Tricky Travel: Nature's Special Events - Wildflowers, Eclipses, Bioluminescence and More

[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 Welcome to Time to Talk Travel. My name's Nasreen, and today it's Mo, Des, Ciaran and myself here to chat about special natural occasions that you have to plan differently for. So if you're going to go see the eclipse or you want to go check out the bluebonnets in Texas, how is planning a trip that centers around something that you can't really control different? So Ciaran, I'm going to have you jump in here because I know you are in California, which has a lot of wildflower seasons.

[00:00:47] Ciaran I'm a certified naturalist so this topic is very near and dear to my heart. Not only do we have wildflowers in California, but we have the whale migration. We have bioluminescence. A lot of people are coming to see the eclipse. We have everyone going to Joshua Tree to do stargazing.

We have so many things that the schedule is controlled by Mother Nature and not by the people who are coming to see it.

[00:01:13] Nasreen I think you brought up an interesting point because we know about the whale migrations. I think one of the things that people may not be aware of is that them coming through impacts other things going on in the area.

Maybe a ferry schedule. If you're going to take that bioluminescence kayak tour, you can't do it when they have all the babies near the shoreline. How do people check for these special things that are happening? Is there a good spot to go look?

[00:01:41] Ciaran There's different park websites, Coastal Commission websites will tell you when things like that are happening. There are several whale watching companies that post daily counts of what marine mammals have been sighted in the area every single day. Lately, we've been having orcas in Southern California which is incredibly rare. They're sighted like every 10 years or so. This winter, they have been here for the last month popping up in Newport. They've been in Dana Point. I was down watching surfers yesterday and I saw a bunch.

It turned out it was bottlenose dolphins, which are bigger than you would expect, but I was worried that they might be the orcas when I first saw them swimming towards the surfers. And I saw a bunch of whale watching boats further out and clustered. And I was like, oh, oh, I don't want to see something I don't want to see.

[00:02:31] Mo I was whale bait. I was learning to kite board in Squamish in British Columbia, which is basically in glacier water. I was in a wetsuit and you learn by dragging your body through the ocean. And so I was literally dressed as a seal, dragging myself through the ocean. My kids were in a sailing regatta 200 yards away. They had to stop the race because there was an orca in the course. The coach texted my girlfriend and I who were doing this kiteboarding lesson that there was an orca. We thought he was kidding until we got out of the water and saw the pictures of the orca with all the little sailboats. And yes, I was whale bait. I'm very lucky that the orca didn't come for a little wee snack on my little seal body dragging through the water.

[00:03:18] Ciaran Yeah, they're pretty good about not eating people in the wild. They generally only go after seals. This has started a huge debate. Part of watching the whales involves watching them eat the seals. That is not a tour that I particularly ever want to go on.

I love seeing the whales come up, but I don't love seeing predators and prey. That's just not my scene.

But one of the Zodiac tours, the sea lion jumped onto the boat with them. It was this big moment of debate because do they intervene?

Do they save it? Do they shove it back in? What is our role in nature? This became a huge tourism debate online in the last few weeks.

[00:03:59] Des I'm your opposite Mo. I'm the deterrent because I have paid for whale watching tours in three different places. When I pay to go see them, I never see them. But when I was in Cabo and had paid for this tour, we didn't see them.

I go back to the resort, Hacienda Encantada, that I love in Cabo San Lucas. I'm sitting on my balcony and boom here they are, spouts. I was like, what?

[00:04:24] Mo If you're going to do one of those whale watching tours, please do your research. I've seen a lot going up in the places that orcas live, basically chasing them. They need to be respectful of them.

They're magnificent creatures. So I'm a little torn on whale watching tours. It's not my favorite thing. I wouldn't pay to go on one. Like you said, I'd rather go out on a boat and hope to see them. But I would see them go by. I would not want to be in a boat chasingthem.

[00:04:50] Ciaran I have worked with a lot of local companies that offer whale watching trips and tours here in Southern California. One of them, Dana Wharf, was the first company that sent people out. And I will say that most of the ones here, they have naturalists aboard, and they're very respectful.

