2024 travel plans

[cheekywife]

Feb 13, 2024 10:50:19 GMT -5 dreamcrisp1 said:

Jan 23, 2024 19:26:45 GMT -5 cheekywife said:

dutchgirl678 , where did you grow up? the netherlands is on our shortlist to relocate eventually.

Can also message me! We relocated to the Netherlands 5.5 (!!) years ago!

thanks! will definitely take you up on that if that's where we end up. 

[Vespasia]

Pibs I love that your relative has a Eurovision party. I host one every year and always invite college friends to come visit. 

dreamcrisp1 we've been investigating moving to the Netherlands because I should be able to qualify for a DAFT visa. I don't think it will happen soon because of family obligations but I will definitely reach out if so! 

[mrsukyankee]

Pibs, I am entirely jealous of your Bourbon Trail trip and I want to hear all about it! (I run bourbon bottle sharings in London)

[Pibs]

Feb 16, 2024 13:18:51 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

Pibs, I am entirely jealous of your Bourbon Trail trip and I want to hear all about it! (I run bourbon bottle sharings in London)

I will report back! 😊

[wildrice]

I am super late to this thread - it's already March! We haven't done anything yet this year though.

In a couple of weeks I'm going to Rome and Florence for a study abroad over spring break trip. It's my last class for graduate school so it's not a vacation, but we'll be doing a decent amount of sightseeing and most importantly, eating. I'll be with other students but otherwise will be "solo".

In May my H and I are going to Morocco, primarily focusing on Marrakesh, Fes, and a trip east to see some of the rural parts of the country and go desert glamping.

We will probably have a couple of weekend meetups with friends this summer but not sure where - I may do a girls trip to Chicago and we usually meet another couple somewhere in the US but haven't made any plans for that yet.

We also have a long weekend at the shore planned in September.

Over Thanksgiving we're going to Cancun with my parents, sisters, and my sister's family.

We are also hoping to fit in another bigger trip somewhere but haven't decided when or where. On the table are both Ireland and Cuba but it may be neither of those, and it might end up waiting until January 2025. Will probably depend on when we can fit it into everything else this year and what kind of airfare deals we can find (if any!).  I tend to feel kind of burned out on being busy if we travel too much too close together, so there may not be a logical time to add something else this year!

[nellywilk]

We are going to Slovenia and Slovakia in July. If you're driving through Slovakia, a vignette is a must-have slovakiavignette.eu. It's required for all vehicles on motorways and can be conveniently bought at various locations, including online. We already got one , straight after booking a rental car.

[sdlaura]

Washington state in early july - San Juan islands and Olympic national park

Martha’s Vineyard at the end of July

Monterey, CA early August

Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia over winter break

[Pibs]

Feb 16, 2024 13:18:51 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

Pibs, I am entirely jealous of your Bourbon Trail trip and I want to hear all about it! (I run bourbon bottle sharings in London)

I totally forgot about this until tonight! Our trip was fantastic -- friend picked a great group of old school and new distilleries. We're hoping to go back in a couple of years.

We were already pretty sure that we were more scotch people than bourbon, which is still true, but we definitely appreciate and like bourbon more now. Is there anything specific you want to know about?

[mrsukyankee]

May 23, 2024 23:34:58 GMT -5 Pibs said:

Feb 16, 2024 13:18:51 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

Pibs , I am entirely jealous of your Bourbon Trail trip and I want to hear all about it! (I run bourbon bottle sharings in London)

I totally forgot about this until tonight! Our trip was fantastic -- friend picked a great group of old school and new distilleries. We're hoping to go back in a couple of years.

We were already pretty sure that we were more scotch people than bourbon, which is still true, but we definitely appreciate and like bourbon more now. Is there anything specific you want to know about?

Favourite distillery tours?

[Pibs]

May 24, 2024 3:31:37 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

May 23, 2024 23:34:58 GMT -5 Pibs said:

I totally forgot about this until tonight! Our trip was fantastic -- friend picked a great group of old school and new distilleries. We're hoping to go back in a couple of years.

We were already pretty sure that we were more scotch people than bourbon, which is still true, but we definitely appreciate and like bourbon more now. Is there anything specific you want to know about?

Favourite distillery tours?

Wilderness Trail was really great. It's a newer distillery and seems pretty modern. We were the only people on our tour, so it was really quiet and laid back. It was one of the few where we got to try the distillate, which I always think is interesting. There was the cutest cat named Cooper who pretty much did the tour with us -- like he knew where we were going and would lead the way which was super fun. 

