Scott Barronton (00:00)
Welcome back to the Sunshine Travelers podcast. Today we're pulling back the curtain and getting a little more personal.
We realize that while you've traveled alongside us through countless adventures and heard our stories from around the globe, you might not really know who we are behind the microphones. So in this episode, we're diving deeper, sharing our journeys, our travel styles, and what inspired us to create Sunshine Travelers. From our very first trip together to the moments that shaped our wanderlust, we're giving you a front row seat to our story. So sit back, relax.
and get to know the voices behind Sunshine Travelers.
It seems like just the other day that we were celebrating 50 episodes. We've also hit another major milestone recently. Yeah, it's really hard to believe that we are at a hundred episodes. when we started this, you just don't think about milestones like that, but we did commit to saying, okay, we're going to do this, once a week. And that's, always seems to come very quickly, but then
When you do something consistently, right? That you, make progress or build something like this, right? Or you're at a hundred episodes. But our other big milestone is, we just have crossed the milestone of having 50,000 people follow us on Instagram. so that's really exciting. And then even in the last few days, it's 51,000. So we really just appreciate those people who have, followed along and follow along on our journey and, look for those tips and.
advice and stuff like that. So we're super excited to have everybody follow along with us. Yeah. I mean, these are a couple of really big milestones. especially thinking back when we first started this, we said, we're going to do this to really just catalog all of our travel stories and do it for ourselves. And if no one listens, it's okay, because we'll have this recorded in our own voice telling our stories.
And then for generations to come, our family will have it. And that was okay with us. But now we talk about having 51,000 followers out there who are tuning in in some way and we're reaching them with our content. And it's just a really exciting time. Yeah. It's also really cute. Like for our grandkids, they have their own little podcast that they like to listen to.
But also when they see our podcast equipment when they come, right, they want to pretend to do a little podcast. And so that's just really neat and cute. they were in here just a little while ago and they had the headphones on the microphones down, they pulled them down to where they could reach them. And Rhodes was doing one for his daddy.
Well, Melissa and I, we've been listening to a lot of other podcasts over the last couple of months. We're trying to prepare for some really big trips that we're taking this year. And, we always just want to learn from others as well. So we've been out there listening to a lot of podcasts and some of the things that we were listening to, Melissa made the comment, it'd be nice to know a little bit more about their background and how they got into this and stuff like that.
I would say that's more a Melissa thing than it is me. But, it started a conversation where we said, hmm, we haven't ever really talked a lot about us and our backgrounds on the podcast either. We did do on episode four, just kind of a who are the Sunshine Travelers? And I think we told our story kind of briefly, but we didn't talk a little bit about ourselves and our backgrounds.
Yeah. And I think that's just something that you just don't get from, social media and the particular podcast episode I was listening to that kind of inspired this thought is people that I follow on social media and you see these places that go to and a few tips and they don't really do a lot of, videos where they talk a lot even. and so it was just really interesting to listen to that podcast.
and then say, okay, this was our background and that kind of thing. And Scott's right, like I just, I enjoy that. And then sometimes it does, like you just don't know somebody's perspective, right? Without knowing, or maybe it gives you a little bit different perspective when you know a little bit more about somebody, so.
So my background is I grew up traveling, but I didn't think of it in this way. My mom worked for the airlines and it didn't cost us anything to fly. And it's just something that we enjoyed doing. So we would decide we wanted to go somewhere. My mom knew all of the like airport codes and routes. I think she knew them in her head.
And she would call up and ask somebody like that was at work and she'd be like, how many seats are available in this particular flight? And if there were first-class seats, we usually tried to take that flight. Cause this was back before the frequent flyer days where the non-rev or the employee travel, if there were seats available in first-class, they could get them.
And so that's how we traveled is we would go places that we could fly in first class. And that's what I got used to. I think that's part of my affinity to Delta as well is because she worked for Delta. And so growing up, that's all we ever flew. It's also interesting, thinking about the perspective, a lot of the young people wouldn't even think about this, but it wasn't like
You could go online to see, right? She had to call somebody who was at work to see, cause you didn't get online, There was no app. was none of these things to, see, where you could go. That's so interesting to think about. Yeah. And it was just knowledge that she had in her head and cause she would book, travel for people because even back then the Delta, reservations were more like travel agents.
