Travel Plans 2016/17

I don’t know about you but one of my favourite times is when I first start planning a trip somewhere. It’s all the excitement of where to go, when to go, what to do and see etc.

Like I’ve previously said, after coming back from my month in America I 100% have the post travel blues. So much so, that I was back not even 24 hours and was already planning next years big travels, but I’ll start off with the not so distant future first.

 

• Dublin: Nothing is booked for Dublin as it was literally just brought into play a few hours ago. With one of my friends having time off work in the middle of August she mentioned she didn’t want to be off from work and not do anything so, Dublin. I’ve been twice before and I loved it, so why not go back? It will just be for about 2 days, but 2 days away from here and away from work is better than nothing at all.
• London: The weekend after I plan on going to Dublin, I’m heading back down to London. I cannot wait, London is a favourite place of mine. I’m going to London for 4 days, why? Comedy of course. You may not have heard of him but I’m going down to see a comedian from Boston (so fitting after my last post) who is based in NY. I unfortunately didn’t get to see him when I was in NY as he had shows in Princeton. Anything for an excuse to go to London for me.
• Kraków/Reykjavik: It will be one or the other, I’m still waiting to see if myself and my 5 best friends are going away for a weekend, but if not I might just have to head off to one of these places myself. It will be October/November time so it will be a good end to the year as my last trip of 2016.
• London: Again? I hear you ask. Again. Like before I’m off to London for Comedic reasons, two weekends in a row I’m going down to see the Impractical Jokers. The excitement I have for these shows is something else. If you don’t know who the Impractical Jokers are I beg you to find out. They are 4 of the funniest guys ever, from Staten Island. Check them out.
• Thailand: Camp Thailand to be precise, and possibly some travelling afterwards. I’ve applied for a new job and it all depends on the outcome of that as to whether I go for 3 weeks or 3 months (just a small jump in time). All I do know is, I plan on heading out at the end of August and am so ridiculously excited as Thailand is somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for a few years now.

 

Well that’s my travel plans so far! I cannot wait. Leave me a comment and tell me all about your future travel plans! I would love to hear about them, maybe our paths will be crossing at some point?

Travel Goals

When it comes to new year I’m not really a fan of resolutions, mainly because half way through the year I find I’ve given up. This year I’m not making resolutions as such, I’ve decided on a few goals which don’t necessarily last the year. Of these goals a few are travel related and that’s why I’m sharing them with you all.

Goals:

• Go on at least one weekend away myself.

I’ve decided I will find the money and time. Just to take five minutes rest from my life and the hassle of everything and go on an adventure. Nothing is set in stone but I’m hoping to at least try and visit Barcelona and Paris (mainly because they’re super close to the UK and I know there would be loads for me to do).

• Go on a trip with my friends.

So obviously not including my American road trip with my friends, as that’s completely set in stone and 100% happening (plus not all my friends are going). I’m hoping we all have another weekend away together somewhere else in Europe, last year we had Amsterdam I wonder where we will find ourselves this year? 

Amsterdam

• See more of Scotland.

I love my country so much and I love exploring it, going to places I’ve never been before but it’s something I feel I don’t do enough of. Hopefully this year that changes. Whether I jump on a bus (driving is out the window as I share a car with my mum and we’ve had a bit of a falling out unfortunately) and even just explore a part of Glasgow I’ve never seen before. Or get the train through to Edinburgh for a bit of exploring in our capital, or venturing further out to places which are unknown to me, any will make me happy. 
  

Driving to the Cairngorms in Scotland

Anyway, those are my travel plans for 2016 so far. Do you have any plans? Let me know.

Yasmin x

2016 travelling.

2015 is over, 2016 has begun and my countdown to my travels really begins.

150 days: the countdown has begun!

If I’m honest, we’ve been on a countdown since the minute our flights were booked as that’s when our plans finally came to life and it was actually happening. But now, now our trip is merely months away. 150 days. Can you believe it? After years of planning, it’s coming around so quickly.

And that’s only the start of my travelling plans!

Kraków and hopefully Thailand are on the list too, with who knows hopefully where else I may find myself journeying to.

