Top 10 Winter Road Trips
It is time to hit the road but we are putting a winter spin on it. We have listed our top 5 (each) winter road trips and are sharing them with you and with each other. Some of these we have taken but not necessarily in the wintertime which puts a whole new lens on the experience. Grab your favorite warm beverage, get snuggly in your softest blanket, and sit back and enjoy this episode!
What road trips would make your list? Let us know by tagging us in a post on Instagram at @ExtraPackofPeanuts.
Today’s episode has been sponsored by the amazing folks over at Tortuga Backpacks!
Check out the entire library of EPoP Travel Podcasts on Apple Podcasts.
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In This Episode
- 07:25 Honorable Mentions
- 12:10 Number 5
- 18:35 Number 4
- 26:10 Number 3
- 35:30 Number 2
- 46:10 Number 1
Important Links
- Location Indie
- Follow Mack on Instagram
- Halcyon Hot Springs
- Elote Cafe In Sedona
- Want to follow our lives & adventures? Check out our Instagram’s @ExtraPackOfPeanuts, @HeatherSherry, and @TravelingWhitMyles
Want More?
- Top 10 Places To Spend Christmas
- Top 10 Favorite States
- Top 6 Places To Get Quarantined
- Top 16 Places Where We’d Live For 3 Months
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Transcript
Heather
But there’s some really fun things, like alien stuff, like if you’re into that.
Travis
Alien stuff, like aliens. Really cool stuff. Like you can just go see aliens.
Heather
No, like an alien spot.
Travis
The Extra Pack Of Peanut’s travel podcast, episode 453. In Australia, more people are killed by box jellyfish than sharks and crocodiles combined. Even more, reason to take a road trip and stay on the road.
Travis
OK, here’s something that’s a little crazy, I actually find it harder to pack for a road trip than I do for like a one or two-month big international vacation where we’ll be getting on a plane. And the reason is that when you’re taking a road trip, especially if you’re just getting in your car, you’re not flying anywhere to actually start the road trip.
Travis
I feel like I always overpack because I think well we got a little more space in the car, got a little more space and, you know, you look in the trunk and there’s all this little room and you just start shoving extra stuff in. And so that’s why nowadays when we take a road trip, I make sure that I contain everything that I have into the same bag that I would bring with me if I was traveling internationally. And that is a carry on bag and that is always my Tortuga backpack. So whether I’m taking a road trip or whether I’m going international, I always make sure, all right, I’ve got my carry on, it’s my Tortuga backpack. You can only pack what fits in here and no extra stuff. Anyone else does that? Anyone else shoves stuff in at the last minute? If you do try this strategy, you definitely need a good backpack to take with you. The one that I recommend that’s been around the world with me is my Tortuga backpack. You can check it out at Tortugabackpacks.com/EPOP that’s Tortugabackpacks.com/EPOP .
Travis
If you use that special link, we’ll get some love from the Tortuga folks. They’ll know that you’re an EPOPer, that you came from us. And they also have some special discounts going on right now for their holiday sales. So check it out Tortugabackpacks.com/EPOP.
Travis
Hello, travelers, and welcome to the Extra Pack Of Peanuts travel podcast, the show that teaches you how to travel more while spending less. I’m your host Travis Sherry. And joining me today is someone who is very, very, very patient with me while we tried to get the tech sorted out today, which took about three and a half hours. Giving you a little behind the scenes look, to get this new podcasting system set up. But hopefully, Heth, we do have sound effects now.
Heather
Oh, boy.
Travis
So we should be all good to go if you are not watching this, we are putting up you’ve been putting up every week that we’ve been doing once together on IGTV and now the sound will be better on IGTV, too, because we’re coming through the microphones, even though we’re recording the phone, which I’m not going to get into details of how it happened. But weeks of research and holes down rabbit holes to figure out how to get this done.
Heather
So after how many years have we had the podcast? Six years. You’ve decided to finally upgrade the podcasting equipment instead of having the same little Audio Technica. Is that what it is?
Travis
It’s not an Audio Technique. It’s a Tascam.
Heather
See, this is why he deals with all the tech stuff.
Travis
But it took me three and a half hours, so I’m not sure I should be the one dealing with this
Heather
In case, I mean, this is like a side note, but in case there are a lot of people who want to start podcasts, they always ask us what equipment do we use so that little one has been great for the past six years, and is awesome to travel with. Very easy. You can have two microphones set up to it.
Travis
Right. But now we decided we wanted to maybe do shows with more people. We wanted to set up a little studio here in the office. We want to be able to have sound effects, things like that. And so, yes, it’s been a long journey to get this here. It’s not perfect yet, but we are here and now we’re finally actually ready to record the podcast that three and a half hours ago, we were very jazzed to record and now we can actually record it.
Travis
And we’ll be talking about the best winter road trips. Because we’re following the theme of a holiday theme for every one of the shows that come out during December.
Heather
Yes. So we decided that I mean, this is not necessarily just a holiday. It’s the best winter road trip. You could do that around your holiday or you can take a holiday vacation, very British taking a ‘holiday’, to do a wonderful road trip. And so I have some really awesome ones that I’m excited about. Most of them I’ve actually personally done before at some time of the year and think that they would be awesome to do in the winter as well.
Travis
I have not seen Heather this excited about a podcast or like really doing this much research about a podcast, because during the three and a half hours when I was setting up the tech, there was a good hour and a half where she was doing her notes. And I thought she was doing notes for multiple podcasts and when I came back she said, I’m still working on my road trips. And I thought, uh oh, I’m going if this is a debate, if this is a throwdown showdown, I would get thrown down. Thankfully, we’re just going to have friendly banter today.
Heather
Well, I was only researching because some of the trips that we’ve done were a while ago. I mean, gosh, we haven’t even really been on many trips this whole year 2020 because of COVID. So I had to remember some of the names of the places, the towns, the national parks, all sorts of those things and then two places I haven’t really been. Like the one I’ve never done this road trip before so it’s just kind of one that I thought would be cool to do.
Travis
All right. So we each came up with five road trips, some of them we’ve been on, some of them we haven’t. So we didn’t hold ourselves to having been on these before. And also when we say winter road trips, we are talking about a northern hemisphere winter. So it would be winter for us here in North Carolina if we stayed here. So we’re talking essentially November, December, January, February.
Heather
Right. And let me just tease this out. My number one is a bit of a cheat because it is a warm-weather place.
Travis
I mean, that’s totally fine.
Heather
It is our winter.
Travis
I don’t think that’s a cheat and that’s totally fine.
Heather
It’s someone else’s summer.
Travis
Well, I guess that would be, yes that makes sense to me. Nice little foreshadowing there. Well, all right, let’s just get into it then. I actually have a bit of a cheat, too, as an honorable mention.
Travis
And you were like, I don’t even know what can I five. How will I get five? Now you have, of course, an honorable mention.