They keep a distance, they cut their engines. The reason why that Sea Lion jumped on that zodiac was because they had cut their engine. It wasn't safe to be running their engines to even get away from them. So they were a floating island for the sea lion to escape onto.

But it created that whole debate. I completely agree. You need to be respectful and know who you're going out with because it can get pretty dicey. And I was going to say, Des, if you want to see whales, a place to go in Mexico is to La Paz or to the West coast where the whales are all breeding and they're calving.

That's probably the most magical trip that I've ever been on that is completely out of your control, but you're pretty much guaranteed to see what you went down to see.

[00:05:55] Des I was down in Cabo, I was in the Sea of Cortez where the babies are supposedly born. And not too far from La Paz. Again, I did finally see them from the balcony.

[00:06:03] Mo Don't go on a whale watching

Tour with Des.

[00:06:05] Nasreen The whales felt bad. They came to your hotel

[00:06:08] Mo Research is really important to all of these because some of the things are very short-lived, you've got maybe a couple of days, maybe a couple of weeks, maybe a couple of months. Being Canadian, I had people show up at the airport with their skis and stuff in July expecting snow.

Yes it does snow, but not in July. Unless you go really far north. But there's a lot of fun things that you can put on the calendar like we talked about the Texas bluebonnets . But again, with that, people pull over and they want to take beautiful pictures in these fields of blue flowers- that have rattlesnakes hiding in them. There's reasons why people wear cowboy boots in Texas. It has practical purposes. And little children sitting in these fields and it's a little scary. So you have to do your research and be respectful for sure.

[00:06:55] Ciaran I was at the beach the other day on a walk and a very pregnant woman walked down onto the beach and it was low tide. So the tide pools were all very visible. And the rules are you look, but you don't touch with tide pools. Aside from the fact that you can damage the ecosystem, there's creatures in there that are poisonous and that can sting you. But I watch this very pregnant woman- her boyfriend he's “get in the pool. Get in the pool.” She proceeds to jump fully into a tidal pool so that they can take beautiful maternity photos with the sun setting. I was tongue-tied.

I was literally paralyzed. Like I didn't know what to do or say because other than you could be arrested for doing what you're doing.

[00:07:38] Nasreen I don't want a disease named after me.

[00:07:40] Ciaran People are pretty dumb. We have the poppy bloom and I've seen people do terrible things to the poppies in the quest of getting that perfect Instagram picture. It gets so crowded here during the poppy season.

There's five or six different locations that are on the beaten path. That literally is a beaten path. What people don't realize is you can't just drive there, pop out of your car and suddenly be in a field of flowers. You need to plan ahead. You need to know what hours the park is open. You need to know what you're allowed to bring in. I watched somebody who was in the car in front of me last time. We waited for an hour and a half to enter this park. They got turned around because they had a dog in their car and you can't bring pets into the park. You need to do your research and figure out where you're going to park, what time you need to be there, and what you should and shouldn't bring with you when you're going on these flower expeditions.

[00:08:34] Mo In Texas and in Arizona, the poppies in Arizona, you can just pull over like the flowers do grow everywhere for that. But that brings up a whole other bunch of problems because now you have all these cars. Or in Florida, if you see an alligator do not get out of your car and go take pictures of it. These are creatures that can be very dangerous. Another one that we have experienced in Arizona is the wild horses, same timeframe as the poppies. And again, people get really close to these beautiful creatures.

[00:09:06] Nasreen Yeah. And I know that there's two major ones I want to hit on. First I'll jump on the bluebonnet one. We've lived in Texas and New England, so we have experience with bluebonnets and leaf peepers, and foliage season. So those are the big ones. My husband has written articles about safety around bluebonnets because he's a medic and now a firefighter. Every year they would have issues with the bluebonnets ranging from snake bites to traffic accidents because of people pulling over.

With the bluebonnets, there is a bluebonnet trail that is the beaten path. There are a lot of places to see bluebonnets off of the beaten path and the season is about four to six weeks. They can start anywhere from late February all the way through about the third to fourth week of March if it's a late season.

The trail stretches across the state, so you can really time it with where in the state you're going. Because the further south you are, the earlier they will start. With the bluebonnets as Maureen said, there are snakes, there are things in the grass.

