Josiah and Lauren Part 9: Where Are They Honeymooning?

[BachelorToTheRapture]

25 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

By the time I was 18, I had been to every state east of the Mississippi except for Rhode Island (picked it up as an adult), as well as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, both Dakota's with my family. We drive an Oldsmobile and towed a Coleman Valley Forge tent camper, which allowed us to afford our trips. Camping, packing a picnic lunch, and cooking our dinner really helped to keep costs down. I also drove through Kansas to Colorado for a Junior Classical League (Latin) convention by tour bus. 

That's how my family travelled. We couldn't afford a camper, but tents, cold cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and making our own dinner is how we got our family of 7 to a huge portion of the country. Even when we stayed in hotels on the drive home if it was long it was one SUPER cheap hotel room and a couple people sleep in the car. We have many great memories of those trips! Almost none of us were on a plane before high school or college, but we've all focused our money on experiences above things as adults (including football games)

[CarrotCake]

Im actually travelling right now. I’m in Bosnia at the moment and I love it. Rest of the trip involves Croatia, Slovenia and Austria.

I have been outside of Europe a few times but I just love travelling around our own continent especially since there are so many places outside of the popular touristic destinations.

And it is always nice to be able to drive somewhere with our own car. As a kid our parents always drove with us to France or Italy.

But when it comes to intercontinental traveling, Canada would be next on the list. Few years ago we rented an RV to visit some NP’s in the USA and would love to do this in Canada as well.

[Runningfromreality]

2 hours ago, Alisamer said:

I feel the need to warn you that there seem to be exactly three options for how people react to Walt Disney World. 1) Ugh, hate that place. 2) Meh (these first two often include either bad experiences or more often - bad or no planning) and 3) OMG can we upgrade this ticket to an annual pass when can we come back do we know anyone who lives here we can stay with maybe we can move to Orlando!!!

In fact, I know a guy who wanted to move closer to his daughter's college in Miami, and chose Orlando despite it still being a good ways away. First thing on his to-do list once he arrived and dropped his things in his new apartment? Go buy his annual pass to Walt Disney World.

So absolutely go all out - plan ahead well, know what to expect of weather and crowd levels and how to manage those things. Experience everything you can, go during Halloween or Christmas party times if you can. Don't skip any parks because you think the kids won't enjoy it - they might. Have an amazing, amazing time. But be prepared to want to come back!

It's been over a year since I've been to Walt Disney World, and it may be 2021 before I get to go back. I miss it so much. Every  now and then I'll be sitting at my desk and look at the clock, and think "there are people riding Pirates of the Caribbean right now." or "Someone just saw Cinderella's castle for the first time." and it makes me smile.

This was so true for my husband. We went together once in 2015, then three times in 2017 (we had annual passes because we went on our honeymoon there and I ran two half marathons there that year). He was iffy about going in 2015 and is now more in love with it than I am (and that's saying a lot). Now it looks like it'll be January of 2020 before we go back, which makes me a little sad. But I often listen to the background music loops or ride audio on youtube during work and it makes me happy. 

We're planning our first international trip together in August. We're going to Scotland and I'm really excited. I lived in Vienna as a kid so I've seen a lot of Europe but never Scotland. Husband has never been to Europe, so it'll be fun to experience something new together!

[Pecansforeveryone]

Thank you to all who corrected me that Loretta Lynn was a young bride, not a child bride and that child brides were not the norm in Appalaccia. 

[Gobbles]

6 hours ago, BlessaYourHeart said:

I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t been to Spain at some point. I’ve been 3 times and I’m only 22 

I'm 27 and I was in Spain for the first time when I was 2 1/2 and almost every year since then. There was one year when I was there 3 times. It feels really normal and boring to be there. (But that is what I want.) It is amazing how many flights are going there during summer. Over ten per day alone from our airport here. 

Yet I have never been to Neuschwanstein which is just around the corner by US standards and it feels like everyone in the US was there already.  

[Pecansforeveryone]

17 minutes ago, Gobbles said:

I'm 27 and I was in Spain for the first time when I was 2 1/2 and almost every year since then. There was one year when I was there 3 times. It feels really normal and boring to be there. (But that is what I want.) It is amazing how many flights are going there during summer. Over ten per day alone from our airport here. 

Yet I have never been to Neuschwanstein which is just around the corner by US standards and it feels like everyone in the US was there already.  

Funny, how that is. I'm down the street from Colonial Williamsburg. I have been there a literal handful of times. 