They booked all kinds of travel for people. And so she knew a lot about different destinations. And so we traveled to a lot of great places through, not really thinking about it in the terms of the way that we think about travel today. And so I grew up in my teenage years, we would go to Germany just about every summer and visit some friends of ours.
It didn't cost us anything. So we would just hop on that plane and go to Germany. And we had friends who lived there. it wasn't like, this was probably the cheapest form of vacation you could possibly have. And so I, I laugh because, um, when, when I was younger, a lot of our friends, well, everybody where we lived would all go to Panama city.
I would even fly to Panama City and just have somebody pick me up at the airport.
Yeah, and we always laugh because you just really weren't much of a road tripper because you just never had done that. And I grew up traveling a lot too, but just very different. So my parents were both teachers and so we grew up doing a lot of camping and road trips and things like that in the summer and school breaks. Even one time driving all the way up to Maine.
And we would go to the outer banks and just, go to all, just all kinds of different places, national parks and state parks and do a lot of camping and different road trips and stuff like that. So a very different kind of travel. I actually never even traveled out of the country until after we were married, we went to Germany and took when our daughter was almost two, the first time, my first time out of the country, and to visit that family in Germany. first time traveling abroad was with you. So.
Yeah, I think that was actually probably our first big trip together was to go to Germany and to go over and visit our friends there. And so, I thinking about that the other day. that's been, I don't know, close to 30 years ago. And even back then, I don't know that we ever really said, oh, we just love travel and this is what we want to do.
So it's interesting that, fast forward many years and now it's all we want to do. Like it's the work stuff getting in the way. It's like, I've got to get this work thing out of the way so it can go off and travel more.
But work in the meantime, work has been the way that has really allowed you to travel even more. Right. Yeah. And, but it's also the thing where I was just going through the motions of travel as well. And we've talked about that on the podcast before is that I would go to these places and you'd be like, what did you do? And it's like, well got to the airport. We went to the hotel. We grabbed a bite of dinner.
Went back to the hotel, slept, got up, went to a meeting, had a bite of lunch, went back, And it was just this cycle where we wouldn't really do anything when we traveled. It was all about going places, for the purpose of work. And, we told the story of when you traveled to New York with me. And I told you, was like, ah, there's nothing around where, where I'm staying because literally I'd walked from my hotel to the office and I passed nothing.
Right. And so I said, you'll have to take a taxi or get on the train and, go, but you're welcome to come and come to find out. was right in the middle of everything. And I've always been the map person. And here's the other thing that will really date us too. And I was thinking about this the other day after we did get married and not, going to Germany, we would try to do some road trips and some camping and stuff like that.
But again, that was before the time of using cell phones to having a GPS. Like you physically had to get out, a paper map. So I think I've always just kind of been, where's point A, where's point B, what's going to be along the way, to kind of see what's around. I guess that's just kind of been my, my task or my job. Yeah. And even when we were driving, it's like, I can't drive and look at a map. So that was something that you would do is look at those maps.
before we had cell phones and stuff like that.
Really interesting. mean, we've come a long ways, but Melissa, I think your background, other than, the fact that you grew up, doing road trips and stuff is it's interesting now that everything that you do is around our travel and stuff like that, because your background is actually in engineering. So I actually got a degree in textile engineering.
of all things. I did, after I graduated from college, I did that for a while. It was in manufacturing. I don't, it wasn't ever anything. I don't know that I absolutely, it's, guess it's just hard when you are, when you're that young, like knowing what it is that you want to do, because even what you do now wasn't even something that existed back then. And I that's what's so interesting about podcasting. Instagram.
creating content, creating these videos because when we started traveling, that wasn't even something that you would do. And even back in what, 2012, 2013, Instagram was for pictures, right? So you could share pictures of your travels and put a caption with your story, but it just has changed and evolved so, so much. So yeah, so I did that.
And then after our second child was born, after a year or so, I went back and started teaching high school math because I had that engineering background and got my master's degree in that secondary math education in order to do that. And so I did that for about 10 years. then after that, once we were going to kind of transition, we had sold our house, we were going to move for your work.