Bardstown was also pretty cool - their property is absolutely beautiful. If I remember right, we started that tour out with a tasting (including the distillate) and then did the tour which is not the usual order. One thing we saw there that we haven't seen anywhere else was how they fill the barrels and that was kinda fun.

Buffalo Trace has free tours. Our friend was super sad because he looked the day they were released for our trip dates and nothing was available, but I checked their site on a whim the day before and almost every tour type was open. We did one that took us around their property and was more of a historic tour, so we didn't see their distilling process. 

And since I went ahead and made it to three of them, I'll just throw in my notes from the rest. 

Wilderness Trail

• Newer, modernish
• Quiet, chill tour where you get to see everything
• Got to try distillate
• Cooper the cat
• Liked the bourbon
• Shot glasses



Four Roses (Distillery, not warehouse)

• Old school, Spanish style buildings, pretty grounds, porch, deck
• Didn't do a tour, just a tasting
• Bourbon not our favorite, would feel comfotable mixing in cocktails
• Square tumbler



Woodford Reserve

• Didn't do a tour, took a super fun Mixology class where we were served multiple old fashions & given recipe cards
• Bourbons are common-ish, basic, ok for mixing.
• Go during April and Derby time for Mint Julep class!
• Crystal old fashioned glasses



Bardstown

• New, modern and beautiful
• Thorough tour that included distillate, barreling bourbon & rick houses
• Good bourbons, bar on site with seasonal slushys -- the apple bourbon one I had for breakfast was great!
• Distilling a lot for other companies, blending, working on their own recipes now
• Great lunch & cocktails
• Small snifter-ish glass



Luxe Row

• Went for yummy cocktails between Bardstown & HH
• Peacocks!



Heaven Hill

• Old farmhouse + modern
• Didn't do a tour, a little history included but interesting
• Bourbon more old school, not our favorite

Fun Heaven Hill story -- we live in Portland, OR and have a ton of breweries around. One of our favorites is Great Notion because they're generally just unique. They have an app they created during COVID and since we've been using it for years and buy beer there pretty often we're on one of their higher point tiers, giving us access to special releases in advance. Our tour was for 3PM. We sat down and I got a notification on my phone that they were dropping a new beer. I looked at it after the tasting -- the beer was named 3PM and was a bourbon barrel stout aged in Heaven Hill barrels. 


Bulleit

• Hipster vibe from guide & site
• Trying to be sustainable
• Tour a little boring, didn't really go in to see process. Just looked though windows, and not everything was in use when we toured. 
• Probably the most unique tasting -- mood lighting, music, olfactory balls to complement tasting.
• Liked bourbon



Buffalo Trace

• So old, lots of history
• Beautiful grounds. Old Taylor Tour lets you see old building ruins
• Liked the vodka, bourbon OK. Didn't get to try super rare & allocated bourbons, maybe those would be better?
• Tons of people. So.Many.People. Seemed kind of commercial once we got to the tasting.
• No glassware, but all tours are free. Look for reservations when they open and closer to when you want to go. Nothing available when our friend set everything up, but we were able to book the day before.


For a future trip, we're 10000% going to Castle and Key. We drove by it randomly one evening and it looks super fun. Like we stopped because we were like "Is that a castle?!" And there's a tiny American castle. Their property is also really old and had building ruins that you can take a fancy ass tour and see, but the rest of their location just looked really cool. We were dropped off for our flight home really early because our friends were driving back so we went bourbon tasting in one of their bars -- they had a random bottle of Castle & Key gin that was really good and ended up coming home with us. 

[mrsukyankee]

Pibs, thanks so much for sharing!

[sandandsea]

We leave for Costa Rica soon and will be doing all the zip lining, rappelling, waterfalls, hot springs and also have a few beach days to chill.

[osumelissa]

We have booked a few more vacations:

August: Seattle - friends of mine live out there and their daughter is turning 1 year old, so we are going to her party. Will be out there for over a week, so will be sightseeing, going to wineries, and going to a baseball game.

October: Barbados for my boyfriend's birthday. I just booked our hotel this weekend and will figure out flights later this summer.

We also most likely will be going up to NYC at the end of August for a U.S. Open day session. Presale starts tomorrow morning, so I will be jumping on that.