I feel like this is going to be my year. This is going to be the year I start to experience what I want in life and start to make things happen for me. This time next year I want to have quit my job, I want to be travelling more, I want to be living my life to its fullest. I’m sick of working 40+ hours a week to not be seeing anything from it. I want to do something with my life and I know this year is when I figure everything out. “New year, new me” as they say… 

Anyway, happy new year lads! I hope 2016 is a good one for you all, and hey.. Feel free to leave me a comment. It’s always great to make new friends and speak to you all! 
Yasmin x

America is calling me

Las Vegas is first on my list; 97 days and I’ll be here. Once again I’m so excited to be spending another new year in America. It was New York City first time around and now I’m planning on heading to Vegas!

This time around, I know it will be even better for a few reasons:

1. I’m over 21 this time! I’ll legally be able to drink in America at New Year, last time I was only 20 and felt I couldn’t experience as much as I would have liked to.
2. I’m going to bloody LAS VEGAS.. I can’t even begin to imagine what New Year will be like here. New York was so different to what I expected and I know Vegas will surprise me even more.

I’m slightly more excited talking about this than I would usually be, but that might just be because that was me finally getting Vegas paid off today, now it’s all about saving so when I get there I can see how lucky I am in the casino’s. Let’s be honest, nothing would make 2016 start off better than a win in Vegas.. But honestly, I don’t see this happening. A girl can dream though, can’t she?

Now if you thought that was good enough, it gets even better. 253 days from now (May 30th 2016 to be precise) I head back out to America again, this time with my 3 best friends.

We’re going to rent a car and road trip it across America!!!

Starting off in Boston and making our way to New York, Washington D.C, Abingdon, Nashville, New Orleans, Ennis, Amarillo, Farmington, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Simeon and ending our trip in San Francisco.

A month long trip with 3 of my best friends. Question. What more could a 22 soon to be 23 year old girl from Glasgow want?  Answer. Nothing,

Flights to America

It’s official now.
Our flights to America are booked for next year, I can’t quite believe it. It’s all feeling so real now. 

• 30th May 2016 we fly from Glasgow to Amsterdam/Amsterdam to Boston.
• 29th June 2016 we fly from San Fransisco to Amsterdam/Amsterdam to Glasgow. 

Got such a great deal on our flights, £555pp with STA Travel, almost £200pp cheaper than what we had originally found online. Now that the flights are booked it’s really sunk in to us all that this is happening, we are going on our road trip across America. I really can’t wait for this experience with my best friends, it’s going to be unreal.

Coast to Coast: USA road trip

It’s official. My friends and I have finalised our plans for our American road trip and I am ecstatic of our plans!
Basically this is a basic itinerary of how we’ll be spending our time.