Travis
Well, that’s just, yeah, I did mine quick. So you did a lot of research? I did mine fairly quickly. So you, you know, you might pick up on that. My honorable mention because we’re talking about best winter road trips is actually not a road trip and this is why it’s a cheat. This is that I would love to take trains around Europe and all the cities during the winter.
Heather
So all the cities, all the cities of Europe.
Travis
Sure. Yes. I’d love all the cities. Of course. Who wouldn’t? I mean, anyone out there going to say, no, I don’t want to do all the cities, but by all the cities, what I was getting to was, a lot of the fun Eastern European cities. We just did a podcast about where we would want to spend the holidays. Whether we’ve been there or not and for both you and I, *spoiler*, I’m not going to give it away if you haven’t listened, but goes listen. Both you and I had the same number one, and it was found in Eastern Europe. So, for example, I think it’d be awesome to take a train and go to Vienna, Bratislava, Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, then you can even go up into the Baltic and go to Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, like those are all the capital cities of those countries.
Travis
Obviously, you can go to the other towns around too. But I just think that would be such an epic month-long, whatever, you know, you could make it shorter or spread it out, but that would be so cool to do in the winter because everyone’s going to have their Christmas markets, everything is going to be decked out like that would be so much fun. And so, yeah, I guess for me this is almost a little more time-specific than just the winter. I specifically would want to go there in December.
Travis
Yeah, in December, the month of December, training around Europe to quote-unquote “all the cities”.
Heather
All the cities.
Travis
But really, I just mean some of those big Eastern European cities.
Heather
And I have to say that, um, I guess if I’m going to jump on the train for honorable mentions, I will just give off two that we’ve actually done in wintertime. The first one was Italy, where we did trains all through Italy. We started in Venice and we went to Florence, we went to Rome, those three big cities and it was awesome. It was January, so it was cold, but there were no tours, which is sometimes the best part about traveling in winter. If you’re going to places that are, you know, their main season is summer, if you go in winter, you literally don’t have to have lines. I mean, we went to the Vatican, we went to all these museums, no lines. We didn’t even have to preorder tickets. We just walked up and went and that is so cool. Definitely. And then the other one, which I don’t know why I didn’t put this on my list, but maybe I should have. We did Ireland in the holidays and we weren’t there for Christmas, but we went for New Year’s Eve and it was lovely.
Travis
I mean, we were there on New Year’s Eve and then for two weeks after into January.
Heather
Yes. And again, Dublin, beautiful, very festive, the pubs scene, the Christmas trees, and the lights. Very, very fun. And then we did a road trip all around, I guess, like Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula. That was amazing. And in January, hardly any tourists.
Travis
The Ring of Kerry, everyone was telling us, man, you just have tour bus after tour bus after tour bus after tour bus doing this kind of this ring, this route. And instead, there was like a few, but really we were driving and we had a lot of the roads to ourselves. A lot of the places that would normally have crowds let out on tour buses, they weren’t there. So we got to meander around. Yeah, I was really, really neat.
Heather
Yeah, the pubs, I mean, they’re so cozy. Some of them have fireplaces in the fireplaces. Are you late? You have a glass of wine or beer, coffee, tea, whatever, whatever. And it’s just really cozy.
Travis
And that kind of goes to my honorable mention when I say all the cities, those Eastern European cities I mentioned, because, again, this cozy vibe, it’s going to be winter. It’s going to be cold. Whether it be a bar or like I’m thinking of the restaurant that we love in Bratislava where you just walk in and it’s, you know, basically a big mess hall with huge things of chicken. And you just getting really hot, warm, hearty food, that would be great.
Travis
All right, so you had some honorable mentions rattling around.
Heather
I can’t believe I didn’t even think of those, especially the Ireland one.
Travis
So, Heather, you lead us off your top five, please.
Heather
OK, so my number five is one that I kind of just threw on here as a COVID-friendly option because we are in the year 2020 and if we can’t travel internationally, this is a great option, especially if you want warm weather for the winter. So this is my warm-weather pick, Florida, and we’ve been to Florida a few times now the past couple of years because it’s easy to get to a two-hour flight for us and it’s warm. So when you are sick of winter already, so by January or definitely by February, we’re usually sick of winter.
Travis
Yeah, or by December sometimes.
Heather
OK,
Travis
You call me Scrooge.
Heather
That’s true.
Travis
I usually can get through Christmas before I’m really sick of cold weather because at least there’s something for us to look forward to. OK, well the lights are out and you know, we’ve got something ahead. We got light at the end of the tunnel. But man, as soon as Christmas is over, I will leave December 26th from a cold-weather place and happily go somewhere warm. I don’t need to be somewhere cold for New Year’s. I especially don’t want to be somewhere cold for my birthday which is January 3rd.
Heather
Which he almost always is. Poor guy. So anyway, Florida is my number five pick because for road tripping, I mean, you can’t get much better than warm coastal road tripping, in my opinion. Now, I do have some cool weather ones on here, too. And I thought, oh, goodness, what if there’s a snowstorm and then kind of ruins the road trip but for not having to worry about that, Florida is great. And so if you listen to the podcast, you know that we love flying into Tampa Bay and going to that area of the Gulf Coast and we love St. Petersburg, the city, and the beach towns all up along that area. However, I mean, that would be a good option. But for winter, I chose more Miami and the Florida Keys. Now, I have actually never been to the Keys, so I would very much like to do this. Trav went about 20 years ago. A long time ago.
Travis
Yeah, I think exactly, 20 years ago,
Heather
You had just graduated high school, and I’m not trying to age this here, but you went on…
Travis
I am thirty-seven.
Heather
You went on a really fun road trip with one of your best friends, Napkins, who’s also been on this podcast and…
Travis
#loveNapkins
Heather
you did the Florida Keys. I still have never been there. And one of our team members, Mack, who does a lot of our social media, is currently there right now. And I’m seeing her pictures and I’m like, oh, my goodness the water…
Travis
The FOMO. I got to stop looking at Mack’s Instagram because we’re here in North Carolina. It’s getting a little cold. Still beautiful. Like I’m in a hoodie, Heather’s in a nice fluffy, not fluffy, but it’s a sweatshirt, sweater, whatever. I’m not a fashionista, but yes, it’s getting cold and so I am already dreaming of somewhere warmer. Costa Rica, hopefully, here we come.
Heather
Yeah, but anyway, Miami, I have said before, I really enjoy Miami. I think that it has a lot of fun stuff to do and it has a wonderful art scene, really good food restaurants, obviously beaches and museums. I really, really enjoy Miami. So I would fly to Miami or drive there if you’re close enough and then spend some time there, drive down to the keys, and just like pop round. One of the benefits of taking a Florida road trip is the fact that, as you mentioned, there’s a lot of different areas and it’s really easy to drive around.