I know we lived in Brenham and there was a small historical site down the road in Independence that had bluebonnets. That was a great place to stop because it had a small parking lot. And it wasn't overgrown, so you could see what you were sitting in or what you were putting the kids in. Because the Bluebonnet photos are going to happen no matter what.

It's a Texas thing. We have them from every year my kids were there. But you also don't want to stop on the side of highways, on people's private property.

[00:10:36] Mo I say private.

[00:10:37] Nasreen Yeah, there are going to be more bluebonnets. The ones off the side of the main road where you're going 60 miles an hour are not the only bluebonnets there are.

There will be more. Don't stop on a windy back road where someone's going to come around a corner and hit your car. Look for a historical site in the area of bluebonnets. I promise you. There will be some there. There will be some.

[00:10:58] Mo Don't trespass in Texas.

[00:11:01] Nasreen No, it's a horrible idea. And definitely, don't do it in sandals.

Try to wear close-toed shoes if you can. It's just a good idea. There's all kinds of fun stuff in there. The other thing is parking, don't run across streets, highways, things like that. Try to find somewhere to park to get out and to go. I promise you they exist. There are trackers all over the internet for where the bluebonnet phases are.

All of the towns that have bluebonnets and are known for them, put something up on their page. You can watch where they are. You can see live feeds of what they look like at that moment. Do your research ahead of time and plan where you're going to see them so that you don't get so excited when you see your first bluebonnet that you put your family in danger.

[00:11:45] Ciaran I would second that in California as well. People do just pull over on the side of the road because there are poppies everywhere, but those aren't the poppies that you really want to see. The ones that you really want to see are going to be in known locations that you can search out online with parking lots that you may have to pay for.

Don't be cheap. Spend $5, it's not terribly expensive, but for five bucks you're going to have somewhere safe to park and you're going to have a much better experience and be walking through a wonderland that looks like it was CGI generated versus being on the side of the road potentially killed.

[00:12:21] Nasreen I will say in Texas, churches. Just put a church in on your map. They all have giant parking lots and they're usually next to greenery. It almost always has bluebonnets in it. We used to have a beautiful patch behind the tire store across from Walmart in Brenham.

You park right in the main plaza and walk right over to them. They exist where there's grass.

[00:12:42] Ciaran Some of the most spectacular flowers here are actually the scotch broom,

which is an invasive species, but it turns all the hillsides yellow for a month or so in the springtime and it's really spectacular. If you go over to Catalina Island, which is near and dear to my heart, you can also see buffalo roaming.

And we have the same problem with the buffalo that Mo mentioned. There's always some idiot who's oh, take a picture with a buffalo. Do not try and take a picture with a buffalo. They will charge, it will be the running of the bulls.

[00:13:12] Nasreen If you do take a picture with a buffalo, make sure you're in live mode so we can see the whole progression as it happens.

[00:13:19] Mo You are running from the buffalo.

[00:13:21] Ciaran Right now what we're having, which happens from time to time, and it may have something to do with orcas is bioluminescence.

It is the most magical, amazing thing, but you never know when and where it's going to show up. There's not a bioluminescent tour that you can sign up for because it happens in Long Beach and then it happens in Huntington Beach and then it happens in Dana Point, and you never can one hundred percent predict where and when it's going to pop up.

[00:13:49] Ciaran So if you're in Southern California and you want to see bioluminescence, it's really a matter of putting yourself in the right place at the right time and staying flexible. Knowing that you could get a phone call from somebody you know at 10:00 PM and be like you know what? It just hit in this particular place and you need to have a plan to go there.

Have a plan for where you're going to park there and be ready to see it. I imagine it's similar with Northern Lights and other types of phenomenon that sort of come and go and are weather related. You have to know what are the best places to see it and where am I going to situate myself?

[00:14:26] Des That is the Northern Lights. There is no guarantee when you book your trip. I went to Iceland and it was a catastrophe by most standards because it was a blizzard. Everything was shut down. Once the roads finally did open, we could do one Northern Lights tour. They knew where to drive the bus out to the place where it's most likely. We learned to download a special Aurora Borealis app so that it notified me. Once I got to Reykjavik it sent an alert.

