Tag: New places

Top 10 Tips for a Road Trip

Top tips for getting the most out of your road trip

Road trips rock. There is no better way to see new places and meet new people. There’s something about getting out on the road – a sense of freedom that you don’t always get to experience in everyday life.

We’ve done a few road trips (some successfully and some less so!) and we’ve put together the top 10 tips for a successful road trip to help you get the most out of your travels:

10. Try to travel light. Over packing the car means a heavier car to steer and all those extra clothes will mean less space to stretch out. Not much fun. Particularly when leg room is at a premium. Trust us! One year we had four people, luggage, food for a week (we were camping) and camping gear, all in a small SUV. When we pulled in to a rest stop to get firewood, the guy chopping the wood actually called his mate over to take a photo of how packed the car was. They couldn’t stop laughing and we were so cramped, it was hard to find the gear stick. Not something we’d want to repeat as it was uncomfortable as hell, but looking back it was one of our funniest trips.

9. Find your travel companions along the way. Road trips are a great way of making new friends – and finding new destinations. Ask other travellers where they are heading, share routes and split rides. When in Egypt, a mother and daughter shared our felucca down the Nile and ended up sharing our car for the ride out to the pyramids. They gave us loads of ideas that helped to inform our trip, and enhanced our experience by doing so.

8. Build in flexibility in to your trip. Planning everything out is great for providing some certainty and structure to your trip – but travel is about adventure! Being creative with your travel plans means that when your new-found travel companions mention the beautiful beach they are heading to the next day, you’re free to change your plans and join them – yeay!

7. If you aren’t confident driving in another country (or on the other side of the road for that matter), you might want to consider joining a long distance group bus trip such as Green Tortoise. Maintaining the road trip vibe, this company ensures that you have none of the stress and all of the fun by doing the driving for you.

6. Explore everything! Look out for places to pull over and spot things en route. Travelling down the Big Sur, we pulled in multiple times to admire the view and managed to spot some sea lions on the beach. Without random pit stops, we’d have missed scenes like this.

5. Shortest route vs the fastest route – the Sat Nav told us the shortest route between Tahoe and Yosemite. We believed it. We quickly realised that the road had turned into a dirt track, meaning that our top speed was approx 5mph to avoid ripping the underside of the car to pieces. The other route suggested by the Sat Nav turned out to be a well maintained road. The shortest route was absolutely not the fastest.

4. Have enough time for the trip. It’s horrible to say but we have to be honest; google lies!!! When you put your destination into google maps, don’t believe it when it tells you that it’s a 4 hour drive. Add more time. Add even more time for gas stops, rest stops and food. Add a bit more time for good measure because, you know; traffic and google lies. Do all that and you might have a more accurate estimate of your journey time. So many times, our planned four hour trip has turned into a 6 hour plus journey. Which can result in sleeping in the car. I’m not sure how it happens. Except; I think google lies.

3. Maps vs Sat Nav – Don’t rely on the Sat Nav provided with the car. They tend to drop signal and are not very accurate. Instead, download maps to your phone and use them as your Sat Nav. Don’t forget to take a paper map too – you never know when your battery may run out and you don’t want to be stranded in the dark with no idea which direction to head in. This is especially true for places with limited road signs – here’s looking at you Yosemite!

2. Sort out that playlist – if you are anything like me, the music on a trip can make or break a journey. Develop a playlist for each place that you are planning to visit – create your own travel soundtrack. Download a range of playlists to your device and make sure you have a way of connecting it to the car. Bluetooth, USB – whatever works, make sure it’s sorted. There is nothing worse than travelling in silence. Wandering Beeb will still start a ‘remember when we..’ story based off what music I’m playing – it’s a great way of remembering your trip by linking the places you’ve visited to specific pieces of music.

1. Pick your travel companions wisely! Spending a long time together in the car or on a bus for vast stretches of road can take a toil on even the best of friendships. Long journeys in close proximity can bring out the best and worse in people – make sure your friendship can stand the test! Luckily, we’ve travelled with some brilliant people and always managed to stay friends by the end of the trip!!

What are your best road trip tips? Did we miss any?

A Gamer’s Paradise in Bury!

Sometimes the coolest places are just around the corner….

Wandering Beeb is a gamer and PS4 is his weapon of choice. I’m not far behind but I often have less time to jump on the computer. Given half a chance, I prefer the older games: I was raised on a Commodore 64 and love the text based games like ‘Cloak of Death’ (I’d love another go on that game, I’m sure I could crack it now that I’m older!!). With this shared love of computer games, a perfect date night between travel was to visit the Arcade Club in Bury, UK.

The Arcade Club was a dingy, dodgy warehouse style building down a back street. The car park was dark. It was throwing it down and I was a bit unsure of what we were letting ourselves in for.