Not too far, still in the Atlanta area, but I started a business staging homes. It was just something that I just enjoy doing. I enjoy decorating and just trying to turn that into a business. Just doing something completely different. I think I have a very strange brain maybe because I am both mathematical, analytical and creative as well, which I think translates into some of the
the content creation and the video and I enjoy like that. That's just something that I enjoy. So did that for a number of years, really up until, and I guess really through the pandemic even did that differently. And then I guess just once we moved to Florida and started deciding to do this, really for me, it was wanting to, how can we create something moving forward that
could be completely remote, right? Because your job was completely remote, except for when you have to go to certain places to travel. Staging is very much not though, right? Because you have to physically have the inventory and physically go to these places. So how could I kind of reinvent something, right? That would then be remote. And so I guess that just what blows my mind from when you and I went to school, when I went to school, it's not something that,
You can even, you could go to school for it now, right? But probably by the time you finish your degree, it's a whole different skillset. Yeah, I mean, there's probably been 10, 15 ideas that I've come up with and I've said, Melissa, you could do this. You'd be really good at it. And the answer was always no, I don't want anything that would tie me down. And then we wouldn't be able to go and do and travel. so.
I think the travel is just something that became a part of our life eventually. And it was more so when you were able to start traveling with me on some of these work trips. Cause I did get to go to great places. I mean, I've been all over the world and you've come to a few of them with me and that's offered an opportunity for you to get out and just kind of roam around and see things while I'm working during the day. And then sharing that back with me.
And then some of our other trips that we did together, I started to see, how interesting it was to try to actually research a place and to see what was there and what we wanted to do. And so then I started catching on and wanting to be more involved in the travel planning. Cause used to, I think even when we started this podcast, I would always say, I was the traveler.
In this podcast that I was just there and you did all the planning But just over the last two years hundred episodes that's really Changed a lot you still do a greater part of the planning on some of the trips like our upcoming one but I'd say that I enjoy doing a lot more than I used to Yeah, and so that's been I mean that's been a lot of fun I would say like when we went to Curacao for example and Aruba
Like you pretty much, did a lot of the planning, like did a lot of the research and the beaches and different things like that. So it's kind of, it's fun to do that. I mean, it's definitely, when you're used to doing all the planning, it's, sometimes hard to kind of let go of that control, but then sometimes it's just fun to just sit back and go with the flow too. Another thing that kind of surprised me about this is
the fact that I'm doing something where we talk. I mean, I was one of those people that, I definitely had a word count every day and I still do for things that don't interest me. Like as much, right? So things that I just don't have a passion about anymore, just a lot of words, blah, blah, blah gets filtered out in my head and I just can't deal with it.
But you go talking about travel and I could talk all night long to you about travel Yeah, I think that's probably true for a lot of people, when you they don't necessarily talk about work for example But when you are on the phone, when you have days or you've had days where you have meetings all day Or you've on the phone and so what he's referring to as a word count right is like he's just like hit his maximum and so at the end of the day, it's just like,
veg out, like I don't want to have a conversation. It's not like you want to rehash, you know, the work stuff or anything like that, but you're right. If we then, let's say, go out, somewhere or something like that, and you strike up a conversation with somebody and it happens to be about travel, it just almost like energizes you. And that would be one thing that I would say that I feel like has almost changed once we started doing the podcast, is you are very,
Like, not willing is not the word, like, excited to tell people, right? If you start talking about travel or something like that, talking about the podcast and stuff too. And so I would just say that more extroverted about that than maybe it used to be. Yeah.
All right, well, that's just a little bit about ourselves. Here we are 100 episodes in and never shared, anything about our backgrounds before. But what we wanted to do today is we thought we would talk a little bit about with this being the 100th episode, kind of talk a little bit about the highlights from our last 100 episodes. Now, don't worry, don't go running off. We're not going to talk about 100 different episodes.
I've actually got it narrowed down into our top five. Yeah, and we just thought this would be interesting too, that if you haven't, like that you've just joined us recently or something like that, and you don't know, what episodes are out there, right? Because a lot of times when we search these podcasts, it's like topical. And sometimes a new podcast might pop up or something like that. Because they're especially, they're easy to search, like on our website. If you go to sunshinetravelers.com and go to the podcast tab,
there's a search bar and it's super easy to search but somewhere like Apple and Spotify not necessarily right because there's no way to really search them.
