the sandwiches were 9. And in my mind, I was going, 9 actually isn't that bad.

I think they'd charge like 14 at the airport.

[00:30:55] Mo: At least, yeah.

[00:30:56] Nasreen: change your latitude, not your attitude. And that's where we'll just wrap things up.

[00:31:01] Mo: No change of

[00:31:03] Des: it's changes in latitude, change of attitude.

[00:31:07] Nasreen: They all mean

[00:31:08] Des: The song changes in attitudes. Nothing remains quite the same. All of our running, all of us.

[00:31:15] Mo: your location, your attitude changes. Get it now?

[00:31:19] Nasreen: But like they all

[00:31:19] Mo: Change your latitude.

[00:31:21] Des: I just say, take the trip. Go, get out of your house. Get out of your zip code.

[00:31:26] Nasreen: Fix your face, change your place. Okay. Anyways, that's it. Spontaneous travel. Do

[00:31:32] Mo: Change your place, fix your face.

[00:31:34] Nasreen: Go spontaneously travel. That's the motto for this one. And be a little unhinged while you're doing it. It makes it more interesting. Until next time, travel spontaneously.

[00:31:45] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.