Northern Lights, extremely likely in this area within the next 15 minutes. And I will tell you three nights in a row, I got that alert and I was already in bed. I still put on all five layers and got to the roof of my hotel so I could go see them.

I booked it specifically because of that rooftop zone. They said, you'll never see them from Reykjavik because there are too many city lights.

I saw them. A downer though, to prepare anybody going to see Northern Lights, when you look with the naked eye they are not these awe inspiring green and purple. It's like white light in the sky. It's so depressing because every image you've ever seen, it's like green lights, dancing in the sky. Nobody prepared me for that. No one. I felt like it was the biggest lie I'd ever been told in my life. You're not going to look up in the sky when you see the big white bands through the sky.

They say those are it. And I'm, no, they're not. That's white. But when you look through your phone, that's the green.

[00:15:51] Nasreen Have I been colorblind my entire life?

[00:15:54] Des Oh, I was so like, what a lie. What a lie. But you can capture it on your phone easily. And everyone's oh, they're amazing. They are, and they're not still no regrets. Still would love to go back.

This is supposed to be a banner year for Northern Lights 2024 apparently. The scientists say there's an 11 year cycle of them and this is the powerful year.

[00:16:16] Nasreen While we're talking about specific years. We know there's a solar eclipse coming this year and that's a huge natural travel event. Not only is there a very limited geography within which it happens that we know will be busy because it's going to be hundreds of years until the next exact full solar eclipse happens.

But it's minutes. You've got what - three to seven minutes to see it, depending on where you are for the full eclipse. So there is timing and planning and allowing for the traffic of everybody else getting to where it is and trying to book yourself in the exact location so that you don't have to move around during that time and miss it. Those types of once in a lifetime trips have to be planned extremely carefully with a lot of contingencies built in so that you don't travel somewhere and miss it because you were stuck in traffic and didn't get to where you thought you were going to because you booked a hotel an hour away.

[00:17:13] Ciaran That sounds like something we would do.Totally something my family would do. We would decide to go last minute and we would book the hotel an hour away and we would totally miss it. We'd have some great stories to tell about that time. We almost saw the eclipse.

[00:17:28] Mo Great memory. Still a good story.

[00:17:30] Nasreen And definitely different areas of the states are different. My husband looked at me the other day and was like, oh, we should bring the kids to see the eclipse. We'll go to these friends of ours in Vermont's house. And I'm like, I don't think it's going near there. And he said, it's going in Vermont. I looked it up, I'm like, yeah, like an hour and 15 minutes to the east, it's not going near them.

There's a very specific path and you can look it up. They've got a whole website for it with the bands where you can see part of it and the line where you can see the full of it and it doesn't go through major cities., I think the city I went closest to when I looked was Cleveland.

So a lot of this is going to be rural areas with limited hotels where you may not be familiar with their roads, where you could get stuck behind a tractor. But is anyone planning to see the eclipse or are we the only ones looking into it right now?

[00:18:17] Des I'm going to miss it by a day. I'm going to Ohio for the writer's Workshop and I miss it by one day.

[00:18:23] Mo I think it's happening in Waco, Texas.

[00:18:25] Nasreen It's happening very close to there.

[00:18:26] Mo Everything in Waco has been booked forever.

[00:18:29] Nasreen Oh, I'm sure.

[00:18:31] Mo I think if you if you had your heart set on that, you might want to do some checking.

[00:18:34] Nasreen I'm pretty sure it's going to go right over I-35 and with the normal traffic there, just start driving in the morning and you'll be able to see it.

[00:18:40] Mo There you go. And then just drive home.

[00:18:42] Ciaran I am not an eclipse person. I will fully confess. I don't even know when it is or where it's happening. I haven't looked into it. I'm more into the bioluminescence.

It is as spectacular in person as it is in photos. It never disappoints.

[00:18:57] Des I feel like they always say there's this solar eclipse. It's not going to happen for another hundred years. But didn't we just go through that two years ago, or maybe it was five years ago . We had to buy special glasses and we couldn't look up. Do you know what I mean?

