the travel bug | mostefinitely

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023

Traveling to Beautiful Venice: Our Favorite Sights, Bites, and Highlights

Venice, Italy has been one of my top places to visit for years. There’s simply no other place like it in the world, and particularly with the city experiencing devastating flooding in 2019 and the ongoing effects of climate change, I realized it wasn’t the kind of trip to put off forever.

We had the opportunity to visit Rome and Florence during our honeymoon in 2009, but it’s taken 14 years for us to get back to Italy. Thanks to a pandemic-instilled wanderlust and binge-watching Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy series on CNN, the desire to revisit the country was at an all-time high the last couple of years.

In Summer 2022, we decided to book our dream Venice trip for the following July, arriving on the 4th of all days, and staying for five nights. With a just under a year to plan, we consulted friends who’d visited before, scoured blogs and travel websites, and saved Instagram posts and reels with all of the must-dos.

I created a trusty Google Doc to plot out our days, which thankfully wouldn’t be as painstakingly packed as our previous trips to places like Paris and Hawaii. The benefit of a shorter trip in a smaller city — we knew we still wouldn’t be able to see everything, but overall it felt manageable, the perfect balance of locking in some meals and tours while leaving time to just get lost.

Now that the trip has come and gone, I’m still in my Aperol Spritz haze. Venice was everything I hoped and yet exceeded all expectations at the same time. From the kindness and pride of the Venetian people to the gems that can be found around every corner, Venice has my heart forever.

Here is a recap of our favorite sights, bites, and highlights during our trip to Venice.

March 9, 2020March 9, 2020

Spending 29 hours in beautiful Key West, Florida

This is a blog post that I’ve been meaning to write for months. My only excuses are pretty good ones, I’d say. Between the Christmas holiday, our daughters’ birthdays, bringing home a new puppy, and taking on more freelance writing work, it’s been a whirlwind. Anyone else still shocked that we’re already on our way to St. Patrick’s Day and Easter? BUT I’d be remiss to not do my best to recall what were an incredibly fun, key lime pie-filled 29 hours in Key West, Florida last December.

As a lifelong Parrothead, a trip to Key West has felt like a necessary bucket list item. Yet the logistics can be a little tough, and trips just for me and my husband are rare. That’s why when we planned to spend a week in Naples, Florida with my parents after Thanksgiving, it felt like the perfect opportunity to sneak away for a quick Key West visit and let the girls have some extra grandparent time.

Thanks to the Key West Express out of Ft. Myers, we could leave at 8:00am and get to Key West in about four hours by boat, which is much faster than driving. Based on the ferry schedule and our trip dates, we decided to travel down to the Keys on a Thursday morning and return the following evening. Thanks to the late departure time coming back, we’d have 29 hours to enjoy all that we could before heading back.

While that doesn’t seem like nearly enough time, we had guidance from friends and family about their favorite places, and also had our own can’t-miss spots. We managed to cover a lot of ground. Not to mention, a lot of key lime pie. Here’s what we did!

February 18, 2020

Visiting the Air Zoo in Portage, Michigan

This Presidents Day weekend, we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time together as a family and enjoy the places that our state has to offer. Michigan winters can be long and brutal, and the feelings of cabin fever are very real. I’m a homebody as much as the next person, but there are only so many times you can watch “Frozen 2” (we’ve been averaging 1.5 times a day since buying it last week), break up arguments between two sisters, and keep a new puppy from chewing up the house or your hands.

Having plans outside of the house helps break up that routine, and until the weather warms up and sun starts to shine with some regularity, indoor activities are essential for survival.

On Monday, we made the drive to Portage, Michigan to visit the Air Zoo for the very first time. I’ve seen photos from friends’ visits there, and it’s even mentioned in our girls’ Goodnight Michigan board book. But truthfully, I had no idea what it was all about.

