The Staycation Makeover

I'll be honest, I've never liked the idea of a staycation before. My time off is sacred, so why would I spend my time bumming around my own dumb house? But with not a lot of money and zero planning on our side, I was pretty worried that we were going to have a lame week off.  Now, I do know how to appreciate the calmer side of life, and enjoy the fine art of relaxing. BUT I also know that without plans, I'll fritter away the free time that I have and then berate myself for it later. So how to make a staycation fun?

1. Step up. Stop thinking of all the stuff that will make this not work. Shut up and think about how cool this can be.
2. Plan it. Create a list of things that you can feasibly do within a day's drive. Zoos, aquariums, hikes, National parks, museums, historic places, theaters, wineries, breweries, theme parks, classes, etc. Create a list of things you'd like to accomplish for yourself that you don't normally get time to do - write, try that new restaurant, read that book, do some art, etc. Build in time to chill - go to the pool, the beach, take a nap. Do not play Candy Crush. Unplug for a bit. And don't forget to



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3. Do it. This is the important part. 

How it went: 

With very little planning - I'm pretty sure we decided the first Monday of our week off- we made  it happen.

Road Trip Tips

A road trip can be an amazing thing. Open road, exploring small bits of the country, and taking each adventure as it comes. There are not set rules, and you don't need an agenda to make a road trip great. Here's a few tips that you might want to keep in mind before you take your next road trip. 

1. The car matters. Take a roomy, comfortable car with AC, heat, and great for listening to music. Don't forget to take into account reliability and gas mileage when deciding what car to take, either. 
2. Pack snacks in an easily accessible area. If you are like me and think hotel coffee sucks, take a stash of ground coffee and some filters to make your own in the hotel room. Bring other food you might be able to make use of in hotels -- most have mini-fridges, coffee pots, and microwaves.  This can cut costs if need be. Espresso/cold coffee, lots of water, granola bars, and snack-y items are a must for me -- we had locally made kettle corn that was AMAZING.
3. Great listening choices.
1. Make good Pandora stations of all your favorite genres -- shuffle all your stations together to get a good mix.
2. Make good playlists on CD or your phone/mp3 player (for when Pandora isn't getting great service)
3. Comedy -- We personally love Comedy channel on Pandora, which plays snippets of great comedians. This never seemed to get old for us, and definitely is a nice change from constant music. 
4. Audiobooks -- C isn't huge into audiobooks, but I LOVE them. They are a great way to pass the time while READING. 
5. Podcasts -- Another way to switch it up when you're tired of music. I personally love the Moth Podcast that my mom turned me onto - it's a podcast of stories told in storytelling jams. They are (mostly) adults telling adult stories - and the themes are all over the map in terms of subjects, and are usually funny -- with a few heart-wrenching ones thrown in for good measure.
6. Learning languages - so maybe this is better to do by yourself, as it might be hard to do with more than one person in the car, but pick up language-learning CDs or podcasts for the car, and get that much closer to knowing another tongue!
4. Download apps!  The apps I downloaded were SO useful on our sporadic car trip. (Please don't be one of those people that operate these while driving. Let the passenger do it, or pull over first.) Some of the most awesome:
• Hotel Tonight by Hotel Tonight, Inc. - Good quality, great deals on hotels - that night only. We found great hotel deals in Jacksonville and Daytona Beach -- but they only have large cities. If they don't have great deals left - they tell you that city is all booked up for the night. Overall, good, but check TripAdvisor if you aren't having any luck.
• TripAdvisor - picks up on some good locations to visit, and also good hotels. This let me see the various prices that I could get for the same hotel room through different sites -- the hotel's site is not necessarily the cheapest! I booked one hotel room through a third site while practically in the parking lot because it saved me $20 from what the hotel itself charged.
• GasBuddy - finds the cheapest gas in your area while you're on the road. Using it, I saved about 25 cents per gallon on several occasions, because it alerted me that the cheaper gas was only about a mile off of the highway. 
• Yelp! - This was great for finding great food places that we wouldn't have found otherwise. Plus, you can write reviews, and remember things that you liked when you come back.
5. Games along the way. Although I'm sure there are a lot more out there - I will point out the two that I downloaded that were a lot of fun for us. And no, I'm not talking Candy Crush, but rather games where multiple people in the car can be involved at one time. 
1. The License Plates Game. See how many of the 50 state license plates you can get while you're on your trip. Have the passenger write them down, or download an app to keep track of them for you. I used The License Plate Game by Joseph Levine, which is easy and worked well. 
2. Road Trip Bingo - This is a lot like Road Trip I Spy. There's so much to look at out there that this is a great way to start noticing it all...and turn it into a competitive game. There are apps for this as well - the one I liked best for us (...and was free, duh), was called RoadTrip Bingo, but it doesn't look like it's on the app store anymore. The best replacement I'm seeing for it is Roadtrip-Bingo by Toughturtle LLC, which lets you choose from different boards that deal with different subjects - car logos, food logos, around town, etc.
3. Would You Rather? - You can pull the questions from the web, from an app, or from your own brain. Regardless of where the questions come from, this can jump-start hilarious discussions and give you a lot more insight into the inner workings of your companion's mind. Look out, sometimes it gets a little dangerous in there. Some websites to get you started:
1. Either's Would You Rather? Questions
2. RRRather's Would You Rather? Questions
6. AAA - AAA is a great safety net. I knew if we broke down or got locked out of the car, etc, I would be covered. They also give out free maps at their offices if you're going somewhere, and their app is GREAT. 
7. Stimulating conversation. This is your chance to really get to know the person next to you. Ask them questions about themselves (not too intrusive!), and see what they are like, where they went to college, what their childhood was like, top 5 favorite movies, what Disney character they would want to be. There are so many ridiculous questions you could pose that could spark stimulating conversation, and that will be memorable in and of itself.
8. Be okay with silence.  Although you want some stimulating conversation, be mindful that if the other person isn't feeling talkative, you'll have to let it go. Silence is only as awkward as you make it. 
9. Lastly -- think about a road trip as being a grand adventure! Get in the mindset to be flexible if things don't go quite as planned, and remember that the fun is in the journey. Relax, have fun, and BON VOYAGE!

