Spontaneous Travel: Tips for Last Minute Trips

Spontaneous Travel: Tips, Tricks and Mistakes to Avoid for Last Minute Travel- Time to Talk Travel Podcast

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[00:00:16] Nasreen: Hi, this is Nasreen and we're here with another episode of Time to Talk Travel. Today we have Des, Maureen and myself. Ciaran is not on with us today because we're talking about a topic that maybe isn't her favorite. We're going to talk about spontaneous travel and last minute trips and just jumping on something and going. Not that Ciaran doesn't love a great last minute cruise deal, but she really enjoys the planning part of it, which is why she's our planning pro.

And the three of us might be a little more like that is a fantastic deal. Let's go now. We are going to jump into some tips, some tricks, some mistakes we've made that maybe we learned from, or maybe we'll do again if it's a good enough deal.

Mo, let's just go straight to you, because

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[00:01:07] Nasreen: I know this is your favorite kind of travel. Tell us, dive right into what you love about it.

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[00:01:58] Des: I'm with her. It's a go with the flow kind of thing. It's similar to parties for me. Sometimes the best parties are the ones you throw together at the last minute and the ones you planned for a year fall flat and you're like, oh, that was so much less than I was hoping. It's to me the same with a trip. If you book it and you're waiting and you're planning and, and those can be great too, but sometimes it really is just, you know what, we've got the weekend and nowhere to be. Let's go, it doesn't matter if it's throw a dart on a map and pick a place or, Hey, I heard yesterday,

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[00:03:06] Des: It's who you're going with. And as long as they're not a stick in the mud, “I need to think about it”. I can't do wishy washy. It's just go. Let's just have a good time and we'll figure it out when we get there.

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A lot of times that is how we get away, when we can fit something in at the last minute that works out, that, oh, okay, we have these days free, we can go. It frees me from trying to overthink and plan everything. I don't like to line up an entire itinerary, but if I have enough time to plan, I feel like I should.

I was just in New York City this last weekend with my husband for our anniversary, and I booked it a little bit in advance, like a month, not a ton.

You'll have to tell me if you guys do this too. I make a menu to choose from. With those last minute trips, a lot of times they're shorter than the average trip you're going for a couple of days.

I don't want to spend my time when we're there figuring out what to do. Instead I make a menu of 20 ish things we could do that will be open on those days, things I'd like to see just general things to go do. I put them on a Google map. And then when we're sitting there going, what should we do today?

I can start with a list instead of starting with

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[00:04:24] Nasreen: No!

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[00:04:29] Nasreen: I do that too, but if we're looking at each other what do you want to do? What do you want to do? At least there's a starting point. Hey, there's this cool thing. I know I'd love to take a picture with. Trust me, it's not a ton of overthinking. With New York, my husband wanted to go to the nine 11 museum.

And that was great for him. I did not want to, I knew it was going to be too much for me and I did not want to go. I went to the pub nearby with him for firefighters. He's a firefighter. Seeing the plaque of all firefighters who perished with all their mustaches was difficult and I knew I couldn't do the museum But there were a couple of things I wanted to do.

I knew a specific pizza slice I wanted to have. I knew a couple pictures I wanted to take. That was all that made the list, And a couple other cool things that we might do Left room for spontaneity. We ended up scoring daily show tickets like three hours before the recording and worked that in

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That's all you need. It could be a two hour pit stop, and you're like, Hey, you know what? When I took my son, we're on our way to Italy. And he’s can we? And we were so tired. We were ridiculously tired. But we went in, we had a blast, we had an awesome lunch, and then we took the train back out and flew the rest of the way to Italy.

But, he's now been to Times Square.

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We got a hotel at the airport to make it easy the next morning, but we got on the train and we headed into London. I was like, let's go see Big Ben. Let's go see, the tower bridge. We ended up with eight hours before bedtime. We just said, let's do it. And sometimes it's not even by choice that it's spontaneous, but why not make the most of it?

