Category Archives: Travel Review

Family Ramblings, Travel Review, Troy's Blog

Looking Back

Our First Monopoly Adventure in South Dakota 2009

As I was looking back over this past year I looked at some photos from the past several years, some of which were from our first Monopoly travels to the Badlands in South Dakota. This has definitely reminded me of how much the kids have grown since we began our National Park adventures not all that long ago. This brings a number of different feelings as I’m sure many parents experience.

First, a huge smile to my face remembering the places we’ve explored together as a family and the stories there are about each one. Then a little bit of sadness enters because we can never go back to those ages with the kids and all that are left of those times are the pictures and memories. As I’m reminded of the changes that have occurred I begin to think about the changes that will be coming as we have only eight spaces remaining on our Monopoly National Parks board out of twenty-eight total spaces.

The end of these family adventures is nearing and I’m wanting time to slow down because our last trip is supposed to be to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park which coincides with the oldest daughter graduating from high school. From that point I expect our family to change as she begins to venture out on her own making family vacations more challenging to complete. As I envision entering our final park and stopping to take the requisite photo by the sign I begin to well up a little and feel as though I can’t get out of the car to get that last photo as my girls will be pretty much all grown up. Even writing this now is more challenging due to my emotions. I made the mistake one time of looking up images of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and saw a photo of the entrance sign making these visions all that more real for me.

USS Constitution 2011

We have been very fortunate to have these adventures and share them with several family members and friends along the way. I’m so grateful for the opportunity to explore so many areas of the United States with my children and watch as they grow up and learn about these parks and places as well as they get to learn more about what each of them likes and doesn’t like and begins to explore themselves. Fortunately I have eight more parks to share with them and watch them continue to grow more.

As I look over these photos I’m very proud of our family for what we’ve done and tried and learned. There is no question in my mind these Monopoly Adventures are worth what we’ve put into them and some of the trade offs we’ve made to accomplish our goals so far. I’m hopeful we are able to complete the last parts of our board without too many difficulties, but not too quickly. OK, time to look ahead into 2015!

Exploring the Statue of Liberty 2014

Travel Review, Troy's Blog

New England Trip Re-Cap

Remembering Acadia

The first time I wrote about re-capping a trip I called it a post-mortem. Apparently that seemed a little to weird so I changed it to a re-cap. You could also call it trip analysis. What can go into a trip re-cap report? That depends on each traveler and what they want to gain out of the re-cap. I like to keep track of how much each trip costs us along with how many miles we traveled and how many pictures we took. I also try to record things that I can improve for the next trip to make it better as well as what worked well if there was something I tried differently.

A Great View During a Picnic

One of the things that I learned from our last trip was to pay closer attention to hotel location as compared to whatever sights we are planning on seeing. Our destination was Biscayne National Park and Everglades National Park. Our hotel ending up being closer to the Miami International Airport which was at least 45 minutes from either of these parks. That cost us at least 1 ½ hours that we could have used to explore the park further. This time we learned that a flashlight is a good idea to have along (see An Evening Adventure at Acadia). Also, packing a soft sided cooler is helpful when exploring a National Park. This can be used to keep water or food cold. On a earlier adventure we figured out that buying a case of water early in the trip was useful and economical. Another thing learned at Acadia was that getting a meal ahead of time and bringing it with opens up some flexibility. There are a number of National Parks without options for eating and if you intend to spend more time than a few hours at theses parks than being able to stop at your leisure and grab something to eat allows for a longer adventure. In addition, most of the time what better place to have a picnic than in the presence of the scenery and sounds of a National Park.

On the Road Again

Some of the other data that I collected:

Miles covered in an airplane: 2,248

Miles driven: 1,639

Miles walked: 13

All of these miles were covered in 8 days. We slept well during the night in order to have the energy to explore the next day. The 8th day was strictly a van ride to the airport so no miles driven or walked so taking the miles driven or walked divided by 7 gives us 236 miles traveled in a day. No, our goal is not to go as many miles as possible in a day. The goal is to experience as much as we can while the opportunity to do is present. Also, we took 587 pictures.

Different Modes of Transportation

This reminds me. I didn’t even calculate the miles on the bikes.

Become a Monopoly Traveler, New Experiences, Travel Review, Troy's Blog

A Vacation Post Mortem

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The Only Way to Fly

What exactly do you mean by a traveling post mortem? This is something that is done by almost everyone with ever realizing it. For most people this is done by simply unpacking from a vacation, putting away any souvenirs, and looking over their photos. It’s a great way to remember all of those memories you created and experiences that you have to share for years to come all the while wishing you could be back on vacation. I take my vacation post mortems a little further.

Heading Out to Sea

I like to see how many miles we flew, drove, and walked during our adventure. Trip cost get broken down into categories such as hotels, meals, car rental and gas, airfare and luggage, park entrance fees, souvenirs, and any other miscellaneous expenses related to each trip. If I remember to reset the trip information on my GPS I will also record average speed, max speed, hours moving, and hours stopped. I put all of this information into a document for each adventure we take. What is the purpose of keeping track of all this information?

Relaxing on the Beach

There are a couple of reasons that this information if kept track of. First of all, it’s interesting to see how many miles we travel and how those miles are traveled. Also, it’s always a good idea to make sure costs add up with receipts and whatever method is used to pay for those items. Portions of vacations are paid for at different times which makes keeping track of all those costs a little more challenging. After a few of these adventures I can average out the costs per trip giving me an idea of how much I need to save in order to cover the costs of any upcoming vacations.

Looking Below the Surface

This was an idea giving to me from a family member a number of years ago. I didn’t fully appreciate the benefits of doing this at the time and decided it was more work than I wanted to take on after a trip. Once we started traveling our Monopoly National Parks edition, the decision was made to track costs along with some other travel information. So what where some of the stats from this last adventure:

Miles Traveled:
By air: 2,222 miles
By sea: 1,197 miles
By car: 732 miles
By foot: 11 miles
Total Miles: 4,162

Wow! Now that I look at the numbers to think we did all those miles in only 10 days. Let’s take out the air miles and that leaves us with 1960 miles in 10 days. That is 196 miles per day and I know there were days that we did less than 50 miles such as 2 of those days while we flew to Florida and back from Florida. That leaves us with 232 miles per day taking out 100 miles for the two air travel days and dividing 1860 by 8 days. Either way you look at it, it’s about 200 miles per day either by sea, car, or walking. That leaves a lot of things to see each day.

Playing with the Dolphins

(Please excuse me for a few moments while I go shovel the driveway as we are getting another blizzard.)

Returning to the City

O.K. got the first wave of snow cleared from the driveway. Now, where was I? Ohh ya, our Florida trip post mortem. I was recently going through our pictures. We ended up taking over 700 pictures. It certainly would be nice to be back in those locations on this snowy day. That’s an advantage to the digital age in cameras – if you are unsure about taking a certain photo take it. You can always erase it later but you are not likely to have the opportunity to take the exact picture again. I rarely erase a photo. It really doesn’t cost me anything extra to save the picture on a cd or dvd with all of my other pictures. Who knows, I may want that picture again someday or just enjoy viewing it and remembering the experience associated with it.

Remembering the Sunny Caribbean

A post mortem of an adventure helps to solidify the memories created on that adventure and will become more valuable to you as each year passes and you want to recall a detail or two about the many adventures you’ve been on. This will also help in budgeting for future vacations and give you an idea of where you spend the most or least during a trip. If you really need to reduce costs you can see which categories are the highest and work on ways of reducing that category or categories. A thorough trip analysis can also help determine what you could do differently that would make the next adventure more meaningful, enjoyable, and memorable!

Reflections