This might be a good way to say, I didn't know they had a podcast episode about that. You let me go check that out. Yeah. And so the way that I came up with this top five list is I looked through, we have some, some data about the downloads and I looked through to see what our top five downloaded episodes were. So you ready? I am ready. The number one of all time.
is episode 45 and what you need to know about Aruba. People love Aruba. Yeah, and I don't know if it was, I don't know if it's the title, what you need to know about Aruba. And so then it's like, oh, what do I need to know? I don't know. But yes, that episode continuously like week in and week out is a very, very popular episode. Whereas our Aruba content on social media.
Not so much. So I think it just hits a different audience, which is so interesting. know? Yeah. And we're even finding out that like the audience between social media platforms is very different. So even though they're both owned by Metta, Instagram and Facebook are very different in what is popular out there. A hundred percent, right? Yeah.
what people react to and which is so interesting. And I think a lot of the podcast content just ends up being organic searches, right? People searching for something about Aruba. And then that pops up. And then because that is maybe a popular episode, then it's easier for people to find. number two is episode nine, planning a trip to St. John. Now St. John is one of our favorite places and we have talked about it a lot on this podcast. We love St. John.
Absolutely love St. John and we've been a couple of times and we've been very lucky maybe to visit with times when it wasn't, we felt like super busy even. it's not a big Island. There's not a lot of places to stay. It gets a lot of cruise and day visitors from St. Thomas and stuff. But
Trunk Bay was voted in 2024 as the world's best beach. not sure who all voted and what the category was, but it's like worldsbestbeaches.com or something like that. And so, but I mean, a hundred percent agree. We absolutely love that. That is probably still our favorite place to snorkel. if not Curacao, but St. John, just an absolutely. Well, I might've voted like 10,000 times on that Trunk Bay one.
Episode 66, the top mistakes to avoid when visiting the Amalfi Coast. And so I have to admit, we would love to visit the Amalfi Coast again and spend a lot more time. We did it on a trip, the six-week trip to Europe that we talked. There's actually several episodes about that on the podcast about how we did that trip, the cruise part of that trip.
We had a very short time to visit the Amalfi Coast, enjoyed Pompeii, but had a few things that we would have done differently. And so that has been very popular because I think Italy in Amalfi Coast specifically is just a place that people really, really want to visit. It's definitely worth visiting. Yes, so go back and listen to that one because...
We give you a real honest opinion of our visit to the Amalfi Coast. You see a lot of pictures on Instagram. It's a very popular place to visit, but I think, we had some, well, we loved it. We did love the Amalfi Coast. Don't get us wrong. We had some very different opinions and maybe different ways that we would do it to visit the Amalfi Coast. And which is what that?
when we traveled
We wanted to talk about or think about that trip in such a way as being grateful for it and not really going back and thinking about, here's what we would have done differently. And I think we think about trips and travel a little differently now so that we can then share that with people, maybe reflecting on those more than we used to. And that was just one that we did. Well, in the fourth spot is episode 81, traveling to Japan. So we've talked about that Japan.
is one of those places that's kind of having its moment and it's very popular for tourists and visitors right now. And it's showing in the list here. Yeah, for sure. And so this was one that we actually had a guest and interviewed somebody who had just recently been and got just kind of the latest, where to visit, what would you do? And then how would you do a little bit of hidden gems and special?
different things. So that was a very good research episode for us when we get ready to plan our trip. Yeah, we definitely want to go to Japan and it might be one of the places that we visit later this year. We're still trying to decide where in Asia we're going to go to. So keep pushing your favorite place because that might help influence our decision. But just know that we're also looking at where can we get the best airfare.
All right. And then finally, rounding out the number five spot is episode 67, 48 hours in Rome. So when we visited Rome, was in late June and we had a fabulous time. We visited, kind of bookended our cruise. It was in and out of Rome. And there again, we had a few things that here's what we would have done differently.
we stayed kind of far out of the city using points and, going back and forth, that kind of thing. But we booked some fabulous tours, and really maximized our time without, and got to do some hidden gems as well. So we really spent a lot of time, talking about that without spending a ton of time.