If you're there, go for it. And I think my other thing is it doesn't have to cost a bundle. I think a lot of people think last minute means, Oh, you're going to pay more for airfare. You're going to pay more for hotels. That is not always the case. A lot of times you get better deals because they have availability that they weren't expecting. Don't assume it's going to be more just because you're planning it at the last minute,

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Not a bad life lesson for kids and maybe for some friends to relax a little bit and go with the flow and not worry. There will always be a restaurant to go to. And maybe you'll find that jewel of a local gem, where the locals eat.

I just did Playa del Carmen twice, once as a total tourist and once with people who live there, four months of the year. down the same street both times and I saw entirely different places. As a tourist, I was like, Oh, it was just dazzled by everything, sparkly and shiny and fun. But then when you walk around more like a local and they have spent enough time there to get, to have locals share those places, I wish I did a little more walking in a little bit more exploring that way.

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It was a totally different experience than people flying in who knew no one. And I almost feel bad now when people go, because I want them to know,

Ciaran, who works

at Salt N Pepa's and Jim who runs the wind surfing boat. I would climb on the boat with him and ride all day back and forth along the shore.

And, that's fun. When you can connect with the locals whether it's spontaneous or otherwise that's always an added bonus, but do know your crowd, do know who you're traveling with because you're right. I have four kids, two of them, you. are horrible travelers. If there's a delay, they're going to whine about it for the next three days, and then the other two are like, what, so no, your audience, because it's not fun traveling with somebody who isn't going to be flexible.

It doesn't have to be the five star restaurant. It doesn't have to be the fanciest hotel. Just let's make the most of it. See who we meet, and the memories we make.

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[00:09:29] Nasreen: yeah I think a lot of my initial spontaneous travel experience was in business travel. My mother is not a spontaneous traveler. We went to Disney and she bought the book because you didn't go on the web back then and planned out every day and organized the luggage by the day.

She had a printed typed itinerary. When I started business traveling, it seemed like a shame to be in all of these different places and not see things.

I would stop and swing by and see something and take a picture or find a cool restaurant to try. I remember thinking at one point in time in Kentucky, I may have carried it a little too far. I had seen on the highway that there's a place with bison coming up.

And I'm like, Ooh, I want to see a bison, Buffalo, whatever. And so I stop. I've got on black dress pants and black loafers and whatever dressy top I have, right? I thought they were just gonna be right there.

I'm huffing up this muddy path. It had just rained, my loafers are getting all covered in mud, and then I round the corner and there's a whole bunch of bison. Okay, this is cool. I guess it was worth it. But for a minute there, I'm like, I'm going to get murdered out here or fall down on my butt or be covered in mud for the rest of the day.

But I worked it in. I saw some buffalo. I know. It was just something else to add on to see the place. And honestly, I think that doing those little stops and seeing things and stopping for historical markers connects you more with the area, like you were saying Des with the knowing all the different locals and the places to go.

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It doesn't mean, throw caution to the wind and go have a blast. You still need to be smart about what you have on you and what you bring along and even the flights you book. The being safe part doesn't go out the window just because you're being spontaneous. Do keep that in mind.

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[00:12:14] Nasreen: And there's a read the room energy to being spontaneous because even if you think you're familiar with an area, it can change. And if you're not familiar with an area, you can realize. I know that I was in Louisville. I'm walking. I'm walking. I cross under a bridge on the street and I'm like things just changed. I'm going to turn back around and go the other way. And it was very easy to recognize. And then my husband and I were in San Francisco . I've been to San Francisco a million times. One of my companies that I worked for was based there. I was there every quarter for meetings.

I'm very familiar with it. We were staying in an area that I was familiar with, walking around areas I was familiar with. They had changed drastically. As soon as you're aware that a situation may not be great, you're not going to push forward just because you've been there before and it was fine.

Know when to walk away, know when to be like, okay, this is just an area I'm not going to go into right now. It doesn't feel right. Like you got to have a gut to do spontaneous travel.

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I pass a sign, missing boy. And I'm thinking, wow, did someone push him off? Did he just get lost? You know what?

Probably should have notified somebody that, Hey, I'm going to be here today.