Earlier in the weekend, we had visited Impression 5 Science Center in Lansing, a favorite spot of ours for exploring and getting some energy out. I still remember going there when Margot was a week old because we had been spending weeks in the house celebrating the holidays and waiting for her arrival that we needed to get. Out. Of. The. Damn. House. We love Impression 5 for visits, summer camps, you name it. We bought a family membership during that visit, and used it quite often with family and friends. After that year, we ended up letting the membership lapse with Stella starting full-day school.

We decided to renew our I5 membership on Saturday’s visit. At $75, it’s a really great deal for our family to visit the museum throughout the year, and it also gives us a discount on summer camps. On top of that, my friend Brittany alerted me to the fact that an Impression 5 membership means free admission to the Air Zoo for the month of February. What a deal!

General admission to the Air Zoo for adults is $15.95, $14.95 for kids 5-18, and free for 4 and under. That means we saved almost $50! Beyond the free admission, our visit to the Air Zoo was well worth the drive toward Kalamazoo.

September 5, 2019September 5, 2019

I love Paris: The best food we ate and where to find it

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it forever: enjoying the local cuisine is one of my favorite parts of any trip. Wherever we plan to go for a vacation, you can bet that I either have ideas in mind of where I’d like to eat or will be researching with endless Google tabs open on my browser.

So when we decided to go to Paris for our 10th anniversary, the vision of macarons, croissants, baguettes, and other delicacies filled my dreams like a carbohydrate cloud. Where would we even begin to find the time and stomach space to get our fill of everything Paris has to offer? And how can you even decide on where to eat when every quaint street cafe looks incredible?

Thankfully, we had some help from friends, local recommendations, pop culture, and of course, a whole lot of Googling.

While just about everything we ate on our trip was absolutely wonderful, especially the bread (oh my goodness, the bread the bread the BREAD), here are the best of the best things we ate in Paris.

August 13, 2019August 13, 2019

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island has a secret garden and it’s magical

Last week, we took our first family trip up to Mackinac Island to enjoy a couple of nights of horse clip-clops, views of Lake Huron, and of course fudge. I remember going to Mackinac Island as a kid, but I became especially enamored of time spent on the island when Zack and I stayed at The Grand Hotel for MSU Arts Weekend two summers in a row.

That time I matched The Grand’s wallpaper

There is nothing like The Grand Hotel. When you’re there, it really feels like you’re going back in time, floating in its dreamy, Dorothy Draper-swathed universe. The service is impeccable, as are the grounds surrounding the hotel.

August 11, 2019

Prepping for Paris: Put on your walking shoes

It’s wild to think that Zack and I are coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary (and 15 years together), which means we’re so close to our special trip to Paris. This will be our second visit to the City of Light.

The first time was during our study abroad trips to London in 2005; Zack and I had been dating for just under a year and had the good fortune of doing overlapping programs. We traveled to Paris with my parents for a long weekend when they came to visit us in London.

I had been taking French since sixth grade and always wanted to visit Paris one day. We packed a lot into a short amount of time, but I have been dreaming about going back for another visit. It feels like there are so many more resources available for planning a trip, from Airbnb to TripAdvisor to recommendations from friends and family. There is so much we didn’t see!

We’ve been spending the last several months making reservations and booking experiences for our trip. And, in the last month or so, I’ve been working on some of the practical things, like buying outlet converters and ordering our Paris Museum Passes.

But one of the biggest things I had to work on was having comfortable, stylish, and practical walking shoes.

July 24, 2019

Recap: 48 hours in Northern Michigan

I feel like I’ve been seriously slacking with my blog posts the last few weeks. I can only attribute it to a busy summer month of enjoying time at home with the girls, as well as working on my freelance writing assignments whenever nap time comes around.

We’ve been lucky to spend a lot of time at my family’s lake home this summer, but the thing about Michigan is that there are so many gems around the state to experience.