Well, based on this list that I just read out, I think we've learned that there's a high degree of interest in the Caribbean and Italy amongst our listeners. Because even if I looked out at numbers six and seven, they're about the Caribbean. Yeah. And we've got some really fantastic places that we've done episodes on.
that just haven't done quite as well. And I was a little bit surprised by some of them. So what was that? Well, one of them I'll call out just, and it's more personal than anything, but our lowest performing episode was on Pittsburgh. And I just find that, as much feedback as we've gotten that people want, to hear a little bit more about places to visit in the U S. Um,
that this ends up not being a very popular episode. we actually, Pittsburgh was very interesting because we went to visit friends, to go to a concert. We didn't have a lot of other things planned, but there is a lot to do in Pittsburgh. So if you ever find yourself nearby and have a few days, I mean, there are just so, and we didn't even.
There were a number of other things too that then uber drivers would recommend to us So take a listen to the episode or if you are local and haven't done a lot of those things because I think a lot of us are Guilty of that and even our friends were like, we haven't even done, a lot of those things But we had a friend from and they're from Pittsburgh. And so we we really had a fabulous time. So give that one a listen, I think it's also personal because one of
The highest things on my bucket list is to go see the Atlanta Braves play the Pirates at PNC Park right there on the river. that stadium was really, really neat. We stayed right close to that. Not during, I guess it was probably right before baseball season that year. But yeah, so that's both of those. two, their football stadium is right there too, right? And then the baseball stadium is right there as well. And so that would be.
So if anyone ever wants to take me to a baseball game at PNC Park to see the Braves, just let me know. There were also a couple of other places that I was surprised that were kind of low down on the list. And well, one I'm going to say first, I'm not totally surprised by this, but our Disney content has not done very well in the podcast.
Yeah, and I don't know if it's just, there's a lot of Disney content out there. And, when people are doing research, but if you were looking for, Disney content, we actually split it up in several different ways. Disney with kids, Disney with senior adults, and then Disney with like adult children. And then we also talked about some special tours, VIP tour versus
like Keys to the Kingdom tour and some different things like that as well. So we do have a good bit of Disney content, but the best place again to find that would be to go to sunshinetravelers.com and then go to the podcast tab and then just search Disney. And then finally, before we move off of this, there's three locations on here that you guys just have not shown enough love for on the podcast.
And maybe these are the hidden places that you need to go and really check out and go and visit. So the first one is episode 25 on Belize. We love Belize. Yeah, we absolutely love Belize. And when we were planning that trip, that was really, I mean, it was really mid pandemic almost, right? I mean, it was May 2021. Things were starting to open back up.
We actually ended up choosing Belize because a lot of places in the Caribbean were not open back up. We had done Mexico already in late 2020. someplace that we've been a lot of times. And that was one where you really were just like, I want to go to the beach. And I had talked to you into going, spending a couple of days in the rainforest as well. But Belize has, so much diversity. So definitely check that out. We really, really would enjoy that and would go back. because.
it's a, it's a big place and there's lots of other places in Belize that we would like to explore. Yeah. I've pitched that one to our kids for our Christmas trip. Our next Christmas trip is to go to Belize. but as people love content on the Caribbean, they're truly missing out if they haven't been to Belize. Right. So, cause if you don't know where that is, it's
right below the Yucatan Peninsula, just right, right below Mexico. So it's still not hard to get to. you fly in and out of Belize City. so in it, I mean, fantastic people. There's not, language barrier. The money is the same. they.
take the US dollar and so we just found it to be absolutely fabulous. So we hope to visit there again. But that was episode 25, but highly, and we've recommended that to so many people who are like, ah, we've done Mexico or we don't really want to go to Mexico. We've done these places in the Caribbean to check that out because we absolutely loved it. even said Belize was one of those locations where if we were going to move from the US to somewhere, Belize would be pretty high on that list of places to look at.
The next one is episode 51 on Buenos Aires. You haven't been there yet. This is one of the places that we're going to be going as a part of our group trip when we go to Antarctica. Everybody's meeting in Buenos Aires and then we will fly together on a charter flight from Buenos Aires down to Ushuaia to start the trip. But I am so excited to take you to Buenos Aires. That's one of my favorite cities outside the U.S.
