Category: Travel

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Trams & Air Gondolas Wish List

I am absolutely obsessed with trams, ski lift rides, air gondolas, and all things like them. 

The first one I ever rode was the Roosevelt Island Tram in NYC and every time I go to NYC, I go and ride the tram.  It’s not a big or long one, it’s the location on this for me – It’s very much a part of my personal NYC experience. The tram system accepts only Metrocard and you need to swipe on each leg of trip AND exit tram. Runs on a regular schedule except holidays. Noted. 

North Carolina

For my second airlift ride – our NC State Fair added the State Flyer and it’s a permanent fixture but only runs on certain occasions (i think?) and it’s the BEST view of the entire fair. Highly recommend.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CjyZFPWP1dB/

I didn’t realize it was made locally in Sanford NC AND cost $1 million! Wow. This is also a must do for me when I go to the fair. LOVE IT – this video below is pretty cool too. 

Tennessee

When we went on the first and likely only, family vacation to Gatlinburg Tennessee, we found the coolest tram and sky chair there! So we rode both of those. The Gatlinburg boasts that it’s The Home of North America’s longest pedestrian cable bridge – you can ride the Skylift to get to that AND have a beer and a app at the top. We had such a fun experience here – I believe the tickets were $35 each for adults. 

Now, the Skylift and the Skybridge are fun but y’all. They ALSO HAVE A TRAM!

Ober Gatlinburg – We just happened to stumble onto this one and it’s only $22-25 per ticket! SCORE! You can visit a bunch of things at the top – including a mountain coaster which we ALSO rode. LOL. We had a blast in Gatlinburg. This one happens to be one of the largest and each car can carry 120 people.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CVkqCAzr-ID/

Once we reached the top, we went to the Wildlife Encounter and watched some ice skating and went on the mountain coaster. That was my very first ride on one of those and um, wow. I did it! lol Jason freaking LOVED it. He was going so fast that it automatically slowed him down a few times. Me? No worries there – I used my brakes judiciously. 

Now, I have started creating a list of “MUST RIDE” trams and gondolas and all things like that. 

Canada, Spain

1. Vancouver Skyride

This is the big boy – North America’s largest aerial tram system! The tram operates year round and departs every 15 minutes. Tickets are not the cheap side at about $70 for an adult ticket but that is a round trip and access to the mountain top attractions that are open. AND they also offer a Skyride SURF – where you can ride on TOP of the tram. YES PLEASE! 

2. Madeira, Spain

Funchal Cable Cars 

 

If you know of one, tell me about it! Sharing is caring!

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Asheville, NC – Overnight trip

It’s leaf peeping time – Asheville, North Carolina

We hadn’t been to the mountains at all this past year so I booked us an overnight stay in Asheville. I used Airbnb and found a cool looking renovated old school bus to spend the night…I dream of living a life in a van or overlander – I have some old gypsy blood in my heart or something. I’ve always found it fascinating to actually live a mobile life. 

Anyway, we will talk about that bus later…let me just say that $335 for ONE NIGHT should yield a very comfortable stay that one doesn’t have to worry about stuffing towels and blankets in the cracks and over windows because the heater left to be plugged in kept blowing the converter in the bus that was supposed to supply electricity…..

Regardless of this minor (albeit irritating) issue; it was fun! 

We had a great time – first time for Jason and only the 2 time for me. We missed the “peak leaf” by one week I believe but it was still so beautiful and we were lucky that Green Knob Lookout wasn’t fogged or cloudy. It was pristine, sunny and so much fun!

The Devil Is In The Details

I planned out our route so that we could do a quick little hike during the good early afternoon light because did you actually go to the mountains if you don’t do at least ONE HIKE?  

 We took the normal route out of Raleigh to Asheville but we had planned to hop onto the Blue Ridge Parkway outside of Marion, NC and just do a loop down to Asheville which passed the Mount Mitchell State Park. 

I’m so glad we did! We found the neatest little dam at Lake Tahoma on the way to the BRP. We pulled over to take a look around and explore a bit. 