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It was like my hot girl run to work it all out or whatever. I had just gone through a breakup. I was pissed and I'm like, I'm going to climb Mount Washington. And you're all like, what? I did.

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[00:13:50] Nasreen: Yeah okay, this is what I did, and I do outdoor stuff, it's not like I'm never hiking and I'm just all of a sudden I'm gonna climb it.

I did basic research the night before, I packed everything up, I had myself ready, I lived fairly close, I go. I get there and I've looked up like what time I should arrive and start. And when the weather turns, I'm going in August. It's one of the best months to go.

Cause it's warm and there's only a light chance of hail and snow when you get near the top. I've done all my research, great hike. Go up. Fantastic. Making great time. Hide under a rock for a while it hails. No big deal. Get up to the top. Get back down. Do you know what I missed out of all of this?

Apparently, they have a sign in book where you're supposed to leave your license plate number and your car and your contact number so if you don't come off the mountain, they can call someone for you or they know That you're missing, that you went on the mountain, that you didn't just leave the car there and go somewhere else.

Yeah, oops.

Not my brightest moment, I made it, but I didn't do the safety precautions

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[00:14:54] Nasreen: Not even, I just want to know,

I probably just go to Target or something,

Yeah, I don't know. I think I wanted to do something big and make a statement and take a picture on top of a mountain or something, I don't know. It

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[00:15:05] Nasreen: I have a picture of me on top of it like, Grrrrrr!

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[00:15:10] Des: Naz, Look, the great purse I bought today. Another spontaneous tip, just because you decided last minute doesn't mean you can't do a tiny bit of research either before you leave or on the way. I will tell you, I made a stupid move. Two weeks ago I had to go down to Florida. My daughter is in college. I stopped in Gainesville to see her for the night, knowing the next morning I can get up early, take off, go get to my mom and Vero. I stay overnight at this hotel. It's a Sunday. Monday, I leave Gainesville One o'clock and head down to Vero. For whatever reason, when I pulled up nav, it said the turnpike was going to take an extra hour to go. I needed to go toward 95 down the coast. Fine, I'm gonna pay attention. I do this, but, not realizing by the time I get to the coast, it's added an hour to 95.

What had happened was there was the Daytona 500 race on that Sunday and there was a rain delay. The race, instead of happening Sunday, was happening Monday. I put myself in the middle of all of the Daytona 500 traffic. I felt like a moron. Like, how dumb am I? I even knew there was a chance this race was gonna be delayed because I work in weather.

My point is, if you're picking a place to go, you might want to check to see if there's a massive festival or sports event happening that weekend.

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We took friends down to Galveston to show them around, thinking it would be like a quiet day in Galveston. It was the Lone Star Biker Rally. There were like 10,000 motorcycles and bikers down there.

And we were oh, should we, shouldn't we? It was a great time. It was great fun. Awesome people watching.

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[00:17:08] Mo: And that can be a great way of traveling too if you just go, Hey, you know what? For whatever reason something got canceled or you just sometimes just one of those free weekends pops up and you can instead of deciding, when you can go somewhere decide where you can go when you're available.

Don't have a set idea as to where you want to go. Through Google so you can find just cheap flights to somewhere for whatever date works for you

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But I know for me, I tend to like places off season or when they're not as popular. And I also like to look towards areas that are less served at the time. We stayed down near wall street, like all the way down near the Staten Island ferry when we went to New York city and it was fantastic.

The room rate, the point value was super low because it's not a popular time for them. There's so many subway lines accessible right there and because it wasn't a huge tourist area, there were a ton of great restaurants right near the hotel that we could walk into and just get a seat and it was fantastic.

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[00:18:41] Nasreen: Yeah, look for the financial district. They're the best. And they always have the happy hour specials at the pubs there.

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too, because you're a business traveler and you're bored and you're alone and might as well have a free glass of wine or free

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[00:19:06] Mo: Pub. That is one thing Texas does not have, or I've yet to find.

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just do it. Take the page from Nike. Just do it.