[PumaLover]

This is my new favorite thread on FJ! I love reading about everyone's travel experiences and places you are hoping to go. I'm turning 40 next year and have been wanting to do something big for it. I live in California near some of the famous national parks and I feel like I just go to the same places all the time. I am wanting to try something new.

Does anyone have recommendations? I love national parks, mountains, snow, forest scenery… Maybe Alaska? I would also love to go to Canada and I have some friends there. I'm a foodie but also vegetarian so I would need to make sure there would be food I could eat, LOL. I'm going to Alabama in a few weeks to a resort beach town and am not sure I'll be able to find anything that isn't seafood!

[Pecansforeveryone]

18 minutes ago, PumaLover said:

This is my new favorite thread on FJ! I love reading about everyone's travel experiences and places you are hoping to go. I'm turning 40 next year and have been wanting to do something big for it. I live in California near some of the famous national parks and I feel like I just go to the same places all the time. I am wanting to try something new.

Does anyone have recommendations? I love national parks, mountains, snow, forest scenery… Maybe Alaska? I would also love to go to Canada and I have some friends there. I'm a foodie but also vegetarian so I would need to make sure there would be food I could eat, LOL. I'm going to Alabama in a few weeks to a resort beach town and am not sure I'll be able to find anything that isn't seafood!

I have never been to the Deep South. However, bbq is religion in the south so I'm there's some of that. If nothing else, I'm sure there a steakhouse or two. You aren't the 1st person to not like seafood, so hopefully any remotely savy restaurant is aware of that. I loved the Pacific northwest. Mount Saint Helens is interesting. I think Mount Rainier would be truly spectacular. I'm glad you enjoyed Flagstaff, AZ. Im an alumni of N.A.U. and Flagstaff is pretty. 

[Cheetah]

23 minutes ago, PumaLover said:

This is my new favorite thread on FJ! I love reading about everyone's travel experiences and places you are hoping to go. I'm turning 40 next year and have been wanting to do something big for it. I live in California near some of the famous national parks and I feel like I just go to the same places all the time. I am wanting to try something new.

Does anyone have recommendations? I love national parks, mountains, snow, forest scenery… Maybe Alaska? I would also love to go to Canada and I have some friends there. I'm a foodie but also vegetarian so I would need to make sure there would be food I could eat, LOL. I'm going to Alabama in a few weeks to a resort beach town and am not sure I'll be able to find anything that isn't seafood!

Two ideas, you might have done both of them already:

1) Grand Teton NP?  Really pretty mountains and lakes.  Jackson WY is a cutesy tourist town on the southern end.  It's also within driving distance of Yellowstone if you want to see that (again?). 

2) Have you done the Narrows hike at Zion NP?  We just did this in April and it was so fun.  Zion gets really crowded in the summer so you have to plan to go at a time that is warm enough to be fun to be outside but not yet high season.  The Narrows hike is wading upstream in a shallow creek for as long as you want and then turning around and coming back.  It's really beautiful... narrow high canyon walls on both sides and so much fun to wade.  You can rent waterproof hiking boots and waders at the outfitters by the park entrance.

[Pecansforeveryone]

So much of Utah is underrated. Zion NP is beautiful. Another big perk is that it's not nearly as crowded as the Grand Canyon. 

[PumaLover]

1 minute ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

So much of Utah is underrated. Zion NP is beautiful. Another big perk is that it's not nearly as crowded as the Grand Canyon. 

Yes!!! I only visited Utah for the first time in 2015 and I fell in love with it! I have been to 4 out of 5 of the parks but did not get to do the Narrows hike. I would like to do that for sure one of these days!

@Pecansforeveryone I had my heart set on moving to Flag because I just loved it so much. The climate, the scenery, the food, the people… but I couldn't find a job. So here I stay in CA. 

Love the idea of Grand Teton and I will look that up! Never been anywhere up in that area.

[Pecansforeveryone]

2 minutes ago, PumaLover said:

Yes!!! I only visited Utah for the first time in 2015 and I fell in love with it! I have been to 4 out of 5 of the parks but did not get to do the Narrows hike. I would like to do that for sure one of these days!

@Pecansforeveryone I had my heart set on moving to Flag because I just loved it so much. The climate, the scenery, the food, the people… but I couldn't find a job. So here I stay in CA. 

Love the idea of Grand Teton and I will look that up! Never been anywhere up in that area.

