On 5/18/2020 at 8:30 AM, eagle45 said:

As travel falls further apart and the thread nearly falls off the first page, here's something domestic:

Is this the Big Sur waterfall?  I made the trip from wine country down to San Diego about 8-9 years back and made a ton of stops along the way (here, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Anaheim).   

20 hours ago, xzmattzx said:

When is everyone expecting to be able to use a hotel next?  When was the last time you have used a hotel for non-essential travel?  Who has stayed overnight somewhere else for any reason during the pandemic?

Got a ocean city NJ trip booked the week after 4th of July weekend. Hotel is opening before then in phases and by then should actually be operating at 100% capacity.  That's their plan right now anyway.  Of course things can change.  But as of now,  we are on. 

12 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

Got a ocean city NJ trip booked the week after 4th of July weekend. Hotel is opening before then in phases and by then should actually be operating at 100% capacity.  That's their plan right now anyway.  Of course things can change.  But as of now,  we are on. 

Thanks

9 hours ago, hputenis said:

Is this the Big Sur waterfall?  I made the trip from wine country down to San Diego about 8-9 years back and made a ton of stops along the way (here, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Anaheim).   

Yup, Big Sur & highway 1 must be one of the most beautiful drives anywhere.  

Yeah as heard the trip to San Diego is very pretty there. Hope to go one day.

9 hours ago, Passepartout said:

Yeah as heard the trip to San Diego is very pretty there. Hope to go one day.

You should go Shelby.  I visited my buddy there once, smoked a J on the beach and had the chillest weekend ever!

1 hour ago, paco said:

You should go Shelby.  I visited my buddy there once, smoked a J on the beach and had the chillest weekend ever!

Don't corrupt Shelby

23 hours ago, paco said:

You should go Shelby.  I visited my buddy there once, smoked a J on the beach and had the chillest weekend ever!

Dr. J ?

Starting to plan a few things here finally - friends just closed on a condo in Punta Gorda, FL so we're looking to go down there the week leading up the 4th of July.  No clue if anything will be open, but I'm fine with sitting by the pool or on the beach every day and just listening to music and drinking lots of rum and beer.

2 hours ago, mikemack8 said:

Starting to plan a few things here finally - friends just closed on a condo in Punta Gorda, FL so we're looking to go down there the week leading up the 4th of July.  No clue if anything will be open, but I'm fine with sitting by the pool or on the beach every day and just listening to music and drinking lots of rum and beer.

I was disappointed to find out this doesn't mean what I thought it meant in English.......👀

Just hope that you all can go there in Florida. Have fun if you do.

I had to reschedule my Denver trip until mid-July, but I'm actually doing it this time

We are driving down to Myrtle Beach on Thursday for my wife's 30th birthday.  Almost everything is open in NC (and I believe SC), so it should be interesting to see how crowded it is.  Also, I'm super pumped this happened:

https://www.pennlive.com/life/2020/05/warning-to-beachgoers-nearly-100-portuguese-man-o-war-found-at-south-carolina-beaches.html#:~:text=Warning%20to%20beachgoers%3A%20Nearly%20100%20Portuguese%20man%20o'%20war,found%20at%20South%20Carolina%20beaches

Safe to say I'm not going anywhere near the water.  If I had a top 10 list of animals/insects that terrify me the most, Man o Wars and Japanese murder hornets would both be on that list.  If I find a Brazilian Wandering spider in my bananas, or if I come across a blue-ringed octopus, I'm headed to Alaska.  

38 minutes ago, hputenis said:

We are driving down to Myrtle Beach on Thursday for my wife's 30th birthday.  Almost everything is open in NC (and I believe SC), so it should be interesting to see how crowded it is.  Also, I'm super pumped this happened:

https://www.pennlive.com/life/2020/05/warning-to-beachgoers-nearly-100-portuguese-man-o-war-found-at-south-carolina-beaches.html#:~:text=Warning%20to%20beachgoers%3A%20Nearly%20100%20Portuguese%20man%20o'%20war,found%20at%20South%20Carolina%20beaches

Safe to say I'm not going anywhere near the water.  If I had a top 10 list of animals/insects that terrify me the most, Man o Wars and Japanese murder hornets would both be on that list.  If I find a Brazilian Wandering spider in my bananas, or if I come across a blue-ringed octopus, I'm headed to Alaska.  

In my minimal experience around the man o war, theyre super easy to see. The kind of jellyfish that come in seasonally in OCNJ are much scarier because they seem to float under the water. The man o war has a big purple sail that stays on top of the water and is easy to spot if you stay mindful. Of course you need to stay a good distance away because of how long their tentacles can be. But I felt that they were so easy to see I wasnt scared to be in the water, even them in sight. 

