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Travel Thread (meetups, food suggestions, cool stuff to see)

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  • The one time I had fried alligator tail (on a trip to Alabama), it tasted very similar to fried calamari rings (which if you listen to This American Life, you know can easily be substituted with pig assholes).

    So moral of the story is that chewy meats all taste the same when scorched in boiling oil.
  • ThatGent said:

    I'm flying out to Orlando with the main objective of board gaming this weekend.
    Secondary goals include visiting non-Disney and Universal attractions.

    Do The Cape Kennedy Space Center visit and tour. Seriously, the Saturn V rocket is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
  • ThatGent said:

    I'm flying out to Orlando with the main objective of board gaming this weekend.
    Secondary goals include visiting non-Disney and Universal attractions.

    Do The Cape Kennedy Space Center visit and tour. Seriously, the Saturn V rocket is one of the most impressive things I've ever seen.
    I second this motion.
  • Oh, yeah. KSC's great. They've got a new bit now with the Atlantis. If you do go there, stop by Ms. Apple's Crab Shack on the way.
  • I am currently in Harper's Ferry West Virginia. Fewer rednecks than I expected, and just the right amount of historical sites. Also I love that every place just has sweet tea available as a thing. I love it so much, and it's so difficult to get it at a restaurant up in New England. I just came from Washington DC and Raleigh NC, and next up is Gettysburg and then into Delaware and Annapolis MD. Loving the trip so far.
  • Last week I went to St. Louis. It is not a city worth visiting. Nice baseball stadium. Nice arch. Not much else going on.
  • It's got pho and some ridiculously convoluted ways to make a u turn.
  • Looking to take a drive down the coast to FL in April. Will probably try and do some museum visits in D.C. but where else can I stop off along the 20 hour drive without turning it into a week long drive?
  • How far into Florida are you going? If you are going past St. Augustine, FL you should hit up St. George Street there. While there, if beer is your thing you could hit up Rendezvous Beer Bar and look for something neat.

    Not sure where else to recommend without knowing how far down you are going. Savannah, GA has lots of neat things but unlike St. Augustine where you can spend 2 or 3 hours and see most of the things you would want to, Savannah requires a bit more time to enjoy its sites.
  • Tampa area is my destination. Drive down and a drive back up. Nine, possibly ten days off in a row to play with.
  • edited March 2015
    Ah, that sounds like a potentially fun drive. It depends on where you decide to turn inland really from the east coast. If you turn near or before Jacksonville, FL you will see less historic places but more national/state forests and conservation areas whereas if you turn further down, such as near Daytona Beach, FL, you will see more historic Florida but be missing some of the better national/state forests and conservation areas. It really depends on which is your preference. Growing up in swampy areas, I always preferred seeing the historic areas but I could see someone growing up in the city preferring nature more.

    As for further up it is hard to recommend much else in Georgia than Savannah. Saint Simons Island and Jekyll Island have neat things to see, such as the marshes, but you will have the chance for some of that in Florida. Anything inland isn't worth seeing until late May really, such as the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, although if weather warms up quicker than normal that may change.

    I know very little about parks/refuges north of Georgia so I cannot comment on them much but there are a few other spots I can recommend. Myrtle Beach in South Carolina is beautiful if you catch it during the right time of the year: non-tourist season. April will be at the beginning of that but it should still be calm enough to get around without much hassle. Charleston, SC is a bit like Savannah, GA, where you need a bit of time to see the sites, but like Savannnah they have some great food (forgot to mention that one earlier about Savannah). If you wanted to make a pit stop for that I would say Google their top restaurants and see which suits your tastes more. Being vegan it is at little difficult to give you my recommendations when there are probably restaurants I cannot eat at that would suit you better.

    Hope that helps at least some. I am a pretty lousy trip planner on my own. I usually let my kids decide what we are doing.
    Post edited by canine224 on
  • edited March 2015
    Anyone been to San Diego. I'm performing at a Convention down there and I wanna know if there's anything (except the zoo. Fuck zoos) I should check out.
    Post edited by Victor Frost on
  • Going to Houston, mostly going to be in Southwest Houston for work anything I should eat if I get a chance?
  • except the zoo. Fuck zoos

    Fuck zoos

    image
  • I will be in NYC for New Years. Going to do lots of touristy stuff, suggestions for nerdy (preferably kid friendly) awesomeness appreciated. Same goes for Washington DC the week after.
  • We're leaving the morning of the 31st for some stuff. But we're around the day/night before that!