Travis
You’re not going to get inclement weather. You know, it’s as flat as can be. So, you know, you can do that down to the Keys road trip but also if you’re saying, hey, I want to go up to the Panhandle, well, all right. There’s a day or two of driving. I mean, not even a full day or two of driving. But you could, just for us to be coming from the north, start in Jacksonville, work your way down the East Coast, come right around, go up the West Coast, head over the panhandle, and find yourself in New Orleans.
Heather
We’ve never done that. But I’ve heard 30A, which is one of the coastal routes. It is so beautiful and quaint with all these beautiful little towns on it. My sister’s been she loved it. Yeah. And gosh, if you could throw in New Orleans on that trip as well.
Travis
If your driving you can through anything you want.
Heather
It all isn’t super close but you could make it work.
Travis
If you get all the way through the panhandle, you’re starting to get there. My number five is drastically different than the Florida road trip and this I’m taking us to Europe for. So I stayed in Europe, I’ve kept my honorable mentions and then I just went a touch to the south from the honorable mentions that I talked about. And this would be taking the road trip, kind of, around Ljubljana and in Slovenia. So we have done this before Ljubljana up to Lake Bled. And then there is a town kind of right at the foothills of the Julian Alps called Kranjska Gora. And then there is the Vrsic Pass, which is the best mountain drive in Slovenia, absolutely stunning. But I did learn, in a little bit of research I did before this, I thought maybe that is closed. Apparently, it’s usually closed three to four months out of the year, which would be winter because of avalanches and stuff like that. So if you go earlier in the winter or late enough in the winter, you know, as it’s getting in the spring, you could do the Vrsic Pass pass. But even if you can’t and I was almost like should I take this off because you can’t do that exact drive that we did.
Travis
All I’m thinking of is that amazing château that we stayed in right at the foothills of the Julian Alps in Kranjska Gora and that would just be perfect. You would sit out there. There were fireplaces in every room. So even if you can’t go all the way into the Alps, you’ve probably a bunch of other roads you can take. Plus Lake Bled would be absolutely stunning during the winter. And Ljubljana, I feel like would be one of those perfect looking picture-perfect winter wonderland towns during this season and there’s a lot of Slovenia that we haven’t seen that you could explore so Ljubljana and surrounding areas. For me, my number five.
Heather
I set my number four and I am taking it back to… Oh, sorry, I forgot about the sound effects.
Travis
We got drumrolls
Heather
My number four, I am taking it to one of my most loved places in the world and I don’t want to be too redundant because I do mention this place quite a bit. But this is where my research comes in. I have some new parts to British Columbia that I have never been to before, so it’s like a little bit different outside the box. But of course, you start in Vancouver because if you have to fly or drive from the US like, that’s where you would start. And I would do Coast Mountain Highway, which is the drive from Vancouver up into Whistler. You go through Squamish, you go to a very awesome brewery, Coast Mountain Brewery that one of our listeners… You know, we were saying, why is it called Coast Mountain Brewery? Why isn’t it called Coastal Mountain Brewery? But apparently, she let us know very nicely that everybody in, I guess, B.C. or in Vancouver calls it the Coast Mountain Highway, because it…
Travis
Which makes way more sense to me now that…I thought that you kind of just took two words and let’s put this together. If it’s called Coast Mountain Highway and it’s on the Coast Mountain Highway, which is the first time hearing this, makes a lot more sense that it would be called Coast Mountain Brewery. So mystery solved.
Heather
So take that highway and go through Squamish and it’s just beautiful. Obviously, you have the mountains and you go up to Whistler. And then when I thought since we’ve never done this before, I know that there’s some really amazing hot springs.
Travis
Oh OK!
Heather
I guess there are some near Whistler but when I was looking it up on the Internet, I saw some other ones that are a little far from that area which would make a perfect road trip. So my road trip would be to go on that Coast Mountain Highway up to Whistler and then make your way over to Kamloops, which is a fun little city.
Travis
Also fun name! Whenever we see a sign for Kamloops and we’re driving around…I’m yelling out Kamloops, what a fun name.
Heather
And I didn’t know very much about it, but of course, this is what I was researching this morning, getting all excited about. It’s a really fun city, has great food, great restaurants, craft drinks, breweries and cute shops. According to the pictures that I saw, really fun, trendy shops. And then it has all those outdoor winter activities, of course, skiing, but snowshoeing, cross-country skiing. They even had…
Travis
I would like to try snowshoeing. Yeah, I’ve never done it.
Heather
It would be really fun. They even have winter biking and ice fishing. You could play hockey or what is it called?
Travis
shinai
Heather
So there was a picture of things to do on TripAdvisor playing shinai was one of them. No, no, no. It wasn’t a TripAdvisor site. I think it was like maybe at the official Kamloops tourism site. But there was, you know, like a nice picture of literally the ice shoveled off on a pond or a small lake. So, yes, that whole vibe that you would think of when you think of a Canadian winter and then for, I guess the best part, I was going to say piece de resistance or something, but I was butchering my French…
Travis
Yes. That’s butchering French. I don’t even know French and I know that it’s not the piece de resistance, but this is where the research comes, right. Kamloops. Again, had you not researched, you know, we could have said all B.C., British Columbia, we’ve been here, we like these areas. But Kamloops is a new one.
Heather
It’s a new one. And then ending with what I think is the most epic looking hot spring, it’s called a Halcyon Hot Springs, and it is on Upper Arrow Lake. I saw the picture of this place. Now, listen, this is, I don’t believe, a budget accommodation place.
Travis
It doesn’t sound like it. Especially not in winter.
Heather
In fact, I tried to look up what the prices would be and I went on hotels.com. No, I actually wasn’t even available.
Travis
What do they say about pricing? Like, you have to ask how much it is, it’s not for you.
Heather
No, I just think it might be booked up, or maybe because of COVID, it’s hard to book. I don’t know, but it looks beautiful.
Travis
Maybe we can rent the whole thing out to ourselves. Maybe they want travel podcasters to come up there.
Heather
Maybe they do. If you’re listening, anybody who works at Halcyon Hot Springs, let us know. I’m happy to do a review. Anyway, it just looks beautiful. It’s got mountains, it’s got a lake and the accommodation just looks lovely. And of course, the hot springs covered in snow. Yeah. Sounds pretty good.
Travis
I’m happy, ecstatic that you did an hour and a half of research, but now we just have to put it to use. We got to go do this kind of stuff, and I know COVID is going to put a crimp in a lot of things, especially going to Canada.
Heather
If you’re Canadian and you’re listening to this, this is a great road trip, head on over. We’re still not allowed to go up there.
Travis
My number four is we’re staying in Europe. I didn’t put these in order, but I didn’t really realize exactly how I was doing it. Like, I didn’t realize my first couple were in Europe. But we are staying here. And this is one of your honorable mentions and this is Ireland.
Heather
All right, you have it on your own.