Honestly, I didn’t even realize how CLOSE we were going to be to Mt. Mitchell otherwise we would have planned on adding that since I’ve never been there and neither has Jason. But by the time we got to our actually reason for going on that twisty winding road (to see the Green Knob Fire Tower) that we were pretty hungry by the time we saw we were basically at the entrance to the park. 

Unfortunately, we couldn’t go on with our planned route because apparently it snowed a few days prior and our route out was closed since there was still ice on the road. We were a bit bummed because we had to backtrack and go a different direction but whatever. It was fun and we saw stuff, etc.

This image shows a closeup of the Green Knob Fire Tower on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

Green Knob Fire Tower is not accessible above the ladder – they have it locked. Not sure if it’s year-round or just when we were there. But we still climbed the steps and took some pics. Short intense hike from the Green Knob Overlook. 

 

 

 

Future PRO TIP aka Hindsight is 20/20 – Check the weather at the actual park before committing to a route. Higher elevations and lack of ability for snow plows to get in (it’s a state park, no snow trucks!), can make having a couple route options a smart idea. 

Downside to the detour, we were STARVING by the time we actually made it to Asheville and OMG IT WAS SO FUCKING CROWDED. We THOUGHT we could just stop in Wicked Weed or something and grab a bite. Dude. Not happening. 

FOOD & DRINK

Future PRO TIP aka Hindsight is 20/20 –  During high peak seasons like fall foliage and summer, make a reservation somewhere OR take some snacks and be okay with a long wait. 

We ended up getting a table after a 30 min wait at The Twisted Laurel – we just took a chance on it since I had not read reviews, etc. Please do yourself an IMMENSE favor and get the focaccia. This was just absolutely stunning – apples, whipped ricotta, toasted pistachios, honey. Ugh. I’d eat myself sick on it. The pizza was good and the smash burger was YUM. That was our late lunch and dinner – we ended up heading out to find the Stoked bus before dark (so so glad we did!) and later went to grocery store and grabbed firewood, Firestarter, beer, and ICE CREAM. Perfect. 

 

Breakfast next morning – was at Mayfel’s. The beignets were good but wow that sausage gravy and biscuit would sink a ship! VERY big and solid. 

 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkD4CeYvRLz/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkCa5Hrr0NF/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkIuIGZsKLt/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CkGzZuLs8YN/

 

https://www.romanticasheville.com/mtmitchell.htm

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Stoked – An Airbnb Review

I’ve been trying to find a nice way to say that I would never in a million years rebook this listing or recommend it…. I guess that sentence is enough for clarify on how I feel.

Maybe it’s just my expectations that when I agree to pay almost as much money for a one night stay in a cute looking Airbnb rather than a high end hotel within walking distance of town, I kind of expect a certain level of comfort regardless of what the package looks like.

Airbnb isn’t doing itself any favors lately though from what I’m seeing and reading. The cleaning fees are outrageous in many instances and it does require a certain level of “cleaning” up after yourself. Which, if I’m paying $100 cleaning fee, you’d think that would apply….

Which brings me back to Stoked.

The saving graces for this experience is that I absolutely knew it would be an “experience” considering it’s a renovated bus.  J and I have talked about having an Overlander or living in a tiny house (or boat in his fondest dreams) so it’s best to know if small space living would even work AND to see how other people do their renos so we know what we like and what we don’t like and that it was for only ONE night. So worst case scenario, we can manage that if it’s at all even viable and I’d say it’s not viable for us.

I am not a cold weather person, I don’t need it to be 70 or above when sleeping, actually get better sleep in a cooler environment, but it’s nice to control the drafts and environment itself. With that, I am SO FREAKING GLAD we brought the heating blanket and my woobie.

It’s good points is that it’s just a few miles away from a grocery store and a couple more miles back towards downtown Asheville.

But honestly, for $335 bucks a night? There are better options out there. Keep looking.

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Must Do?

From my perspective in traveling to a new country, I tend to get very overwhelmed because I want to SEE and DO everything…which just isn’t possible in the time I have.

