Bridgetown, Barbados

For todays random city of the day we have Bridgetown, Barbados.

A fascinating city is Bridgetown. It has been around since 1628 and in 2011 part of Bridgetown was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.

Bridgetown is the capital and largest city of Barbados. It is a very short distance from the International Airport and is a very popular tourist destination as well as a business destination in many cases as a financial and convention center in the Caribbean.

I would consider it a very temperate place to visit as far as climate. It ranges from the low 60s to the mid 90s Fahrenheit. It is in the tropics which of course means that there is a rainy season and while I have not yet been to Barbados I have been in the rainy season of some tropical areas and I say rainy I mean RAINY. Not unpleasant but something you need to be prepared for. The country averages 50 inches or so of rain a year which may not seem like much but when the bulk of it happens over a few months things do tend to be a bit damp.

There is a nice shopping area and the parliament buildings are pretty cool to see.

One of the prime things that I will look for when I get the chance to visit will be food. The food in the Bahamas was wonderful and the Caribbean is home to one of my favorite types of seafood. Conch! I love Conch in many forms. Chowder, fritters and stir-fry just to name a few.

It is not far away so not hideously expensive to get to (depends on your idea of expensive I guess. Air fare is not really cheap anywhere with a few occasional exceptions) so hopefully those of you who follow this blog will be able to make the trip and see something new. Please feel free to share this blog with your friends.

Until next time enjoy this trip or any trip you may be making.

 

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New Format

I am changing up the format a bit. Still researching and giving thoughts on what to see on theoretical vacations but using a web site I just found. Geo-Pick.com is a pretty cool site in that it brings up a random town from about 4000 in it’s database when you go to the site so I will be researching those towns as they come up.

If nothing else I should have a pretty good amount of knowledge of cities around the world should I ever have enough money to actually do any serious travel.

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Vacations This Summer.

I wonder just how many people will not be able to take a vacations this year. Gas prices are at an all time high for this early in the year and they will inevitably go up over the summer. When the cost of the fuel to get you there is equal to or even close to the price the rest of the trip will cost then I am certainly not going there.

This will be a good year to practice the staycation by learning what you have available near you. I will touch on a few areas that I am familiar with that are reasonably close to where I live. By reasonable close I mean you can get there and back on just a couple tanks of gas.

Home for me is the South Central Pennsylvania area in the Harrisburg, Lancaster, York and Gettysburg area. There are loads of things to see and do very close by and quite a lot to see and do within about a 4-5 hour drive.

First, easiest and certainly least expensive would be the very local. Harrisburg itself has a number of very interesting things. The John Harris/Simon Cameron Museum. This is a mansion used first by John Harris Sr. who worked as Ambassador to the Native Americans for William Penn from whom Pennsylvania gets it’s name.

Just a very few miles north of Harrisburg you will find the Rockville Bridge which to this day remains the longest Stone Arch railroad bridge in the world.

About 20 minutes east of the city is a town with a name known by almost everyone in the world. Hershey is a very recognized word and where the first manufacturing facility for Hershey’s chocolate was built. Of course you also have Hershey Park and adjacent to the park is Chocolate World which will take you on a ride through the acquisition of the cacao beans and the process used to create the wonderful; masterpiece known as chocolate.

If you continue on a bit further east you come to Lancaster County which is home to a large number of Amish and has a number of sites and attractions to allow you to learn of them.

From Lancaster we move Southwest and arrive in York, PA which has the distinction of having been the capital of the United States for a short period of time near the beginning of this nation.

From York we move to the west and we come across the site of perhaps the most famous battle of the Civil War. Gettysburg and the National Military Park in and around it can give you days of exploration for those who enjoy history. The battlefield has over 30 miles of roads you can drive while following the signs for a self guided tour or you can get a tape or CD that will narrate your trip. You can also go on a bus tour of the battlefield and for those who like a bit more personal attention there are licensed guides you can hire.

This is a good start to the staycation and I will post more on this shortly.

 

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Be Sure of your Vision on Vacation

 

Nothing would be worse that to spend the time and money on a dream vacation only to get there and not be able to properly see the sites while you are there. Make sure that you have a spare set of glasses when on vacation.

We all know that glasses are expensive. More so when you are getting an extra pair not covered by insurance. If you do some research you can find discount prescription glasses. My personal favorite is WarbyParker.

When it comes to discount prescription glasses they are the best in my opinion. Their selections are great and not at all expensive and on top of that, WarbyParker cares.

Try them out. Great prices, free shipping and free home trial. Who can beat that? Get your discount prescription glasses from WarbyParker.

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A short and Inexpensive trip to the Bahamas

The Bahamas. It conjurs images of clear blue waters and white sandy beaches as well as luxurous rooms and meals in fabulous restaurants. All of that is real and wonderful but you need not spend massive amounts of money to enjoy a trip to the Bahamas.

My wife and I recently took a cruise to the Bahamas that was incredibly inexpensive without being cheap. If you look around and do your research you can find ways to bring down the cost of a trip. You can book solely with budget packages, you can make it a point to go during off season or you can get in some cases look at property packages in the area. All are valid ways to travel for less. The last one would probably get you the best deal from a price perspective but will also entail your sitting taking a tour of some kind and then listening to some pretty high pressure sales pitches.

Consider a 3 day cruise for the easiest and most inexpensive experience. If you cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida you can easily have the cruise experience as well as the experience of being in another country very easily. Nassau is an overnight cruise. You leave Florida late efternoon and are in Nassau just after breakfast the next morning. Nassau is a beautiful city with freindly people and good food. You will find food of all types and you can find the Straw Market just minutes from where many of the cruise ships dock. The Straw Market is what would be called a Flea Market in the United States and has vendors of all types hawking their wares.

You can take some form of transportation, and there are a number of choices, to see more of the island if you like. There are beaches that you can can enjoy and there is the Paradise Island Resort not far from the docks which you can visit. You can also just tour the entire area for a an hour or so to see what you can see. Please take advantage of the things we have quite close but ar still other countries. You really have no lived until you have experienced other cultures at least to some degree so you can see what some of the rest of the world lives like on a daily basis.

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