Travis
When I thought about road trips and road trips we’ve taken and especially road trips we’ve taken in the winter, Ireland was at the top of the list for the reasons you mentioned, especially because during the offseason, cozy really cozy, very festive atmosphere for the holidays, also because of the lack of tourists. So everything that you had mentioned before, big, big ups to that. But what I would do if we were going to Ireland is we only ever got as far as Galway so we did Dublin went across to carry Dingle Peninsula. All that was great. Went kind of up past the Cliffs of Moher and in the Burn and then hung out in Galway, which is an incredible city, town, city.
Heather
It’s a city, but a small city.
Travis
And then we went right back to Dublin. What I would love to do and I was researching a lot of this when we were in Ireland, of course, I can’t pronounce any other names nor can I remember them right now. But there was so much untouched, like very lightly explored areas all the way up the coast of Ireland and then up into Northern Ireland. And of course, people know the Giant’s Causeway and stuff like that, which is Northern Ireland. But I would love just take a car, you know, do what we did before. But if we were in Galway instead of going back to Dublin, just started popping up the coast to a lot of these small towns for the purpose of just being remote, hanging out, not knowing what you’re going to see, and just work our way all the way through to Northern Ireland. Go into Belfast, because I am very intrigued by Belfast in the history and all that kind of stuff. And then just pop down from Belfast back to Dublin and fly out. So essentially just do a loop through the loop of the entire two countries of the entire island. I just think that would be really, really cool.
Travis
The one downside, though, to road trips in Ireland in the winter, like most places during this time of year, it gets dark so early so you have to get started early or else you do not get much driving in which if you have enough time, no big deal. But, you know, we would sometimes we’d be like it’d be twelve or one and we’re like, we may need to get on the road because we have about three hours of daylight here if we want to make any time to get to other places. I mean, but hey, listen, if that’s the downside, then you just extend your trip longer and we’re all for that here at EPOP.
Heather
My number three, it’s very fun, this very fun…
Travis
Three and a half hours today, I hope everyone appreciates.
Heather
Yeah, I hope it’s worth it. OK, my number three is in the US. It is a state that we have been to before, not quite in the winter season. It was in the fall.
Travis
We were in a state in the Fall?
Heather
We’ve only been there one time, any guesses.
Travis
I’m guessing it’s not. Well, it’s obviously not in the Northeast, cause we’ve been into a lot of those states. So I am thinking maybe Utah when we went out for your brother’s wedding.
Heather
No.
Travis
I didn’t know if that was in the fall. Maybe a little bit south and then west of California.
Travis
Arizona.
Heather
Yes, it’s Arizona.
Travis
Did you say west of California?
Heather
I meant East of California.
Travis
West of California would be Hawaii. Have not been there but on a road trip through Hawaii.
Heather
I meant east. I just always think Arizona West because that’s it’s west from where we are.
Travis
West of Pennsylvania. East of California. What state is it? There is only forty-five of those in between.
Heather
So we went to Arizona in October
Travis
I like this one. But this was not on my list. I don’t even think about it.
Heather
But well, some of my research, even though I’ve been there, I was like, OK, I’m really curious about the temperature. So I was looking up the average highs and lows for each place in Arizona that I think would be fun to road trip to, starting with if you need to fly into Phoenix. So Phoenix in the winter has averages of sixty for the high and forty for the low. So not too bad, you know, in the daytime. That’s nice.
Travis
That’s great.
Heather
And then you go up to Sedona, which was one of my favorite places. I love Sedona. So beautiful, hiking, gorgeous, gorgeous landscape obviously. And there it’s also pretty warm. I mean, it can get cold, but it’s pretty much the same averages as Phoenix maybe a little bit cooler, but then you might also get the chance of seeing some snow, like a light dusting of snow and all of those red rocks. I mean, oh, my goodness. So beautiful.
Heather
And we actually stayed in a Hilton, I believe it was using our points. So if you have hotel points, this was a great hotel to use them on because it was so cozy. They had a heated outdoor pool and hot tubs and the room, like the suite that we had, had a fireplace so cozy. It was such a nice hotel.
Travis
Yeah, that place was great.
Heather
Yeah. So we love Sedona, so that would be a nice kind of moderate temperature then. You continue north.
Travis
I’m jealous that this was your answer because I’m upset that I didn’t come up with it because I specifically, in my head, thought where could I go on a road trip that I can get a bunch of different temperatures, that isn’t too far from each other. And I kind of blanked and then moved on.
Heather
Yeah, I know, I am so excited about Arizona. And I thought it was going to be my number one but the two other ones like we’ve done those road trips and I just thought they were more epic in my opinion.
Travis
Also, we should mention that if we’re in Sedona, we’re eating at Elote Cafe, one of the best meals we have ever.
Travis
That place. If you go to Sedona, go to Elote cafe, they don’t take reservations. You have to wait. It’s going to be a long wait. It’s going to be worth it. We went two or three, two nights in a row. There was no reason to go anywhere else.
Heather
Yeah, it was so, so good. I love that place, I bought their cookbook even which some of the recipes are a little bit challenging to make, but it’s pretty detailed.
Travis
Yeah, it’s a chef-run restaurant. So yeah.
Heather
I mean it’s just…you’ll actually love it. So I love Sedona and then we drove north actually we did Sedona on the way back. What we did was we did Phoenix, then we drove up to Flagstaff, which is the next part on my list. You could do it any which way you want, but Flagstaff is such a fun town. Yeah, it’s quite small, but it’s got a lot going on, so much going on, great breweries, great food history, very cool history.
Travis
Right on Route 66 there. Right?
Heather
Yeah. I guess I can’t remember but…
Travis
I think it’s Route 66.
Heather
There’s also some really fun things I just briefly touched on in my research that I was doing some of the temperatures and stuff and then I was like, what do you do in Flagstaff other than eat and drink? Which is what we did. But there’s some really fun things, like alien stuff, like if you’re into that alien stuff.
Travis
Alien stuff, like aliens. Really cool stuff. Like you can just go see aliens.
Heather
I guess there’s stuff there. And then you can visit where they faked the moon landing. Not like I’m saying, that the moon landing never happened. It’s debatable. But before they went to the moon, they went here, they went to this location outside of Flagstaff to practice with the rovers. It is like a crater area.
Heather
So we didn’t see that when we were there. But that would be fun. That would be interesting to see. So I forget what the name of that park is but anyway, lots of fun stuff to do in Flagstaff. And then guess what? You can still go to the Grand Canyon even in the winter. In fact, I would almost say that it might be more magical in the winter because hardly anybody’s there. Now also, I did my research because I didn’t want to be incorrect because I’m guessing you can’t hike in the winter. I’m not sure. I think you might be able to.
Heather
The only part of the Grand Canyon is open is the South Rim, which is the most popular spot in the summer. I mean, incredibly crowded. So if you go in…
Travis
Man, you did do your research!
Heather
So excited about Arizona, especially because as an American, I mean, it’s a place you could go to this year is we wanted to.