All that changed when we got inside. From the moment we walked in, Wandering Beeb and I were overwhelmed by the huge range of games available. There’s VR, shoot-em-ups, pinball, arcade games, dance games, bizarre drum games from Japan and a section for new top of the market current games. Essentially it’s a gamer’s paradise.

The two floors heaved with the games on offer and people of all ages moved fluidly from machine to machine, trying out something new and returning to old favourites.

On the retro floor, old forgotten friends jostled for our attention, with special mentions going to:

  • Golden Axe (I’d forgotten just how annoying those little jerks who steal your potions are!)
  • Space Invaders – an oldie but a goodie
  • Simpson’s – we used to play this as a family when I was young. I’d forgotten all about it and getting back behind the controls made me remember just how much fun we had.
  • Soul Calibur – I had the Soul Blade version and loved this style of game
  • Killer Instinct – a childhood favourite of Wandering Beeb’s, his eyes were on fire when he spotted this beauty across the floor. He even remembered the special moves for his most treasured character.
  • Operation Wolf – I’d stand for ages watching my dad on this game. I have to admit, when I saw this one standing there, I had to fight back tears because I was so excited! Photos of the game went straight to my dad – sparking a conversation about the games we used to play.

On the more modern floor, Wandering Beeb and I hit the dance machines (we are both terrible), the drum kits (we aren’t much better on those either) and the new Spidey game. Taking a rest on the couches, we played Mario and Sonic whilst grabbing some refreshments, chattering about the memories the games had triggered.

Despite the looks of the venue, it was a really friendly, buzzing place and brought together a range of people, all with a common gaming interest.

It wasn’t a place that we needed to travel far to visit, but as we said in a previous post, it’s time to start looking at places close to home with fresh eyes: the eyes of a visitor. If we were new to the UK and wanted a cool place to hang out, this is where I’d be. It’s definitely a place to put on your list. See you there!

Diocletian’s Palace and the Basements Below

Diocletian’s Palace is a sprawling network of twisting, turning streets, ruins and basements. Whilst the palace walls house the marbled streets above, below street level are a warren of passages more fitting for a horror set than a palace of wealth.

Most famous for their use in Game of Thrones, as a place to keep dragons, the basements have an interesting history.

They have only recently been cleared out and made accessible (some parts are still closed off) following a clean up operation spanning the last 50 years.

Filled with debris, rubbish and rubble over the years from the development works above, the basements had become an inaccessible time capsule, the hallways blocked with remnants of the changes taking place.

Slowly, the basements have been cleared, opening up section by section to the public. We overheard this story from one of the tour guides, her disembodied voice echoing through the underground rooms to where we stood, looking up at one of the huge piles of remaining rubble. It was amazing to think that the high ceilings and pillars had recently been hidden by the things discarded by the people in the city.

Walking through the basements, dimly lit with the sound of water dripping down the walls was a haunting experience, contrasting with the bustle from the markets in the halls above. The only noise echoing though the corridors was the rustle of birds and the slight echoing of other tourist’s footsteps. At least I hope that’s what it was……

Plitvice Lakes: Where else can you walk over a waterfall?

Standing on a narrow wooden walkway, inches above a fast-flowing roar of water, my heart was pounding. There were no barriers and no safety rails. A small hand rail ran round some sections of the walkway, but disappeared at various points around the trail.

This was Plitvice Lakes. A national park in Croatia, around 3 hours journey from the town of Split. Known for its lakes and waterfalls, it was a stunning sight, but my heart was in my mouth the entire time.

Visiting the whole park in a day is a tough challenge. As we were only in Croatia for a couple of days, we planned to see as much of the park as possible in a day trip. Taking a coach to the top part of the park, we hiked around the top lakes and waterfalls, followed by a bus ride down to the bottom end of the park for the final hike around the waterfalls.

Croatia makes travelling easy. The names of the lakes and waterfalls are exactly how you would expect them to be: the biggest waterfall? Welcome to the ‘Big Splash’. A slightly smaller waterfall? It’s obviously ‘the Little Splash’! Follow the names of the waterfalls and the park is really easy to navigate.

The hike to the first set of waterfalls was the most impressive; walkways that hovered over the tops of the pouring water, deep lakes and the sounds of the water hitting the rock below.

We visited in October (luckily we avoided the rain!) and the paths were much clearer than they are in the height of summer. I don’t want to even think about navigating those walkways on a crowded day. It would have been very easy to step off the planks into the water below.

The colours in the park were amazing: deep blue and vivid aqua waters, green vegetation, grey rock and orange and brown autumn leaves. Everywhere we looked there was photo perfect scenery.

The final photo of the day was from the top trail, looking out over the cliff side at the waters below.

I’d love to visit the park again, perhaps spending a day or two to wander round and really take in the sights. Have you been to the park? What was your favourite site?