Yeah, you've talked about that for a long time. So what we will be doing, and we hope that the other people who are joining us on the Antarctica part of it will be able to go a day or so early, like we're going to do and be able to go and see some of those sites that we talked about in episode 51. But then also in episode 51, also, so we talked to, this was another guest episode. We talked to somebody who,
was from there. And then he also went into not just Buenos Aires, but like where else would you go in Argentina as well? So that would be a great resource to like help you plan a trip.
And then just on the last one on that and we'll move on. But my number one favorite city in the world, Barcelona. Come on folks. What's the problem? Why are you guys not massively downloading this episode? Barcelona is one of my favorites. It is my favorite city in the world that we've been to so far. Yeah, we really enjoyed this. We would, this is again, a place that we would go back.
Fortunately, when we did our Mediterranean cruise, we had two whole days in Barcelona, which was really a lot of time to be able to go and, you know, see the sights and enjoy some beach time and, have some great food as well. And in that episode, we really do give some tips because that that is a city where you do need if you want to go to those, the church and the park and, see a lot of the things you do have to.
plan ahead and get your tickets ahead of time. But yeah, we've really enjoyed that. think we just love, we've talked about this before, we just love that Spanish culture as well. So, know, 2026, that is the, I believe the hundredth anniversary of Gaudi's tragic death. And I believe that they are finally planning on completing the
Sagrada de Familia. Yeah, that is the, that I think is definitely the plan. And so, but I mean, even in these past several, it's been fabulous. They just have always had that, construction, finishing in on the outside and stuff like that. But that was episode 24. But that again is a place. I think that would be a place that we,
would consider like a slow travel type thing and then go see more of Spain or something like that. I that would be a good little base. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's got the best of both worlds. It's a city. So you've got all the things that a city has to offer, but then it's also the beach. And so, the way that I look at it is it is just a perfect location to visit. And then you can easily hop all over Europe.
from there, I Think you guys need to go back and I'm gonna watch this one to see if the downloads Tick up on this one, but I think you're truly missing out on a real gem
Well, Melissa, do you have a favorite episode?
Well, I probably should have looked at the list back again, but I don't know. I really enjoy, like our first episode, and our first episode gets a lot of downloads, I think, because it was talking about bucket list, right? Like how do you create a bucket list and what goes into that? And I think we reference back to that a lot. So we do see that get downloaded quite a bit.
so I think, I mean, just because everything kind of stems from that, I would say that's probably my favorite one. What about you?
yeah, think surprisingly, one of the more recent ones, that we did, I really enjoyed where we were talking to Kat and, talking about her, her journey to Nepal in that area. And, and probably because I have a huge interest in going there and seeing that, but I think that was probably,
at least recently, one of my favorite episodes. And that was just, back maybe five, six episodes ago. That was really interesting to talk to her. So we talked to her about her book, The Joy of Jetlag. She had some really interesting travel stories, right? some really good travel stories that were neat to then go and, talk to her a little bit and have her share a few of those.
Yeah, I really do enjoy the interviews that we do. You we try to do a good balance of conversation, between us, interviews, and then destinations. So we like to make sure that we have a good balance of all of that. But I really do enjoy the interviews and getting to talk to people.
Well, I've got some rapid fire questions for you. So if that one didn't stump you enough, here's five questions that we're going to go through, but we got to go through them quickly. Okay. So the first one, what is your biggest travel pet peeve? I think that it is, well, it's really two things. and I'll just say them real quick. number one is hearing people or go to a place
and expecting that place to be, or wanting it to be just like home, right? they don't have this soft drink or whatever, or this or that is inconvenient. But it's different, right? That's the part of travel. That's one of the things about travel, Or visiting somewhere new that makes it fun.