Travis
I mean, we could go right now and it would be a bit of a hard drive, but we could fly into Phoenix and then go.
Heather
So, you know, because it’s COVID, I was like, this is a good one for Americans.
Travis
You were like, jazzed up because we’re going to take that trip now.
Heather
So, I mean, yeah. And our kids have never seen the Grand Canyon. I mean, it would be so amazing. So the south rim is open. You might have some snow. I’m not sure what you would be allowed to do for hiking, but of course, you could at least go and you could see it. I don’t know if you can go down into the canyons or not, maybe just depending on the weather, but hardly any tourists.
Travis
Yeah, sounds pretty nice. I love the idea that you’ll be getting all the temperature zones, well not all but…
Heather
You’re not really getting summer.
Travis
But you’re not getting really hot summer and you’re probably not getting a ton of snow.
Heather
But Flagstaff, I think does.
Travis
Yeah, you’ll be getting some. It’s exactly what I wanted and I immediately was like, I can’t think of anything. All right, I’m done.
Heather
No, no, no. We’re doing the tech stuff. So you probably would have had Arizona on there also because another one of our team members, Kaycee, lives in Prescott, Arizona, and she’s always saying how much she wants us to come even just to Prescott, which is another cool little city.
Travis
Yeah, she told me when I was on the call with her a few days ago and she was talking about how cold it was, Prescott (like Brisket) she said Preskitt, I think locals say Preskitt. It looks like Prescott (Preskitt). But she told me how cold it was there and I know that it gets colder, you know, once you get out of Phoenix, out of the desert but I was a little shocked that it was that cold.
Travis
Yes. You get some you get some lows. And then obviously in Phoenix, you’re going to have it’s going to be pretty nice temperature all the time.
Heather
Like, actually, the high was sixty-eight in December, I believe.
Travis
I’ll take that!
Heather
And then the last thing I forgot is, I’m just looking at my notes, if you remember we did some wine country in Arizona because Arizona does have a small wine country. It May not be as renowned as Sonoma and Napa, but it was pretty good wine from what I remember. We did the Verde Valley, which we did that little town of Cottonwood.
Travis
That was one I was thinking of. is Jerome around there, I believe?
Heather
I’m not sure.
Travis
Kaycee, you’re listening to this, fill people in. (*Kaycee here, it goes Phoenix to Prescott to Jerome to Cottonwood to Sedona to Flagstaff*)
Heather
Warm, cold, warm, cold sounds perfect.
Travis
It’s easy to get to for most people in the US if you want to fly to Phoenix or obviously easy to get to if you’re driving for people who are out that way.
Travis
So, I did look it up because I was doubting myself and I think it’s Route 66. My brains, a little frazzled because of all the tech stuff. And then I look up, it is Route 66. So I’m glad I was right about that.
Heather
Yes, great job hun.
Travis
My number three is a road trip that we have done and we have also done it in winter. Stop looking at my notes, everyone on Instagram. You saw her eyes.
Heather
I did!
Travis
Note for the audio, Heather looked at my notes. She looked at my computer. Just going to ask you to guess. But now, of course, you know it. At least you can’t see my number one because it’s hidden. My number three is the Great Ocean Road.
Heather
So that’s my number one. All right
Heather
I just gave it away because I thought it was my number two. And then I looked at my notes, but…
Travis
OK, my number three Great Ocean Road. Let’s talk about it when we get to number one for you, because, yes, this is an amazing road trip. Obviously, it’s warm weather. So I have now flipped from…
Heather
Does it?
Travis
OK, it’s yes, you’re right. We got hail on the first day of our Great Ocean road trip, but usually somewhat warm weather. I have now flipped from my cold weather to my warm weather road trips, and I will stay on warm weather for the rest of my no. So. All right Heth, your number two. We know you’re number one, but number two is.
Heather
The PCH! Is that on your list?
Travis
I did not put this on my list. I assume you would put this on your list? I thought it would be number one. I debated cheating and putting Great Ocean Road/PCH.
Heather
You can’t do that. They’re not on the same continent, so they’re about as far away as you can possibly get.
Travis
But in my mind, they’re very similar type of experiences. I mean, they are completely epic, both world-renowned as road trips. Yes, both great. I think any time of the year.
Heather
Correct.
Travis
Because you’re going to have their magic different at different times. So, yes, I almost pulled a cheat and put Grand Ocean Road & PCH. And I did think, yeah, Trav, you’re really stretching it. I mean, you know, you make the rules. It’s your podcast now.
Heather
And I’m glad that you didn’t do that because they both deserve their own spots. And my number one, which we’ll talk about, I just felt like was the most epic road trip we have ever done.
Travis
So you’re putting, just so everyone’s clear, Great Ocean Road as one which we’ve already, and PCH as two. But they’re close.
Heather
They’re very close. Because…
Travis
Dare we say, 1a and 1 b?
Heather
I mean, maybe because they’re both just so wonderful and dramatic and the PCH because it’s in California and California, an amazing state. And again, with COVID. I mean, I know right now, currently, in the month of December, things are pretty locked up tight in California. But I think you can still road trip. You might not be able to do much in the cities.
Heather
But when we did it, we started in San Francisco and we drove, we stopped in Monterey and then we just kept continuing down on into Big Sur, Carmel by the sea, we went down to San Simeon, where the Hearst Castle is. Which we actually didn’t do Hearst Castle. I regret that. I wish we had done it.
Heather
Yeah, at the time, I feel like this might sound a little obnoxious, but we’d been to Europe a lot and we’re a little bit…
Travis
Decided not to go. You were just kind of like, we’ve seen a lot of castles, this is America.
Heather
But now I didn’t really know much about Hearst Castle, but then after we didn’t go and we didn’t have a lot of time either. I mean, we did this road trip very quickly, which I don’t know why.
Travis
It was more the point, I think, with Hearst Castle was, yeah, we really didn’t have a ton of time to do it.
Heather
We did it in like three days, I think…
Travis
Yeah, from L.A. all the way down to…
Heather
No, San Francisco all the way down to San Luis Obispo.
Travis
Maybe not all the way down but very close. We actually only did it north to south and then because we wanted to get back so quick, took whatever the other highways that can wind up, back.
Heather
So it was too quick. So I would recommend you do at least a solid seven days, you know, taking your time because there are also lots of great hikes. I mean, we didn’t do any hiking or really any beach time. It was cold. And I mean, it’s California, so the water’s always pretty cold even in the summer in that area. But it’s just beautiful. So definitely take your time. Do Hearst Castle. Do a lot of the little cities, I’m sorry, towns, very small towns along the way. There’s some really good restaurants, good hiking, lots of nature, lots of beautiful photo opportunities. You know, just the dramatic coastline. I mean, the famous bridge there in Big Sur. I mean, it’s just absolutely wonderful.