Look at the giant baloon floating on top of the water. This is one of my pics from Bermuda. We were there this time last year, and it seemed to be the season. There was actually tons of seaweed on the beaches, and man o war mixed in all over the beaches. Had to watch where you stepped on the way to the water. And of course, they were in the water too.

You can see a few of them in the seaweed on the beach in this pic

Yeah they definitely seem like they'd be easy to spot.  The problem when you're in the water is you can't see ish, because it's so dirty.  Having one of those demon spawns wrapped around my leg sounds like a fun time though.  One of my friends was stung by a jellyfish 10 years ago in Myrtle at a bachelor party.  We literally checked in, ran out to the beach, and he stomped right on a jellyfish and had to go right to the hospital.  😂

18 minutes ago, hputenis said:

Yeah they definitely seem like they'd be easy to spot.  The problem when you're in the water is you can't see ish, because it's so dirty.  Having one of those demon spawns wrapped around my leg sounds like a fun time though.  One of my friends was stung by a jellyfish 10 years ago in Myrtle at a bachelor party.  We literally checked in, ran out to the beach, and he stomped right on a jellyfish and had to go right to the hospital.  😂

I mean... I was in the water when I took the pic of that one that I posted first. It was easy to see. Thats a big balloon floating right on top saying here I am!

Of course if youre just wading out kinda standing there or walking around its easy to keep an eye out. If youre swimming, boogie boarding, body surfing, etc then you might accidentally run in to one. 

I wouldnt be doing any kind of water activities if I knew they were around. Id stay on 100% alert. 

Wife wants to go to Vermont for the fourth. She said everything’s open and I’m too lazy to check, so fingers crossed. I think she wants to go to Burlington. Any know if they have good fireworks up there? 

4 minutes ago, 20dawk4life said:

Wife wants to go to Vermont for the fourth. She said everything’s open and I’m too lazy to check, so fingers crossed. I think she wants to go to Burlington. Any know if they have good fireworks up there? 

I was in Vermont for Memorial Day weekend.  Things were opening back up, in a way.  The welcome center at the southeast corner of the state was closed, so I couldn't go to the bathroom there.  Restaurants of all kinds required reservations in order to go in.  This included even an ice cream shop I walked past.  I was able to get beer to go by going into a brewery, but needed a reservation to sit down, and they were booked all day and most of the next day.

 

There's pretty much no fast-food places anywhere in the state, so you can't just pull off of the Interstate to go to the bathroom.

 

Really, you may need to plan your day around when and where you can go to the bathroom.  My sister drove out to western Maryland with her husband this past weekend.  She has a bladder problem, so bathrooms are important to her.  She had to hold it in for the entire 4-hour drive, because there was no chance to go anywhere along the way.

 

Things will likely be changed by July, but that's how things stood two weeks ago up in Vermont.

I think we are nearing the point of reasonable return to travel.  Some countries are seeing near zero new cases of COVID.  

Depending on the trip you have in mind, the rate limiting step right now is the opening of restaurants/bars/excursions/attractions.  You don't want to go somewhere and see everything shut down.  But we are getting very close to a rare opportunity to maximize value, low crowds, and people in the industry eagerly embracing tourists with incredible value opportunities.  

Of course, we have an obligation to make sure it's safe, but I think we are just about there.  

I'm so close to pulling the trigger on something for Iceland in July and maybe seeing the Mediterranean with August weather and no crowds...rare opportunity.  

im going to wildwood on monday, does that count in this thread?

Ireland re-scheduled for next April. Same month as the hog hunt I'm going to in N.C. . Should be a great month

You all are travelers now aren't ya? Never been outside the USA in my 45 years of living! Can you believe that?!

13 hours ago, eagle45 said:

I think we are nearing the point of reasonable return to travel.  Some countries are seeing near zero new cases of COVID.  

Depending on the trip you have in mind, the rate limiting step right now is the opening of restaurants/bars/excursions/attractions.  You don't want to go somewhere and see everything shut down.  But we are getting very close to a rare opportunity to maximize value, low crowds, and people in the industry eagerly embracing tourists with incredible value opportunities.  

Of course, we have an obligation to make sure it's safe, but I think we are just about there.  

I'm so close to pulling the trigger on something for Iceland in July and maybe seeing the Mediterranean with August weather and no crowds...rare opportunity.  

I'll have to find it, but I occasionally get Iceland stuff in my Google app because I went there in 2018.  Anyway, I saw an article that Iceland would open its borders in July, EXCEPT to the United States (or North America?).  They were worried about the volume of coronavirus cases since March, and the anticipated spikes due to the recent protests.  So you better check up on that.