I hear you. The very small job scene in Flagstaff, plus the high cost of living (It's much more expensive than Southern Arizona) are why I joined the Navy at the tender age of 33.  I'm now medically separated living in Virginia with my new husband. To keep expanding, I have heard people rave about Glacier National Park in Montana. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I traveled a lot as a kid and it put me off of road trips for over a decade, the experience was hell with my parents who hated/hate each other and my siblings who hated each other. Two weeks of none stop fighting between the 4 of them, I was practically catatonic and didn't talk to anyone for a good week after each vacation, just locked myself in my room to recover.  As I got older, married and had kids we didn't have the money to fly and as I said driving anywhere was out of the question. For not only the bad memories, but having 2 young children & a husband who got violently car put road trips to an end until they were old enough for Dramamine.  My son outgrew his car sickness by the time he was about 5 or 6, so by the time he was old enough to take Dramamine he didn't need it. DD, however, never outgrew hers and needs Dramamine if she will be riding in a car for more than 25/30 minutes, UNLESS she is driving then she is fine for about 3 or 4 hours before it starts to bother her.

[Audrey2]

3 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

DD, however, never outgrew hers and needs Dramamine if she will be riding in a car for more than 25/30 minutes, UNLESS she is driving then she is fine for about 3 or 4 hours before it starts to bother her.

I feel for her. I'm 46 and still get carsick if I ride in the backseat. Dramamine and Sea Bands, which I call my Wonder Woman bracelets help, and I can get away with the backseat then, if I don't try to read or look at anything in the car. My brother got carsick, too, but he grew out of it. My sister was spared that fate. She always accused me if getting carsick to get the front seat (in the 80s, pre air bags), even after I barfed on her a few times, when Dad didn't find a wide spot in the road soon enough.

[srlm]

1 hour ago, PumaLover said:

This is my new favorite thread on FJ! I love reading about everyone's travel experiences and places you are hoping to go. I'm turning 40 next year and have been wanting to do something big for it. I live in California near some of the famous national parks and I feel like I just go to the same places all the time. I am wanting to try something new.

Does anyone have recommendations? I love national parks, mountains, snow, forest scenery… Maybe Alaska? I would also love to go to Canada and I have some friends there. I'm a foodie but also vegetarian so I would need to make sure there would be food I could eat, LOL. I'm going to Alabama in a few weeks to a resort beach town and am not sure I'll be able to find anything that isn't seafood!

I wanted to do something big on my 40th birthday as well and couldn't figure out what it should be.  As it turned out, a friend of mine got a temp job in Ca (we live in New England) and I invited myself along so she wouldn't be alone.  We drove out together, I stayed a few days and then flew home.  It was the most amazing thing to see the country from one end to the other in a car.  American is so beautiful, I can't even tell you how the experience changed everything about me.  

[HereticHick]

56 minutes ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

So much of Utah is underrated. Zion NP is beautiful. Another big perk is that it's not nearly as crowded as the Grand Canyon. 

I can see a Duggar or Bates couple honeymooning in the various National Parks of Utah. Beautiful scenery and lots of Mormons make it a more fundy-approved destination that a beach or cruise filled with bikinis and alcoholic beverages. No way would they photograph themselves in from of a Mormon temple, however! : )

[Yes, I know that the Mormon population of Utah is decreasing--but it is still about 60% I think]

 

PS Only hitch is if they visit areas that are so super Mormon they can't easily get fancy coffee drinks. You know basic fundy gals can't go a day without a fancy coffee drink!

[justoneoftwo]

11 minutes ago, HereticHick said:

I can see a Duggar or Bates couple honeymooning in the various National Parks of Utah. Beautiful scenery and lots of Mormons make it a more fundy-approved destination that a beach or cruise filled with bikinis and alcoholic beverages. No way would they photograph themselves in from of a Mormon temple, however! : )

[Yes, I know that the Mormon population of Utah is decreasing--but it is still about 60% I think]

 

PS Only hitch is if they visit areas that are so super Mormon they can't easily get fancy coffee drinks. You know basic fundy gals can't go a day without a fancy coffee drink!

Didn't one of the Bates get proposed to there?  

Also outside of Salt Lake the ratio changes drastically.  But in the national parks it used to be most common to meet people from out of the country.  I haven't been down there since Trump got elected, so that may have changed.  

[AnnEggBlandHer?]

1 hour ago, PumaLover said:

Does anyone have recommendations? I love national parks, mountains, snow, forest scenery… Maybe Alaska? I would also love to go to Canada and I have some friends there. I'm a foodie but also vegetarian so I would need to make sure there would be food I could eat, LOL. I'm going to Alabama in a few weeks to a resort beach town and am not sure I'll be able to find anything that isn't seafood!

Definitely Glacier National Park. And I’ve never been, but Banff National Park/Lake Louise in Canada have always looked like the most gorgeous places and they are on my bucket list for sure! 