This past week, I enjoyed a wonderful 48 hours up north at Lake Arrowhead with my in-laws. My husband’s mom and stepdad rented a home on Lake Arrowhead for the week with his aunt Julie and uncle Randy, and the girls and I were invited to spend a few weekdays with them.

Lake Arrowhead is a community of subdivisions that surround Buhl Lake in Gaylord, Michigan. From the Lansing area, the car ride is about three hours. While I was a little intimidated about driving such a long distance on my own with both girls, I was also excited about the potential for exploring different parts of the state on the way up and way back home.

Here’s a recap of our wonderful 48-hour trip around our home state.

May 3, 2019

Travel must-have: Packing cubes

Our family just returned from a quick trip to Florida, and it was the first time we had the chance to try out something new with our packing: packing cubes.

I’ve seen a lot of people talking about using packing cubes on social media, so when my husband brought up that he was looking at them on Amazon, I showed him a brand that was highly recommended by several moms in a mommy Facebook group.

The Shacke Pak packing cubes come in different sets and a variety of colors. The set of 4 is available from Amazon Prime for $24.99. What I liked about this set of packing cubes was that they came with a nylon laundry bag, which is always helpful for travel. The variety of sizes allows them to fit in different types of luggage, and each packing cube has its own handle.

April 11, 2019April 12, 2019

Recap: 24 hours in Detroit

Last week was a pretty rough week for me. It started with getting hit by my daughters’ stomach bug on Sunday, which had me the sickest I’ve been in a long time. It wasn’t until Thursday that I felt more like myself again. Then, it was also Stella’s spring break. Not having the routine of school and ability for her to get her energy out led to a lot of frustrations, especially when I wasn’t feeling 100%.

It was a rough week for a lot of my friends, too, between sickness, spring break, and job stress. Thankfully, we had a light at the end of the tunnel: a quick weekend getaway to Detroit to celebrate our friend Tessa’s birthday. How the group of us were all available and able to settle on a weekend of activities on two weeks’ notice was a miracle. The other miraculous component was the string of absolutely gorgeous spring weather, which always makes any situation better.

There are so many great things to see and do in Detroit, but often I find that I only make it there for a concert or special event. The opportunity to explore and spend the night in the city was long overdue, and we had the best restorative 24 hours ever.

Here are a recap and list of recommendations from our weekend in Detroit!

August 20, 2018August 20, 2018

Our weekend in charming Charleston, SC

My husband Zack and I recently celebrated our ninth wedding anniversary on August 15th. In fact, many days in the month of August are special to us as a couple. Our first conversations happened shortly after I moved into my dorm building at MSU in August 2003. And August 21st is our dating anniversary; this week will mark 14 years together, which is absolutely wild!

We’ve been very lucky to commemorate our wedding anniversary with a trip or two in the past. Our first anniversary was celebrated in Traverse City, and our fifth anniversary was marked with a trip to New Orleans. This year, as Zack’s work schedule will continue to get crazier in the months leading up to November, our anniversary weekend seemed like a great time to get away for a few days. It also helps that Margot is old enough to enjoy a weekend away from mama and dada every now and then.

In considering where we wanted to go for this quick Friday-Sunday weekend getaway, we thought about places we’ve been to before and loved, such as New York City and Las Vegas. But after my trip to Portland, Maine earlier this year, it has become clear to me that there are so many cool places to visit around the country that we’ve never been to before.

Charleston, South Carolina has topped Travel + Leisure’s list of the Top 15 Cities in the United States for the last five years. It has felt like the city is becoming a top destination for a quick weekend getaway, thanks to its beautiful architecture, ever-growing food scene, and long history. Also, the show “Southern Charm” is probably the reason why so many young women are flocking there for bachelorette weekends.

For us, Charleston felt like the perfect spot to enjoy our anniversary together. And thankfully, we had some help from friends to steer us in the right direction while we were there. Here’s a rundown of where we stayed, what we ate (which was a lot), and what we did. Continue reading “Our weekend in charming Charleston, SC”