    I still owe you a list of the best things to enjoy.
  • Timo! Good to see you back on the forum for a minute.
  • Dr. Timo said:

    I will be in NYC for New Years. Going to do lots of touristy stuff, suggestions for nerdy (preferably kid friendly) awesomeness appreciated. Same goes for Washington DC the week after.

    In DC, the Udvar-Hazy center. They have a space shuttle. A space shuttle.
  • I'm visiting relatives in Germany right now. I think I'll go and visit one of the bigger cities for a couple of days while I'm over here, though.
  • edited December 2015
    Currently I'm near Stuttgart, so it's down to either Munich (due to proximity) or Berlin; either way it would be for two nights.

    I'm inclined towards Munich, because the transportation costs will be around 200 euros cheaper from where I am.

    In either case I'm currently not quite sure how I would spend my time there, but long walks in interesting places and good food are enough of a starting point for me.

    Oh, and beer.
    Post edited by lackofcheese on
  • There is loads to do in Berlin, and I'm sure Munich too, though I've never spent much time there. From Stuttgart, Munich is the obvious choice if you want to save money on travel. Also you can do most of Munich in two days, while in Berlin that would only cover a little bit of it.
  • Dr. Timo said:

    I will be in NYC for New Years. Going to do lots of touristy stuff, suggestions for nerdy (preferably kid friendly) awesomeness appreciated. Same goes for Washington DC the week after.

    How old are the kids? I can provide some recommendations.

  • Munich is ace if you really like beer. I've been twice now and spent most of that time in a beer hall/garden. We also did a few tourist things like visiting the Olympic Stadium and doing a walking tour but we mostly drank beer.
  • Timo! Good to see you back on the forum for a minute.

    Yeah, getting a real job sucks ;-)
    Matt said:

    How old are the kids?

    6, 12 and 17. Activities need not be suitable for all of them simultaneously.

    Space shuttle is on the list, as is the Natural History Museum in NYC.

    @Rym: 30th noonish meetup for lunch/coffee would be awesome, but unpredictable our schedule is. Will drop you guys a line when clearer it is :-).
  • The Intrepid in New York also has a shuttle. It's a really fun museum!
  • Dr. Timo said:



    @Rym: 30th noonish meetup for lunch/coffee would be awesome, but unpredictable our schedule is. Will drop you guys a line when clearer it is :-).

    Emily is free all day and can meet you very easily. I can slip out of work probably. I'll email you later with phone numbers and such.
  • Dr. Timo said:


    Matt said:

    How old are the kids?

    6, 12 and 17. Activities need not be suitable for all of them simultaneously.

    Space shuttle is on the list, as is the Natural History Museum in NYC.
    I don't have much practical advice for the older kids, and you've already identified the two big items off the tourism list that are absolutely worth doing. (Don't foget that Natural History Museum has a badass planetarium. Get your tickets early that day.

    There are a few other museums and such that I'd put on that list, but you can only fit so many of those into a trip:
    - Metropolitan Museum of Art
    - Museum of Mathematics (new, filled with kid's stuff)
    - NYC Transit Museum (cool history)
    - Tenement Museum (cool history)
    - When all else fails, Broadway shows are awesome

    If you start to head towards downtown Manhattan, there are more unique shops and stuff you could pop into. None of these are anything special at all on their own, but if you're walking by, stop in! You can ooh and ahh for few, maybe by something, and continue on your way.

    - Toy Tokyo
    - The Strand book store
    - VideogamesNY (musty, small, overpriced, and unfriendly. But they have a glass case or two of incredibly rare retro stuff that you can gaze at)
    - The Uncommons (a tiny board game cafe. Up in Midtown is the Compleat Strategist, if you want a real board game store. It is cramped and unfriendly but has great selection)
    - Kinokuniya book store (a Japanese book store)
    - Evolution (they sell fossils and specimens)
    - The MakerBot store

    If the family insists on doing the "let's go up in a really tall building" thing, look up Rockefeller Center, rather than Empire State Building. It's cheaper, view is just as good, and you can go to the Nintendo World Store down below, take a picture with the giant tree, etc. Alternatively you could go visit the new World Trade Center but not sure if you want to hit the kids with heavy Ground Zero 9/11 stuff.

    There doesn't seem to be much going on in the way of unique events or anything this week. Just holiday and New Year's stuff. If the weather is crappy, you could always go see a short-run movie that you wouldn't otherwise get a chance to see in a theater. IFC Center is really good for this.


  • Ride the Staten Island ferry there and back again if you want to see the Status of Liberty. It's free, and it goes right by it.
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