And interesting. I recently saw something, somebody didn't want to go somewhere because they, and I can't remember if it was Coke or Pepsi, but they, needed to go to a place that had their preference. And I was just like, wow. Um, obviously you would go places that have Coca-Cola. Yeah. But I was just like, wow. I mean, I just would not go to a place because of that. And then I think the second thing is just, I don't know. And I, this just always, seeing people who just have like so much stuff.
when they travel and I know that's not my problem, but it's just like, wow, like, why do you need like that much stuff? Now that's the way I felt when we went with the grandkids. Yeah, but that's different. I mean, when you have kids and and if, and, but, but if you're going to have, like, if you're going to have to do, trains or transit or whatever, you just don't want to be struggling with that. And my biggest thing is like, am I really, gonna
use all that stuff. And so I've really tried to do better because it is frustrating when you when you have so much stuff. right. Well, we've got to keep going because this is supposed to be rapid fire. What's your favorite destination? So my favorite destination now is our safari in Kenya. Yeah, I enjoyed that as well. What's at the top of your current bucket list?
I am super excited to go somewhere in Asia and experience that from what we've seen and heard. And there's so many, you I mean? When you laugh at that because then people say, oh, you're up and it's, you And I would imagine that people think about Asia the same way, right? Because it's so diverse and so broad. So I'm excited to.
kind of see what we nail down on and then in the future, visiting more places and experiencing the different cultures and the food and the people and those different, in that part of the world. Number four, what's the one thing that you can't travel without?
I think my remote battery charger for my phone. That's true. I've never seen anybody that can run a battery down so fast. But I mean, when you're taking videos and taking photos and being the GPS.
What's your most spontaneous travel decision you've ever made? So I think it has to be when we booked that flight to Cairo.
Yeah. I was thinking when, when I was coming up with this list of questions, the one that stuck in my head is remember when we were going to take the kids to Disney in California. Yeah. And we got there and like the, the flight was canceled because it was having bad weather. And, and so we had to quickly come up and pivot and we went somewhere else and I just pulled, my old, Delta non rev.
days back out, I went up to the desk and I asked the lady, said, where somewhere that we could get on a plane and go to tonight? And she said, well, that's interesting. Boston. I said, put us on it. And so we got on the flight and we went to Boston and we had taken clothes for California, not for Boston in early spring. That's true. I had forgotten about that one. And that one was really, um,
Like you said, because of a cancellation, because of the weather and if we had tried to wait, I it was really, I think it was like a long weekend, right? It's still a long, it's probably better that we stayed on the East coast. It's still a lot to travel to California, but it was really just going to wreck the whole amount of time that we had. So that's definitely true.
Well, we wanted to talk a little bit before we close out today. Melissa and I are leaving in just a few days and we're going to be headed to Iceland. And so that's one of the places that's been on our bucket list for a few years now. We want to see the Northern Lights and in order to do that, you need to go during the winter. So we're going to have an episode next week about Iceland and planning that trip.
But then we have some special content that we're going to be producing. We're going to do like some little mini episodes. So while we're in Iceland, we're going to produce some daily mini episodes that you guys will be able to download and hear what we're doing or what we did during that day and what we'll be doing the next day. And we just thought this would be something neat and different and actually give you some
Real-time feedback while we're on the road. Yeah several episodes back Well, you mentioned that st John one and while we did record that while we were in st John and we did Puerto Rico the same way it was really more like this right where it was kind the of the trip and then we sat down we talked about it and so our idea here was really to maybe record some like during the day and then at night like kind of talk about what we have done Especially because this is Iceland in winter
and so just to do something different and.
Yeah, we've we've been tracking the Northern Lights. There's an app where you can track their activity. They have been insanely active recently, so we're hoping that it can last, a few more days till we get there. But we're really excited about trying to be able to catch Northern Lights. We do know there's a chance that it may not happen, and we're OK with that because we're going to see some fantastic places while we're there.
Yeah, for sure. And one of the hotels that we are staying at, and I think a lot of them do this this time of year, but one of them in particular advertised and people talked about in the reviews that they would wake you up, if the Northern Lights, if you could see them. yeah, so we just thought that would be neat. It's a different way to kind of bring you some real time content as things were happening. So that'll be a lot of fun for both of us.
We hope you enjoyed getting to know us a little better and discovering the stories behind the Sunshine Travelers. Our journey is far from over and we're excited to keep exploring the world with you by our side. If today's episode sparked any questions or if you have any stories of your own to share, we'd love to hear from you. Connect with us on social media, visit our website at sunshinetravelers.com or leave a review to let us know what you think. The world is full of sunshine and surprises.
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