Think of more things that you want to add to the list? Comment below and let me know what tips you have to make a road trip awesome. 

Puerto Plata, Por Favor: The Sponge goes to the Dominican Republic

Not the DR, but islands sure
do look pretty from the sky.

The Dominican Republic is a beautiful place to go. As soon as I found out that my husband and I couldn't go to visit our friend in Los Angeles, we decided on the next best thing -- an island in the Caribbean. We planned this literally 3 weeks in advance, and it could not have turned out better. Even I, a planner who often gets anxious when I'm rushed for time, can't see how advanced planning would have made this trip better.

Tuesday - Travel

We pulled an all-nighter before we drove 2 1/2 hours to D.C. C and I got home from work around 10ish that night and had a 6 o'clock flight the next morning. I was entirely too nervous/anxious/excited to sleep, so I packed and unpacked, and checked and rechecked my bags until there was nothing to do but leave.  The good news is, our bags (carry-ons only) were perfectly packed. The bad news is, we learned the hard way that all-nighters before a day of travel sucks, and sucks big. Thinking we would sleep on the plane/at the Miami airport was dumb. So dumb.

Rainy first night.

When we finally got to our hotel in Puerto Plata, about and hour and a half later than we were supposed to, it was raining and we flopped into bed until dinner. It was beautiful. Check-in was not a bear like some of the reviews we had read, which had us pleasantly surprised.

Meals were largely uneventful affairs. Food at the buffet wasn't great, but we really didn't eat there that often (breakfast every day, lunch twice, and dinner-- never). We ate at the restaurants most of the time, because we were able to snag reservations to different restaurants each night (tip: go to Guest Services and ask them if there are any leftovers at the start of each day). There are various restaurants at the resort, all pretty good, but they try to be so international that I didn't really feel like we got a feel for Caribbean cuisine, except for when we went to the Dominican restaurant (the only night we got to eat Dominican food for dinner), where I had a pastelon de platanos (described as Dominican lasagna with plantains used in place of noodles). I had a sweet corn pudding for dessert and Chris had some sort of coconut dessert which tasted like the inside of a Mounds Bar. 

Thursday - Lounging

Hello, beaches!

The next day, we were told we had a special welcome package (which we knew was code for "We're going to try to sell you timeshares for an hour," from reading reviews of the resorts and from the advice of a couple we met along the way). We tried to avoid it, but they wait for you outside of the breakfast buffet so that you have no choice. So we were apprehended and taken to the VIP place. Before the guy could give us the tour and launch into his spiel (but AFTER they gave us complimentary butter-you-up chocolates), I asked if we'd have to pay extra. He tried to skirt this question, but I wasn't having it, and neither was Chris, who jumped in saying that he'd lost his job. When he asked us how we could afford our vacation at all, I told them it was a pity trip gifted to us