This hundred year event happens like every five years.

[00:19:11] Nasreen They're slightly different every time. I remember going out with a cardboard box on my head when I was in junior high in New Hampshire for that. I know that something did happen a couple years ago because I asked my friend whose husband was a pilot, and I'm like- Planes were still flying.

What did they do? And she goes, they give them glasses. And I'm like the same glasses that I'm wearing on the ground, so I don't go blind by looking at the sun? I don't know how I feel about this.

[00:19:33] Mo They just closed their eyes for those few…

[00:19:35] Nasreen We're not looking. We’re on autopilot right now. So I guess the other thing to remember about some of these special occasions that you are so excited about traveling for and I don't want to sound like Debbie Downer or negative Nancy or whatever.

For you they are special and you are traveling to see them. And for the people who live there, it is a nightmare. So bluebonnet season. All of a sudden we can't get anywhere. You have to worry about people coming out of every corner of the road when you're driving. There's small children running around on rural highways that are 60 miles an hour.

It's terrifying. In New Hampshire and Vermont, when I lived there, foliage season. People stopping in areas to take pictures. People driving 10 miles an hour on a main road that you're trying to get to work on. As I say in a lot of episodes have a little grace for the people who live there. Do a little bit of research ahead of time to prepare yourself for where you can go see things, where you can pull off safely.

Enjoy the drive. We're not telling you to not enjoy it, but just maybe if you notice someone behind you, just safely pull over for a moment and go back to looking at the colors. Because we do know it's gorgeous and we're blessed to live in places that have this type of scenery, but it does have an impact when it is adding stress to your life daily from other folks being there.

[00:20:59] Des I feel like that for DC for people going to the Cherry Blossom Festival. They predict they're going to peak on these days. People are spending a lot of money to go see it.

It's like, Hey, this is an annual event here in DC and we really need to deal with this every single year. Or maybe they see it as opportunity and

[00:21:15] Nasreen It's a great tourist opportunity. Don't get me wrong. I worked at a coffee roaster. We had a ton of people in during that time. It was fantastic for local businesses. It just added a lot of stress to daily life in general. But I think part of it is also if you're traveling for something special like that you need to also be prepared for disappointment that you may miss it. It may not be what it is that year. We had years where the foliage came so late. People were there, nothing happened yet. We had years where it came super early and they're there and it's starting to ice and slush. And so it really depends a lot on using those trackers, looking at the predictions, trying to time it for the middle if you absolutely have to see it so you have the best chance.

And just also seeing the charm of the area and what else there is to do there so that you aren't just devastated when you get there and you're visiting museums in DC instead of looking at cherry blossoms or you're patting alpacas in Vermont instead of seeing bright leaves.

[00:22:13] Ciaran Witnessing a natural phenomenon it's a privilege. It's not a right. When you plan a trip around something like that you need to have proper respect for the environment and for the fact that you're getting to see something that maybe not a lot of people get to see and that could easily be destroyed or go away if it's not viewed respectfully. When people jump into tide pools and trample all over fields of wildflowers, they're literally ruining it for the next year's season and for everybody else and for the world in general. Have some respect, have some wonder, have some awe. If you have the awe to seek out phenomenons to see them I'm assuming that you have some feeling for nature and it's not all for the Gram. Don't just do it for the Gram, do it for the experience of seeing something truly amazing and phenomenal.

[00:23:09] Nasreen And if you are doing it all for the Gram you could make arrangements for that in advance. They had to shut down an entire road in Vermont that leaf peepers were changing their outfits to take pictures in front of and blocking the whole road. But if you know that there's a beautiful area that you want to visit, find a couple of local farms there.

They have social. Reach out. Say, Hey, I'd like to make sure I can take some images. Can I pay to park there and take some photos on your property? And they'll do it. It's income, they love to know ahead of time what's going to happen. I had friends who were maple farmers who used to let people onto their land to take pictures.

[00:23:45] Ciaran That is a really good tip to find local farmers. Find local people. Post in a local Facebook group saying, Hey, I'd like to get some good pictures of the flowers. Is there anybody who can recommend a location where I'd be able to do X, Y, and Z respectfully without harming the environment.