Heather
And we were there in January. I’m pretty sure it was January. And we got some nice weather, you know, like a really sunny, beautiful day where we were just wearing only a sweater. And the smell of the flowers next to the ocean was just intoxicating. I remember thinking, like, this is just one of the most wonderful smells ever. There were like these little, I’ll look it up, but they’re like these little teeny tiny bushes along the coast with white little flowers and they smell amazing. But then we also got some dry weather, which I kind of like when you’re doing a coastal road, because it makes it feel, I don’t know, very dramatic and like stormy.
Travis
I mean, the fog and the clouds rolling in at times and things like that was actually really stormy when we were, um, in Monterey and then we did that drive that goes around Pebble Beach, I don’t know however many mile drive that is.
Heather
Like 15 or 18 mile drive. Yeah, apparently I didn’t look that up.
Travis
The one that goes by Pebble Beach. And it was cool because during that drive it went from being nice to being kind of rainy to then being nice again. I mean all within an hour and a half, which gave us every side of that you could see there. I was looking it up, I just want to see a map, we made it all the way down to like Cambria, maybe Morro Bay is where we then went across over to Paso Robles. Cambria was a cute little tiny town. I’ve even looked at real estate because I thought, this is cool.
Travis
Maybe a little too small town and remote, but, yeah, that was about as far as we got. So again, if you were doing PCH, obviously you could just keep taking it down into L.A., and then we have done L.A. down to San Diego. So we’ve missed that kind of spur from Morro Bay down to L.A. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, why not just do it the whole length of California? Yeah, well, yeah, you could even start further up north.
Heather
California itself could just be…I mean, you could go to the national parks there, which we have never done, Joshua Tree, which everybody in L.A. always talks about, going to the desert there.
Travis
We could just talk about the whole West Coast. You start up in Vancouver, you come on down. That would be a really, really epic road trip if you have time to do that.
Heather
Absolutely.
Travis
Yeah. I’m with you, PCH. Absolutely awesome! Yeah. I mean, you can’t go wrong. Obviously, it’s renowned as one of the best road trips in the world, and rightfully so.
Heather
Now, I’m curious about your number two and your number one.
Travis
You didn’t look
Heather
Look, I did not look all right.
Travis
My number two, and this is where I did a little bit of research, and it’s based around a place that I want to go that I had no idea if road trips would be good there. I should say, I had no idea but I had an inkling because I’ve had a guest who talked about this country on the show and she said driving was fine there, but she didn’t necessarily say, oh, road trips are epic, but she said, yeah, driving is good, get a car, go around. So I thought, all right, I want to go here. Do they have a good road trip? And I’ll tell you what is in a second. But I read this…
Heather
I’m very curious.
Travis
Yeah, this will give it away. But this is what I read just on Lonely Planet very quickly. I thought, yeah, this is great. Squeezed between the colossus of Argentina and Brazil, compacted Uruguay, South America’s second smallest country, which I didn’t know that it is that small.
Heather
What are the smallest countries?
Travis
It’s got to be one of those upon the north, northeast area, like French Guiana or something like that.
Travis
I just assumed they were all really small but Uruguay is very small. But this politically and economically stable, peaceful, and perfect country is perfect for a self-drive adventure thanks to good roads. Consider it drivers. I love that they put that in there and outside the peak holiday season, with little traffic you can explore its never-ending coastline and boundless pampas at your own pace. I had to look up what pampas were and pampas are like flat grasslands in South America, um, treeless grasslands basically.
Travis
And so I knew a little bit about Uruguay because I had Catherine Higgs. If you guys are interested in what I still call one of my favorite countries, even though I haven’t been there, probably my favorite country that I haven’t been to Uruguay, she did an awesome podcast with us. She knows everything. She’s been living there for twenty-five years. Her website is called GuruGuay, which I love a good little pun too.
Travis
And so she’s got really good guidebooks. I’ve been digging into them. And so if I was going to do a road trip, I would just start up in what I guess I would call the North. But I think in Uruguay they call the East because it kind of goes north and east at the same time as you go up the coast.
Travis
But at this little tiny area called Punto Del Diablo, um, point of the Devil, my translation is correct and it’s very rugged.
Heather
And your Spanish is better than mine.
Travis
Very remote up there. I don’t even know if it’s a point.
Travis
Yeah. And then you and then I would just come right on down the coast and it gets more and more populated as you come down the coast. And so yeah, I would just go come down the coast, I’d head inland a bit and do the ranches and spend some time there eating steaks and hanging out. And I end it in Montevideo and spend some time in the capital.
Heather
I could get behind that trip.
Travis
Really, really good time.
Heather
So that sounds amazing. I’ve also been wanting to go to Uruguay for…
Travis
You say it however you want, no one really knows, but it’s Uruguay
Heather
And we’ll get there and we’ll get there someday. I also looked up because, you know, this is just a two-person team here. We don’t have any fact-checkers, you know, give us any…
Travis
Obviously! That would be fun. You know, that we’re leaning over sometimes pulling up a few notes with one hand here.
Heather
Google has told us that the smallest country is Suriname.
Travis
OK, so Suriname. Yeah, I believe directly next to French Guiana. Um, maybe. I mean, it’s one of those little tiny countries right up at the Northern parts.
Heather
Guiana is three, then Ecuador, and then Paraguay.
Travis
Maybe it’s not even called… I guess it’s not called French. I’m reading a book of… well you guys might have heard of it called Papillon, which is the guy who escaped from one of the hardest jails to get out of in the 30s, which is in French Guiana. So maybe that French Guiana
Heather
This says French Guiana is the smallest political entity on the South American mainland,
Travis
huh? But not the smallest country. Yeah, who knows? Geopolitics.
Heather
Clearly, we need to read up.
Travis
All right, so French Guiana is small, Suriname is small. Uruguay is also small, but a little bigger than that.
Heather
All right. So we are down to my number one…
Travis
Drum roll. Hit the drum roll. There’s not much of a drum roll because we know what it is, but we spent three and a half hours getting this done.
Heather
The Great Ocean Road. Guys, it’s just honestly the most epic landscape I have ever seen. I was blown away by the Great Ocean Road. And, you know, our love for Australia, I think is pretty well known because on a place when we did our podcast of the places we want to live or spend quarantine in or something like that we did recently.
Travis
Yeah, well, we did one that Where Would We Want To Spend Three Years if we had to relocate somewhere. Australia comes up on a lot of stuff. Do you want to spend a lot of time here? Our answer is always yes.
Heather
And also on the list of places to spend the holidays. We also chose Australia because, I mean, my gosh, it’s amazing. Then New Year’s Eve in Sydney Harbour, the whole thing. But and it’s warm and it’s warm. So I guess I call this a little bit cheating because it’s winter, but it’s Australian summer. So depending on who’s listening to the podcast, this may not be your winter, but for us in the northern hemisphere, going to Australia for our winter and having some summer would just be amazing. And because we’re talking road-tripping, Australia is humongous. I mean, we barely touched, kind of, the surface of Australia while we were there and we were there for almost three weeks.