I have found since moving to the South that you may be able to get a ‘side plate’  especially at BBQ joints where you just pick 3-4 sides to make up your dinner, just be careful about what is vegetarian and what isn’t (collards and baked beans will always be made with meat, even cornbread might be made with drippings, etc) But I also live in a Southerner coastal city with a shellfish allergy and sometimes I feel bad missing out on popular restaurants! 

[srlm]

On 7/8/2018 at 7:55 AM, SapphireSlytherin said:

 

The problem is, you think you have time.

 

@SapphireSlytherin Do I remember correctly that you have had breast cancer?  Have you noticed that your desire to travel increased after that?  I am asking because I have also had breast cancer and have noticed that everyone I know with that kind of experience has ended up with wanderlust.  

 

@Cheetah I apologize for the New England weather while you were here, that was incredibly uncommon.  I have lived here for almost 30 years and never remember that kind of heat for that many days in a row.  I hope you won't hold it against us.  

[VelociRapture]

I just want to say it’s fine to prioritize travel, but it’s also ok if you can’t/don’t want to as well. I love to travel and my husband enjoys it as well, but it’s taken a backseat the last few years because we adopted a dog, had a baby, and are looking to hopefully buy a bigger place next year. Saving for travel AND a bigger place AND to have another child soon just isn’t feasible for us, so we likely won’t be traveling for a while as we get that other stuff done. So, other FJers, don’t feel bad or left out if you can’t/don’t want to travel either. 

1 minute ago, justoneoftwo said:

Didn't one of the Bates get proposed to there?  

Also outside of Salt Lake the ratio changes drastically.  But in the national parks it used to be most common to meet people from out of the country.  I haven't been down there since Trump got elected, so that may have changed.  

Kelton Balka proposed to Josie Bates at one of the Utah parks last month. I think it may have been Zion, but I’m not sure. 

[Carm_88]

@PumaLover If you have that list and want to come to Canada, I would say Banff, AB. Jasper National Park! They're all super beautiful. 

I find it fascinating that we get so used to our own surroundings. People are always talking about beach vacations, I get it in the winter but in the summer, I do a weird head tilt and kinda think "Hmmm I can go to the beach anytime. Why would I pay for that?" Also, tourists are fascinated by the ocean, I don't even notice it. Rugged cliffs and much water. I don't notice. I care, but I don't notice. 

 

[SapphireSlytherin]

14 minutes ago, srlm said:

@SapphireSlytherin Do I remember correctly that you have had breast cancer?  Have you noticed that your desire to travel increased after that?  I am asking because I have also had breast cancer and have noticed that everyone I know with that kind of experience has ended up with wanderlust.  

 

Yes, I did - I was dx'd almost 13 years ago.

My desire for travel didn't increase, no, but I've always had a traveler's soul. What did happen, though, was our travel money was suddenly siphoned off into "cancer money" to pay for tens of thousands of dollars worth of treatments/surgeries/procedures that weren't fully covered by our health insurance, which meant no (or very little) travel for several years, even though my health would have allowed us to travel. So, once we were out of medical-bill-debt, our travels started up again.

I hope you're doing well after your diagnosis. <3 

 

[xenobia]

9 hours ago, SapphireSlytherin said:

Yay - a map! We do that too, with similar color-coded pins. Ours is a world map, but right now only three continents have pins. That.Will.Change.

 

Ours is a world map too. It's glued to a piece of cork, so we can put the pins in there without damaging the wall. Here's a picture of it while I'm making the guest bed and my cat is helping out. And another one where you can see North America. The pins are a bit hard to see, but there are white ones on Vancouver, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon and Jamaica

[srlm]

@SapphireSlytherin Yes I am doing well!  My diagnosis was a little over 4 years ago, and after we paid off my tens of thousands of dollars worth of medical expenses, it's all getting funneled into vacation funds.  I never wanted to travel before my diagnosis, and now I drag my family all over the place.  My teenage son hates it and all I can think is someday it will be him dragging his family all over, hopefully without any cancer getting in the way.  

[Cheetah]

32 minutes ago, srlm said:

@SapphireSlytherin

@Cheetah I apologize for the New England weather while you were here, that was incredibly uncommon.  I have lived here for almost 30 years and never remember that kind of heat for that many days in a row.  I hope you won't hold it against us.  

No problem - my parents live in Houston so this really wasn't even as bad as that normally is in the summer (although there at least there's tons of parking for everything so we don't have to walk outside for more than a minute at a time when we go there).  I just guessed wrong and booked our first week at Cape Cod (which ended up being cold and rainy) and the 2nd week in Boston and should have done it the other way around.  But it was still great to finally see the area.