Because if you just show up and try to pull over, it's not going to happen. You're not going to get the shots. The same thing in Europe too. I have to say, I was in Cinque Terre, which is not a natural phenomenon in the same sense, but the trails there are absolutely gorgeous. There were so many people that you couldn't pass.

There's so many people that were there with their parasols and six outfits and high heels about to fall off a cliff. That's a whole other episode.

[00:24:33] Nasreen If you are going to go see a phenomenon that lasts for a little bit longer say the bluebonnets, say leaf peeping, flowers, things like that, where it's not a solar eclipse that is one time, one date. If it is at all possible, since you're already taking time off, go during the week.

Not like a Monday holiday. Go during the week because you see these TikToks where it shows here's what it looked like on TikTok or Instagram and here's what it looked like when I got there. And it's just people everywhere. You will have a better experience if you do not go on a weekend in any of those locations.

It really doesn't matter what it is. Almost always a weekday is going to be better and less busy.

[00:25:17] Des And maybe this is one of those times you book the Airbnb with the local person who does live amongst it so that you are not having to come in and out through the traffic . When I stayed in Santorini I chose to stay in an Airbnb right outside one of the blue domes. I could see it from my shower. It was that crazy scene you talk about where it's sunset, people are just lined up and packed and it's ugly and it's not the photo image. But if you book the park there, I would assume it's the same for Texas or the leaf peeping or what have you, then you've got, front row access the entire time you're there.

[00:25:53] Nasreen The Airbnb hosts, they'll put pictures up around their property. They will put pictures up of the bluebonnets with the little cottage that you're staying in. They will put up pictures of the leaves. You will know it looks like that. You can even message them and be like, Hey. I'm looking at booking.

This is when I'm looking to come. I saw your gorgeous pictures. Do you have bluebonnets on your property every year? What's good to do around there for leaf peeping where I can get off and take some pictures and not be in everyone's way? And they will know then that you are coming for that.

And as they think of things, if they're good hosts, they will message and let you know of other things to do and you can ask them those questions so that it's a great time to immerse yourself and get further into the town with the Airbnb for sure.

[00:26:34] Ciaran Yeah, stay local. Download any apps like you had the Aurora Borealis app. There's Tide apps, there's flower bloom apps, there's leaf color change apps. They all exist. Join local Facebook groups of people who have special interests Like marine biology and stay on top of it because you're going to get the best tips from the people who are into the same thing and who have been there and done that and know all the ins and outs.

[00:27:02] Nasreen Absolutely. Anyone else have anything fun and natural?

[00:27:07] Mo It is almost crawfish season

here. That's always exciting.

[00:27:10] Ciaran Bird migration, watch the big year. It's such a fun

Before you go birdwatching,

[00:27:16] Nasreen I have to mention another Texas phenomenon here that was slightly horrifying. In Texas, there is a giant butterfly migration. They're beautiful. They're swarms of monarchs and they're going across the state. You can take these gorgeous pictures. They cross highways and the cleanup on vehicles around that time… So you have to understand that there is another side to some of these things, like Ciaran was saying, with the seals getting eaten, right?

There is a hidden side to every little pretty thing that people are going to see. Snakes in the grass for bluebonnets, hitting a moose when you're leaf peeping, seals when you're whale watching. And yeah, the butterflies definitely added a certain feeling to highways.

[00:28:02] Ciaran That's so tragic. The monarchs are endangered.

We have them here too. Just like the thought of that hurts

[00:28:07] Nasreen I know. And there's a ton of them and there's butterfly sanctuaries and things, but they go across I 35. It just, it happens.

[00:28:14] Des It is a bit depressing to think about climate change too and its impact on all of this. For me, I'd love to go to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and I keep thinking if I don't get there soon, I hear it's going to be gone. I guess this is our nudge to go see the things while we can.

[00:28:29] Nasreen Go check it out. Be respectful. Leave it for other people.

[00:28:32] Des yes.

[00:28:33] Mo Absolutely.

[00:28:34] Nasreen Thank you for joining us on another episode of Time to Talk Travel. We'll be back next week with another travel topic.

[00:28:39] 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.

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