Tag: Travel

An Old Ghost-Town That Everybody Forgot

We’d been talking about trying to include a trip to a good ol’ American ghost town but one of the biggest (Bodie) was a little too far off our route.

Instead, we picked a visit to Grafton on the way back from Zion. Grafton was evacuated in 1866 due to flooding and fighting, with the last few families moving in 1944. The buildings have been restored and it’s a great glimpse into the past.

There were around five buildings remaining, one being the church / school house and a small graveyard.

It was quite eerie to wander around the empty buildings; being one of those people who watch far too many scary films, I couldn’t help thinking about the abandoned buildings in the Blair Witch. It was easy to imagine someone or something hiding in the dusty corners of the buildings.

There was only one other small group of people on the site when we visited and that added to the sense of isolation. The backdrop was stunning, all red rock mountains and dust-ground floors.

It wasn’t a long visit but it was a big change from the other sites on our trip and really gave a sense of history to the scenery we were experiencing.

The Secret Location for the AllSpark and Megatron – Otherwise Known as the Hoover Dam

My main memory of the Hoover Dam was heat. It was blisteringly hot and that’s coming from someone who had just spent a day or too baking in the Vegas sun. The problem with the Hoover Dam is that there is no shelter, none at all. So if you are planning to visit, lather up on sunscreen – trust us it’s worth it!

Once you get past the heat, it’s easy to be blown away by the sheer size of the Hoover Dam. It. Is. Huge! If you have vertigo / get dizzy with heights, this could be a challenging place. One peak over the edge of the wall had my head spinning. But it was worth it. The views are incredible and as we visited on such a sunny day, the colours of the dam walls against the blue of the water and sky was striking.

Wandering Beeb was enthralled with the sheer engineering feat of building something so huge. Being a bit of a history buff, he was completely fascinated with the history of the build and there was plenty of information dotted around the dam to keep him busy.  He worked his way around the site, absorbing information on the construction and the stories behind the dam.

I’m a bit more visual, so I spent my time snapping pictures and taking in the site. I also wanted to get my geek on by spending time looking at the place where they stored Megatron’s body in Transformers (the dam was the base for Sector Seven in the Transformers movie).

I’ve heard a number of people talk about the costs at the Hoover Dam, and it’s true, you can be charged for everything; a tour inside the building, a tour around the site, for drinks (don’t forget that heat I mentioned before – make sure you take loads of water!). However, if you want to go on a budget, just don’t take any of the tours! We spent an hour or so there and didn’t spend a penny.  The site has lots of information dotted around and there is plenty to see without paying for a tour.

A product of a design competition winner, the winged statues guard the entrance to the dam. The unusual method of installing the statues involved using blocks of ice, which melted in the sun to help the engineers to get the placement and finish for the statues just right. Known as ‘Winged Figures of the Republic’, they sit on jet black bases, reminding me of those two statues Atreyu had to pass through in ‘The Neverending Story’.

With over one million visitors each year churning through the Hoover Dam site, you can expect any visit to be busy, however I think that we were quite lucky. We stopped off at the dam fairly early in the morning on our route to the Grand Canyon. It was a long day but it was well worth it to avoid the crowds.

Whether your visit is due to an interest in the history of the dam, to wonder at the sights or (like me) to see where the AllSpark is hidden (Transformers again!), Hoover Dam is a great place to visit and is guaranteed to get you some great photos.

New Year, Old Goals, New Focus?

As new year rolls around again, we’ve been looking back on some of our posts from last year and reviewing the goals that we set for 2018.

This time last year, we’d set ourselves the goals of doing more short breaks and perhaps getting another big trip in to somewhere exotic. None of that happened in 2018! Instead, the money we would have used to travel ended up helping us to buy a house. Houses are expensive little f@&kers (who knew?!) and that meant we had no spare cash for travelling.

I really struggled with that (Wandering Beeb is far more relaxed than me!) and a combination of ants in my pants, a travelling bug and the inability to relax unless I’m physically away from home meant that I scrimped and scraped to cobble together some cash to manage a couple of days away in Plitvice Lakes and Split in Croatia. So what if that meant that we had no flooring in the house (in a contest between flooring and travel, travel wins hands down, right?!).

All of the expenditure on the house has meant that we needed to change our outlook on travel this year. Local places needed to be seen through fresh eyes and we explored things closer to home. We wrote about our approaches to this here.

One of the things that has really helped us to do this is the ‘Manc_Wanderer’ account on Instagram (check it out if you are an Insta person). Seeing our home town through these amazing photos really forced us to look at our surroundings with fresh eyes.

So, this leads me to 2019. Our goals are a combination of looking a places close to home with fresh eyes, building in smaller weekend city breaks and (hopefully) getting away on a bigger trip later in the year. Yes those goals sound familiar. We set similar goals last year but 2018 had its own ideas. Our goals might not all happen; but that’s what goals are, things to aim for, not things set in stone. Ether way, it will be an interesting ride.

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?