Travis
Just so you guys know, we did essentially a week in Melbourne, and from there that was when we did the Great Ocean Road. We went east or excuse me, now I’m doing it wrong.
Heather
Wow.
Travis
West from there and then came back to Melbourne, then we did a week in Sydney and a week up in Cairns on the Great Barrier Reef. And yeah, I could have spent way more time in any of those areas and didn’t even get to see the Gold Coast obviously didn’t go inland at all, let alone touch Perth or anything or in the middle or the outback. So there’s a lot to do.
Travis
I actually wanted to put this… Well, when I was putting this on my list because it was my number three so I guess I was going to say, I don’t want to cut you off, but I guess it was my number three. I’m allowed to speak just not as long on it.
Travis
I actually when I looked up some of the names of the places we had gone because I was like, Apollo Bay, is that it?
Heather
Yes
Travis
Yes, it was. So, Lorne, a really cute little town. Apollo Bay, we spent a day walking around the beach. There was basically no one else there. Got some really cool pictures of us just on the.
Heather
Yeah, we went the day…We left Christmas Day so and…
Travis
We got hail. We came out of Melbourne and it started hailing. So we beat it, like, we drove away from it.
Heather
And I mean it was not really swimming weather. I mean also this is so…
Travis
I was in pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt and if it’s anywhere near where I am, I’m putting shorts on.
Heather
Yeah. So I mean I don’t think that we…You might have gone in the ocean at Bells Beach just because it’s like the most famous surfing beach I’m not sure but it was beautiful. It wasn’t necessarily like layout in the sun type beach but Apollo Bay… So I did a little bit of research because we didn’t actually do this, but there is a Great Ocean Walk, which is like the best hike apparently in all of Australia.
Heather
According to one website,
Travis
The best hike, according to one unnamed source.
Heather
It was like a pretty big website. I can’t remember. I was saying that as if it was a fact, but it might not be, because if you think about how much hiking you can do in Australia, I don’t know, maybe this is the best one. Obviously, it’s opinion based, but it’s about one hundred kilometers, I believe, of hiking. And it goes through national parks. It starts in Apollo Bay. We did not do this because, I mean, we, again, didn’t hike at all.
Travis
We actually didn’t have that much time on the Great Ocean Road. We did PCH and the Great Ocean Road wrong. I mean, at least we did them.
Heather
Not wrong. There is no wrong way.
Travis
We had three days and it was like we spent one overnight. We spent Christmas night…
Heather
Two overnight.
Travis
OK, two overnights. Yeah.
Travis
So three days. Two and a half days.
Heather
Yeah. You could definitely take your time, especially if you wanted to get out and hike a lot. Go to some of the national parks. There’s lots of national parks. I think the most epic being Port Campbell, which is where the Twelve Apostles are. Yeah. Wow.
Travis
That’s kind of the one, if people know anything about the Great Ocean Road, it’s the twelve apostles.
Heather
I didn’t even really know I had not researched or…
Travis
We did not know when it started because we were seeing landscapes that we’re like, is this a twelve apostle because they’re basically big rocks and on the beach, like these huge outcroppings that are then disconnected from the mainland. And I remember us driving and we’re like we are we there yet? Because you’d see this dramatic landscape and then be like no, we’re not even there. That’s just a random rock, not even an apostle, just a cool rock.
Heather
So there are more like lesser-known rock outcroppings out even along the coast.
Travis
Semi apostles.
Heather
Yeah. I mean, these twelve apostles like you walk down to the beach and it’s just like cliff drop off, and then these amazing rocks just rising out of the ocean. You can do a helicopter tour. At the time we did not. I assume it’s quite expensive, but that would be like if we go back, I’m doing the helicopter.
Travis
We got to go back right now while the Aussie dollar is not great against the US dollar.
Heather
Yeah. Anyway, just an amazing, amazing drive with wonderful little coastal towns, super dramatic coastline, lots of cliffs. You also have the national parks, as I mentioned, another national park, which we did not go to Great Otway National Park, which has in it, beach with waterfalls, rain forest and lakes all in the same national park. Do we even go to because we just didn’t have enough time, but that would be amazing?
Heather
You walk through that. If you do the Great Ocean Walk that starts in Apollo Bay, some of it does go through that national park.
Travis
Heth has got the variety-packed down today between Arizona the variety pack of weather and then Great Otway Park the variety pack of experiences or landscape. All right.
Heather
Just anyway, the different beaches you go to when you go to Bell’s beach and it’s like one of the most famous surfing beaches in the world.
Travis
We were too afraid, we were going to stay in the car on the edge of Bells Beach, and it got so dark, not a single other person was there.
Heather
There are no lights.
Travis
There’s no lights.
Heather
And it was abandoned.
Travis
It was so loud. The ocean was so loud in a cool way at first, we’re like, well, we’re really tired. It’s getting really late. We don’t want to drive all the way back into Melbourne. We did actually end up driving all the way back into Melbourne, but it was also starting to rain. And we’re like, well, we’re just going to camp in the car, this will be so cool. And we got too scared. Like I was laying there thinking, I can’t do this. I felt like the car was going to fall off the cliff for some reason. Maybe we can pull the car in a little bit.
Travis
Either way, I do remember that thinking, oh, it’s going to be such an epic story to tell people that we did this and five minutes later, we think, let’s just drive back to Melbourne. We ended up looking like a Hilton in the middle of Melbourne.
Heather
It was a much better sleep because some of it was like, I don’t want to sleep in a car. I mean, it’s not like we had a nice car it was like a little sedan.
Travis
We weren’t van lifeing it but it would not have been a comfortable sleep.
Heather
So anyway, we used those hotel points.
Travis
Yeah, so Great Ocean Road, incredible. And again, the really cool vibe in the towns and I’m sure it’d be really cool vibes all the time, but especially around Christmas when we were there. I mean, we left on Christmas Day. A lot of stuff was closed. Obviously, it was Christmas Day, but it was still neat because everything had a small-town feel. So even stuff was closed, we went to a few restaurants… oh, my gosh, that sounded weird. When we went to restaurants, I thought I had to clarify. Yeah, but we didn’t eat in. And then I’m like, wait, this wasn’t COVID. Does anyone else, if you’re reading a book or watching TV, you see people do stuff and you’re like, wait, they can’t do that. And then you think, oh my gosh, it’s wild. How quickly we adjusted to how strange the world is now. Yeah.
Travis
So Great Ocean Road was awesome and the vibe was really cool. And I’m sure it gets really a lot more packed if it wasn’t Christmas Day or right around Christmas. But we really liked it and that would be, as we said with the PCH a drive that I would do at any time of the year because it would have its charms. Yes, different seasons would give it different feels and that be really cool.
Heather
And sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off I thought you were done.
Travis
That’s it.