• Day 1. Boston: we arrive, sort out our rental car and then head to the motel. Head out for some dinner and drinks and then get an early night for the next day.
• Day 2. Boston: our full day in Boston, we’re looking at doing some walking tours and taking in some of the history and maybe seeing some of the nightlife that night.
• Day 3. Salem/NYC: up early for some breakfast then drive up to Salem and get a feel for its witchcraft history, we’ll spend some time here before heading to NYC. We’re actually planning on staying in North Bergen, NJ. So it will be easier as we’ll just use public transport to get into New York City itself.
• Days 4-6. New York City: we plan on doing quite a few things here, a helicopter tour, matinee Broadway show, in addition to many of the other typical tourist things to do. We aren’t big shoppers so we won’t be spending much of our time in and out of shops. We’ll definitely be looking to party it up in NYC so suggestions of bars/clubs to go to would be fab.
• Day 7. NYC/Philadelphia/Washington DC: we will most likely be leaving NYC relatively early as we’re planning on stopping at Philadelphia on our way to DC as one of us has family there so we will pop in and say ‘Hi’. I believe we’re actually staying in Virginia but just a short subway ride from the capital. We’ll most likely just get some dinner and have a walk about at some of the tourist spots.
• Day 8. Washington DC: for us this will mostly be about seeing the sights. War memorials and the Lincoln statue etc. maybe visit a wee museum. If anyone has any ones they think we definitely shouldn’t miss out on??
• Day 9. Washington DC/Abingdon: we’ve just added Abingdon in as originally we had a 10 hour drive from Washington DC to Nashville but thought we would split it in half. Any ideas of what to do/see in Abingdon would be appreciated?
• Day 10. Abingdon/Nashville: we’ll most likely just have some dinner and get an early night here so we can see what Nashville has to offer the following day.
• Day 11. Nashville: here all we have is The Grande Ole Oprey. My friend is a guitar player and we all love music so if there’s any great recommendations of venues to see some live music that would be great.
• Day 12. Nashville/New Orleans: we plan on heading out early again here stopping for something to eat in Alabama and again in Mississippi. Then as soon as we arrive, we’ll most likely drop our things and head straight to the French Quarter!
• Day 13-14. New Orleans: here we’re interested in soaking up the architecture and sights. And drinking.. We’ll probably do a fair bit of drinking here, we are 4 Glaswegians after all.
• Day 15. New Orleans/Ennis: again Ennis has just recently been added. So we’ll probably just leave New Orleans and have a chilled drive to Ennis and a chilled night here.
• Day 16. Ennis/Amarillo: once we arrive in Amarillo we’ll be heading to Cadillac Ranch to get our spray paint on. Then we’ll definitely be checking out Palo Duro Canyon. We’ll be planning on getting stuck right into the Big Texan Steak Ranch for dinner. We reckon we could smash the challenge!
• Day 17. Amarillo/Farmington: we’ll probably head out early and grab breakfast at the Midpoint Cafe, as we’ve been recommended to. It will be another chilled night here for us.
• Day 18. Famington/Four Corners/Monument Valley/Grand Canyon: we will be up super early to head to the Four Corners Monument, probably explore a bit before it opens at 8am, then off to Monument Valley. From there we’ll be heading to Yavapai Lodges. We’ll be eating/sleeping when we arrive so we are up early for the next full day.
• Day 19. Grand Canyon/Las Vegas: our morning will be spent visiting the Grand Canyon. We’ll probably spend quite a lot of time here as our night in Vegas will just be eating/drinking/maybe visit a casino.
• Day 20-21. Las Vegas: our time will be spent, drinking, gambling and hopefully catch a show. This is the only place we’ll be staying anywhere fancy (The Bellagio) as it’s a birthday gift. We were planning on going to a shooting range here but have been advised to go to one in Texas instead?
• Day 22. Las Vegas/Los Angeles: we’ll be up early and heading to LA, get to our motel, grab some food and probably enjoy the nightlife.
• Day 23-25. Los Angeles: in LA we’re looking forward to the beaches, the nightlife and universal studios. We’re not massive theme park fans but Universal has something we’re all interested in.
• Day 26. Los Angeles/San Simeon: we were told we had to add in a day between LA and San Fran somewhere so we’ve chosen San Simeon.
• Day 27. San Simeon/San Francisco: like most of our travelling days it will probably just be rather chilled especially as it’s coming towards the end of our trip.
• Day 28-30. San Francisco: the only thing we have planned for San Fran is Alcatraz. Maybe rent some bikes and cycle about, go on a tram etc.
• Day 31. San Francisco/Glasgow: well this will be the day we either all dread or can’t wait for, the day we head home.

As you can all see, this is the outline of our trip and it’s one I cannot wait for.

Money isn’t an issue for us, so advice on must do/see things in each place is welcome. All our places are set in stone, along with the time scale. But please guys, we welcome any feedback or suggestions. They would be much appreciated.

Bring on 2016!!!!

East to West – Road trip planning.

Just over a year to go and our American road trip planning is well under way.

We’re planning on spending just under 4 weeks in America, with 4 of us going there will be 3 of us taking turns driving from Boston to San Francisco, with many stops along the way such as:

• Boston
• Salem
• NYC
• Washington D.C
• Nashville
• New Orleans
• Jacksonville
• Amarillo
• Farmington
• Las Vegas (via 4 corners and Grand Canyon)
• Los Angeles
• San Francisco

We’re looking for something interesting/out of the ordinary/just different in general to do in each place. We have a couple of things that so far are musts, such as a helicopter ride in NYC, Nashville escape games, Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, shooting range in Vegas etc. But does anyone have any other ideas of interesting/unusual things to do/see in any of these places?

Help a brother out, I’ll be forever grateful.

American road trip 🇺🇸

It may be quite a while away but my friends and I are planning probably the most amazing trip of our lives, and it’s all planned out already.

2016 may seem quite far away but just look how quickly this year is passing, before we know it we’ll be in America having the time of our lives.

Basically we’re renting a car and driving from one side to the other. We’re planning on going to: Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, Nashville, New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Diego and San Francisco while hitting a few other places along the way.

We have a good idea of what we are wanting to do etc, but if anyone has any suggestions of must go places, must see things and must do things. Pretty pretty please, let me know.