New York! New York!

I love this city!!! I had great expectations for New York and it certainly lived up to them. It’s one of first places we’ve visited where I instantly felt at home.

We spent five nights in Brooklyn at an amazing and roomy townhouse near the Atlantic Transport Centre. Brooklyn was a great place to base ourselves for our visit, with quick access to Manhattan via the Subway but also providing us with an array of excellent shops, eateries and bars.

Walking from Brooklyn to Soho via the Brooklyn Bridge was a good way to get our bearings, although I underestimated the distance between these two destinations somewhat. Strolling the Highline, a visit to Times Square and a day at Central Park were also ticked off the to-do list. Add to that massive pizzas, dingy dive bars, sampling goats cheese with New York State riesling, and an awesome night at the Comedy Cellar – not to mention an amazing show by Father John Misty! Like I said, I love this city!

New Orleans to New York: The Great American Roadtrip

Flying straight from one party in Las Vegas to another in New Orleans may have not been the wisest of ideas but that’s how we roll. After a three hour flight we landed in N’awlins and headed straight to Coop’s Place in the French Quarter. Coop’s Place is a dingy dive bar that serves some of the best creole food I’ve ever tasted – seafood gumbo, sausage and rabbit jambalaya, and crawfish po’boys. Delicious! We loved Coop’s Place so much, we ate there three times during our short stay.

New Orleans is an awesome city with music everywhere. A quick stroll down Bourban St confirmed our suspicions to stay away from the tacky strip and head towards Frenchmen St to see live music. On Monday evening we ventured out to the Treme to see Kermit Ruffins and his band perform at his bar, Kermit’s Treme Speakeasy. Unfortunately for us (although definitely good for him!) he had just returned from his honeymoon after recently getting married and wouldn’t be playing that evening. We were lucky enough to meet him outside the venue and he encouraged us to have a few drinks while we were in the area. As a result, we were treated with an impromptu washboard performance by a local, as well as Tony gaining the interest of a music scout by singing on stage.

The plan for the roadtrip was to drive from New Orleans to New York over five days with stops in Memphis, Nashville, Asheville and Washington. The roadtrip didn’t start off as planned as the SUV we had booked ended up being much smaller than we thought and there was no room for any of our luggage. With no upgrade options and the Australian STA office unable to sort out the issue as it was 2am in the morning for them, we had no choice but to rent a trailer and keep on the move. Sorting out this problem meant a delayed start to our roadtrip and a late arrival to Memphis. We stayed at a cheap motel directly across from Graceland, which meant little to do in the evening but easy access to Elvis’ mansion the next morning.

Nashville and Asheville were my favourite cities that we visited during our roadtrip, with microbreweries and great restaurants a plenty. I took a surprising lack of photos from this period of our journey but I can assure you both cities are awesome – particularly East Nashville.

Our last night of the journey was spent at The Liaison Hotel at Capitol Hill in Washington DC. The location was great and the rooftop pool and bar even better! The drive to New York the following day provided fabulous views of the Big Apple from the Staten Island Bridge.

It was an epic trip spanning five days, about 27 hours of driving and approximately 2097 km of road. What we didn’t realise before we departed was that the route we had chosen was largely on the Interstate – a straight, long, boring piece of road – and as such, we didn’t get to see that much of America’s Deep South. If I had the opportunity to do it again, I would space out the journey over a longer period of time in order to get off the Interstate, and also spend a couple of extra days in Nashville and Asheville. But everything in hindsight! And I can now say that we successfully completed a great American roadtrip.

Roadtrip to Las Vegas via Yosemite & Death Valley

Our three day roadtrip from San Francisco to Las Vegas has been one of my favourite parts of our US trip. The scenery was breathtaking and it was nice to get out of the city to see some of the great American wilderness. Our party of six expanded to seven with the addition of Nick’s girlfriend Sim, who had been working in Germany and flown into San Fran to meet us.

We were lucky enough to secure a lakefront house at Pine Mountain Lake near Groveland for our first night of our trip. The house was an amazing, somewhat outdated, 4 level home straight from a teen movie or horror film – actually, mash those two genres up and this house would make a perfect backdrop. Complete with our own private dock and great views over the lake at sunset, we could have spent days here.

The next day it was off to Yosemite to check out the Valley and Tioga Pass Road. Yosemite was simply stunning and far surpassed my expectations. The journey took us past waterfalls, mountains and meadows. No bear sightings unfortunately, but I did hand-feed a chipmunk and minor animal encounters can be cool too…. but really nothing is as cool as seeing a bear in the wild and so I’m a little disappointed about this.

Our second night was spent at an unmemorable cabin in Lee Vining. There isn’t too much going on in Lee Vining but if you do end up in that neck of the woods, make sure you check out the Whoa Nellie Deli at the Mobil Gas Station – I’m still dreaming of the fish tacos with mango salsa.

The last leg of our trip took us through Death Valley National Park before hitting the desert flats in Nevada. Las Vegas was as party hard and crazy as expected. Vegas can be summed up by pool parties, limo rides, gigantic margaritas on the strip, roller coasters, terrible nightclubs, free drinks while playing the pokies and a pretty epic apartment at the MGM Signature. But what really happens in Vegas stays in Vegas so I’ll leave you with that.

4th of July in San Diego

We flew to San Diego for six nights of partying and to celebrate the 4th of July. Excellent Mexican feeds, margaritas and plenty of sunshine made San Diego a great place. We stayed at the USA Hostels in the Gaslamp District, which was a great place to meet people who were also travelling through America.

A quick trip across the border to party in Mexico and a day at the San Diego Zoo were good fun, but nothing beats long days at the beach and swimming in the Pacific Ocean.