Heather
And I almost forgot. So this you can just tack on because this is exactly what we did. We did the wine country in Yarra Valley. I mean that, again, was not so far from the Great Ocean Road because it’s I think northeast of Melbourne, it was like on the other side. I guess,
Travis
And you guys know, we’re directionally challenged today at least.
Heather
I don’t know. It’s been so long since we were there.
Travis
Close enough to the Great Ocean Road that you should add it to your road trip, right?
Heather
Yes, because we did that and that was lovely because it was summer there. Like the Great Ocean Road did fluctuate in temperature because I remember when we got to the 12 apostles like it dropped like 15, 20 degrees in 10 minutes, you know, just because of the weather changing in the mountains, in the valley.
Travis
And you’re on the coast so you get weather patterns changing very quickly. And storms coming in and then bouncing back and stuff like that.
Heather
But then we did Yarra Valley and I mean, it was summer there. So we just were going to different wineries. We stayed at this beautiful little boutique hotel. I mean, it was just a wonderful trip. The wine was so good.
Travis
I remember being very impressed with the Yarra Valley thinking like, oh, I never really heard about this. Now I’m not a big wine drinker so I wasn’t researching like, oh, this is somewhat famous, but then going there and saying, this is amazing. And then we went to Napa Valley a year or two later and I specifically said, you yeah, this isn’t anything like the Yarra Valley. This isn’t near as cool. So Yarra Valley gets my vote. Sorry, Napa!
Travis
My number one, I’ll give myself a drumroll. I’ve been holding off, you guys let us know on Instagram, more sound effects or less sound effects.
Travis
I’ve been holding off giving all of mine a drum roll because I was saying number five for you because people knew your number one and they don’t know my number one. You don’t know my number one
Heather
I think it deserves a drum roll.
Travis
I’m giving it a drumroll. Can you guess? I’ll give you a hint, and I didn’t even realize this until right now, all of mine have been international. This one is domestic in the US. It’s on the East Coast.
Heather
East Coast, Maine. I mean, no, I would doubt that would be on there. I don’t know
Travis
I don’t want to go to Maine in the winter. You’ve already mentioned it. It’s going down to the Florida Keys.
Heather
So you didn’t even hint at it?
Travis
I didn’t want to hint because it was your #5 and it was my one. So I don’t want to give away.
Heather
No, I mean, I’ve never been. So for me to get super excited about it, I don’t know.
Travis
So usually, you know, usually if you guys listened to the show before, we’ll say, oh, that’s on my list here it is but I felt like I got to play my number one close to the vest and I can’t give that up. We’ve been watching the Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. Like I’m not giving up my queen. My number one. I’m not telling you.
Heather
Sure.
Travis
If on your list and it was your number five. So I was like, I can’t really fudge this. I’m going to give up my number one at your number five. But yes, the Florida Keys seeing the post by Mack, as Heather mentioned on Instagram, have brought this to my memory the last couple of days. And the Florida Keys are just incredible in their own right but and I’ve only ever gone about halfway down. I’ve never even made it all the way to Key West. And so I’ve done the drive from Pennsylvania all the way down to Florida, a lot of different times. But only one time I’ve gone all the way down to the keys, which I don’t know why.
Travis
I mean, come on, keep going. And I didn’t make our way down to Key West, so I’ve always wanted to go to Key West. I think for reasons like a lot of people do, it’s its own unique subculture, its own unique vibe in the US. And I think that that would just be such a cool place, not just to spend winter, but also, again, the Christmas season, like what is Key West like at Christmas?
Travis
It would just be funky, unique when we talked about places we want to spend the holidays that didn’t come up on our list. But now that I’m mentioning it, I’m thinking, yes, I want a unique experience. I want to do Key West at some point during the holidays. Of course, I like being warm so that’s a bonus. And the drive down itself is unlike anything else because you’re just driving through all these little islands and there’s just so much to do. Like, you don’t have to just go down to Key West. Some people bomb down in Key West, hang on us, and just go right through. But we stopped two or three times even though we never went all the way down to Key West and stayed in just these tiny little, you know, a locally owned hotels, motels.
Travis
There are some crazy cast of characters you meet on this, which always makes for good road trips. It’s the people that you meet. So everything I would want in a winter road trip is there in Key West. And it’s not even that far from where we are right now. We could get on ninety-five in about an hour. Nah, screw 95. Why are we going on ninety-five?
Heather
We’re road-tripping down the coast.
Travis
Charleston, we’re coming for you. Jacksonville, Tif, we’re coming for you. East St. Augustine. Love you. Coming for ya. All the way down to Miami. We can hang out with all Heather’s peeps and things. You love Miami.
Travis
So we’ll go to Miami. Then we find our way down to Key West. If you guys are listening and you live anywhere on that route. Let us know. We just might stop in.
Heather
I have a question because I don’t know much about the keys, but can you access all of them by bridges or just some do you have to get to by boat.
Travis
I mean, all the main ones that, yes, you can go by a bridge, I’m sure there are little parts of it that you would have to go to by boat. I’m sure there’s maybe even habited parts of it, but all the main things are right on…I guess it’s still A1, I don’t even know what the name of the road is. I think it’s 1A, but maybe technically and north of that. And it’s called something else.
Heather
Not a bad plan.
Travis
But yeah, you can not get to the national park though that is below Key West called Dry Tortugas or maybe I think it’s called Dry Tortugas National Park that you do actually, 99% sure, have to take a boat to which would be also cool to do.
Heather
Yeah, definitely so.
Travis
All right. Florida for the win. Great Ocean Road for the win. No matter where you are in the world, if you’re in Australia or the U.S., we’ve given you some options. Europeans, we’ve given you some options, too. Or if you’re just in Europe right now, tons of great stuff to do. We did a good job bumping around the world.
Heather
I think so.
Travis
Your research, spot-on.
Heather
Thank you.
Travis
Nicely done. Thank you. Now, all you really need is me to finagle and struggle with technology for another three and a half hours before every podcast and there we go.
Travis
Thank you guys for listening. Remember, if you haven’t watched us and you do want to see us and we now have as good of audio quality because we’re coming through the microphones and IGTV.
Travis
So if you’ve been watching on IGTV and you heard, you know, it was a bit echoey because it was just the camera’s microphone, we fixed that now. So we’ll come to the microphones. If you want to watch it, go to our Instagram @extrapackofpeanuts. You could check it out. You could see us.
Travis
We do, I don’t know, sometimes we do some funny stuff with our heads, make funny expressions to ourselves. But if you listen to the podcast, thank you, guys. If you’ll do us a favor, review, and rate it. However you are listening to it, especially if you’re on Apple podcast, we’re trying to get to a thousand ratings. That’ll be super nice. We’re getting closer, getting closer in the mid seven hundred. So we need two hundred and fifty people to go and rate it. That’d be super nice.
Travis
And we just want to say thank you as always for the support. Don’t forget, you can get the show notes at Extrapackofpeanuts.com/shows and until next time, happy free travels everyone.