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[00:19:42] Nasreen: Are you going to embroider that on a pillow, Mo?

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I think it's probably Florida's other tagline.

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[00:19:58] Mo: Really could be that. So even, some people think, oh it's so far to go for only a day or two. No. Day or two anywhere. Some

places that is enough. There are a lot of places I don't want to go to for more than a day or

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Our Amtrak tickets were 30, which is, I know,

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[00:20:39] Nasreen: You have to book a little in advance with them. Usually about 14 days out is the closest you can go and actually get a great deal.

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[00:21:23] Nasreen: And New York, like Boston to New York, it's not even about, it has nothing to do with the scenery or anything. It's that it takes four hours, and it would take that long to drive, and then I would have to pay to park and find parking and all of that, where I can either take a train or bus to Boston, or we used SpotHero and found parking that was the cost of one night in New York to park for the whole time.

And it was so easy and no traffic. Last time we went to New York, it took us like six something hours to drive back and there was a lot of swearing,

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Yeah. Trains from here don't really go anywhere. It's not, need to work on that in the South. Maybe it's different in Texas. I don't

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[00:22:04] Nasreen: There are trains in Texas. There's one that goes from Houston all the way out towards Big Bend. But it takes a long time. I know we looked at it a couple of times. There are routes through Texas, but a lot of times the Greyhound in Texas, Mo, have you done that yet?

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[00:22:19] Nasreen: Okay, so I did it

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[00:22:22] Nasreen: I did it once and it was an experience and you should do it once just for fun. This is when all you and your friends do your themes. No, you want to do this Mo. Okay. I took the train from, I think it was like college station up to. Dallas and I was doing it because I was getting a car loaner for an auto show and I had to pick up the car. Okay, I'll take the bus up and then I'm going to drive the car back.

It was the perfect way to do it. When people get out of prison, they put them on the bus. And they, you can tell because they give them the oyster bags and they put all their clothes or the. They're crawfish bags. They're like mesh bags, whatever. Honestly, they were really nice and fun.

But they had a lot of stories. There was this tiny little Hispanic grandmother sitting across the aisle from me who kept crossing herself and whispering, Oh Dios Mio. And it was like the best bus ride ever. It drops off in a really interesting area of Dallas. All I'm saying is take the Greyhound in Texas.

It's really interesting. And every, again, Everyone was nice. It wasn't, it didn't feel dangerous. There were just a lot of stories. You sit quietly and you listen.

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[00:23:31] Des: I do. And I, again, you could probably write a whole book. I, I took a bus once I was going to TBEX, which is a travel writers conference up in Toronto. And I couldn't get a flight. I decided last minute. I got a flight into Buffalo, and then took a MegaBus which was all the craze back then. The college kids would jump it. It was a dollar to get on a bus, cross the border, and it would get me into Toronto when I needed to. I got there and the MegaBus didn't show up at the time. And so there was a Greyhound I jumped on it and it was enough for me to say that's the only time I need to go. Like

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[00:24:09] Mo: I’ve been on a bus, I've taken a bus before. I just am not taking one across Texas.

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[00:24:21] Nasreen: But they’re interesting. They're interesting. It's all about the plot.

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[00:24:30] Des: I'd have to schedule one.

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[00:24:33] Nasreen: I've taken a lot of bus rides.

We need a Greyhound sponsorship. I'm just gonna drag you guys around to different stations. However, there is, in Texas, Vonnlane Bus. It is a business luxury bus. They go between Austin, Houston, Dallas. And you get a giant leather chair.

There's tables, there's wifi.

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[00:24:55] Nasreen: It's for business people who don't want to go through TSA who want to be able to work on the bus

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[00:25:04] Nasreen: We should make a bingo card, like a bingo card of travel for 2024 that we're all going to do. Maybe we should make it for each other.

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[00:25:13] Nasreen: Oh, that might be

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[00:25:20] Nasreen: because one of us has to win when we get bingo.

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[00:25:28] Nasreen: I like those too, but it's fun if we were more driven if there's like an end result.