I overcome the overwhelming-ness of it all by just starting a list and putting down every thing that is of interest. Then, I break it down by location and finally, making a time based itinerary. At that point, it’s very easy to see what will work in the time frame allotted and what will not. I don’t just disregard my list after I’ve agonized over what to include and what to exclude – I make a part II visit list.

For Morocco, I really wanted to go to Marrakesh – that was the number 1 place for me. Then, I researched the most authentic ways we could really experience the culture – within the parameters that myself and J had decided were important. Like, we didn’t necessarily want to go camping for this particular adventure and with the unknown of the food and water quality and availability we both wanted actual bathrooms with toilets and showers.

My biggest thing was that I wanted to see the souks that had been there for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, due to the complete chaos from the mopeds, donkeys, children, people, bikes, etc we didn’t actually spend much time perusing the stalls. I’m just not comfortable haggling for pricing and you can’t just leisurely browse – most of the vendors know tourists and are pretty fucking relentless. I get it, that’s how they make money but it was just too much for me on my first visit there.

I was disappointed in myself but it would have been far less enjoyable for me and J if I had just “powered through”. Quite honestly, he was amazing and far more patient than I’ve ever been with myself. Truly the very best person for me – he always knew just by looking at me when it was time to pull over to the side out of the flow of traffic and people and just take a breather. <3

It’s always important to remember what YOUR style of travel is and adjust your “must-do” list with what will truly make you happy but always be willing to adjust as you go along – we ended up doing a hot air balloon at sunrise and THAT was the most epic reason to see and go there for ME.

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Going to Morocco – Marrakech & Casablanca

How did we get there? The hard way – flying to Casablanca, taking the “express” train to Marrakech, and hiring a taxi to “take us” to the riad.

Dude, we started traveling at 4pm on Monday, September 12. It was an overnight flight to Charles De Gaulle airport – short layover Tuesday morning (4 hours). I think we arrived at about 7 in the morning? 7:30 am – thankful for iphone pics and timestamps! We didn’t land until closer to 8am but whatever.

Paris (ish) France at Sunrise – so romantic hah

Short layover in Paris was like 4 hours Then off to Casablanca!

The flight leg from Paris to Casablanca was supposed to take 2.5 hours but there was an unexpected storm over Spain and we had to fly around it – that added another hour to the trip. We landed in Casablanca at 3:30 their time.

Can I also just mention that I’m definitely not used to calculating hours ahead and what time zone we were in…guess that takes practice. LOL

From Casablanca, I had thought we’d take the train to Marrakesh. Yeah, it added a hell of a long time to a long day of traveling but I DID NOT KNOW. Wow, did I NOT KNOW. HAH!

After going through their security line (this took about 30 min or so) we exchanged currency, found the train ticket window and we’re like, when does the last train leave for the day? And the lady said, RUN! So, we took off running down the hallways to get to this train before it left. Apparently, it’s the last one of the day. According to the train system website, it said it would be leaving at 5:30 but no my friends, it wasn’t quite 5 pm by the time we found the train and boarded it and we left a few minutes later.

WHAT THE FUCK.

And just for the record – their First Class is not all like other places first class. Not to mention, they didn’t even check for tickets.

The exchange rate is fairly easy to remember though and the US dollar fares very well – definitely more for the dollar.

To be continued…

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Almost time for Adventure – Morocco!

I had my 50th birthday this past July. Even with Covid-19 and it’s long lasting issues still impacting the world, I really wanted to do something memorable for this big number.

I originally was going to choose something domestic – another trip to Utah or Nevada or Arizona but for some reason I just couldn’t make myself book anything. I went back and forth in my head about cost and expenses and everything related but it’s my 50th birthday. We have the time and money – it’s the time to get started on crossing off these bucket list items.

First flight since the pandemic started – we’re flying Delta.

Tip: if you take medications make sure you check if those medications are allowed in the country you’re traveling to – ADHD, injectables like insulin, etc. You may need a special travel letter from your MD or an alternate medication if that’s not possible.

This is a helpful link: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/page/travel-abroad-with-medicine

https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Marrakech