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[00:25:36] Nasreen: Like somebody has to slide down the middle of an escalator in a sparkly dress without spilling their drink. Mo's already done that. She can cross it off.

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[00:25:56] Nasreen: This is the you won't get in trouble, but you're going to walk a fine line here. Bingo.

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[00:26:14] Nasreen: Fun. We've covered a lot of spontaneous travel and I have to tell one story and maybe I'll cut it later if it doesn't fit but I have to tell you, because we're on the Amtrak on our way back from New York and these folks sit down in front of us.

I know it's good to be spontaneous. I get it. But I've never been on a train where they're like, it takes four hours to get from New York to Boston? Of course I thought it was faster than that. Now they were from Europe. And they were Absolutely flabbergasted that it was going to take four hours to get between these two places.

They spent the beginning of the train ride Googling the miles, looking at the map, looking online to make sure it was really that long. Oh no, it must just be a time like they must get there faster. Then they're talking about their hotel when they get to Boston and like, where is it? And where is it in relation to the station?

And they've bought a ticket to the station that's further away. And I'm like, I, my mind. I am vacillating between do I talk to them because I write travel or is this so far gone that it's remedial and I don't think I can get involved because I'm so baffled and I just want to listen. And then the whole

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[00:27:24] Nasreen: No, they started to figure it out a little bit and I couldn't get involved because I realized the hotel they had booked wasn't actually a hotel.

It was like a Airbnb type thing. So they're talking about drinking in the bar of the hotel and I'm sitting there going, it's over a Shake Shack and it doesn't have an elevator. I wonder if they know they're going to have to climb the stairs with their suitcases. And I just didn't want to. I'm like, this is going to turn into a therapy session and I don't have it in me right now.

Shout out to the people from Portugal. I hope that you did okay in Boston. You seemed excited about the museums. You seemed like you were going to figure it out. You got on a train without knowing how far it was or where you were getting off. I feel like you landed on your feet.

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Because I grew up in Florida, where going anywhere just to leave the state takes six hours from where I live. We were there in under two. And I went, whoa, we have a whole day. In Europe, everything really is close and it's a quick dream ride.

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along the coast. Yeah, that, that road, if you stretched it out, we probably could have driven halfway across Europe.

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And sure, you can be fuzzy on what the landing time was, but you knew it at some point.

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I did that.

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[00:29:02] Mo: So the one time I got to be fair, it was a very busy night. We were flying from Miami to Uruguay .

I got on the plane and I looked at my daughter and on the little screen it says how long the flight is.

I'm like, nine hours? Oh no! I was totally that lady. And I said to my daughter, we do not have enough snacks. We're not gonna make it. Thankfully, they fed us and I was only in charge of ten other people's children, but it was fine. We made it. We're great.

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[00:29:36] Mo: That was my biggest concern. That is the only thing I will Worry about is having snacks and water on a plane because if

They don't feed and drink me I'm

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[00:30:13] Mo: It's good a

man right there, that's right

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[00:30:19] Des: I actually saw a picture of this bag on Facebook, and he didn't just be snacks He drew a very cute little stick figure couple

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[00:30:34] Des: While very nice you did he did you did well pick

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[00:30:43] Mo: Maybe the Amtrak people Forgot their snacks.

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I think they'd charge like 14 at the airport.

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[00:30:56] Nasreen: change your latitude, not your attitude. And that's where we'll just wrap things up.

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[00:31:03] Des: it's changes in latitude, change of attitude.

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[00:31:08] Des: The song changes in attitudes. Nothing remains quite the same. All of our running, all of us.

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[00:31:19] Nasreen: But like they all

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[00:31:21] Des: I just say, take the trip. Go, get out of your house. Get out of your zip code.

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[00:31:32] Mo: Change your place, fix your face.

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[00:31:45] Narrator: This has been another episode of Time to Talk Travel, brought to you by HashtagTravels. com. You can keep in touch with us between episodes by checking out our site, joining our newsletter, or connecting with us on social. We've always got the information you need in our episode notes. Until next time, happy travels, and thanks for being a part of our trip.