Anyone Going Somewhere Exciting This Summer?

[PrimeTimer]

I love reading about people's travels. The food, the atmosphere, how they travelled to their destination and where they stayed. All of it. It's fun and interesting to read about what other people do. Kind of like prying into their life but out of curiosity of human life. My husband and I hope to take some day trips this year....we'll see. If we do I will write about them. Hope any of you (iolaire, riki, kitkatz…) will get to do a little travelling and share their experiences with us on here. Summer is coming and so is Fun Season! Even if it's just a trip for a picnic to the park, go and come back and write about it. Might be fun. Be creative! Be adventurous! Let us in on your travels!

[Cupcake]

I'm planning a 2 week trip to Ireland for my donor (sister-in-law) and my brother-her husband for September. He'll do the driving on the opposite side of the road. He's not much for museums or fru-fru things, so I'm planning to throw in distillery and brewery tours between visits to Belleek china and Waterford crystal. I am sure he will enjoy Titanic things; we plan to go to Belfast to see where the ship was made. Mostly want to keep it low key, enjoy the scenery and local culture. I would love to go to the Aran Islands, but it depends so on the weather.

I haven't been on a plane since I started PD 2.5 years ago so I am really looking forward to it. Buying travel insurance so if any thing crops up health wise I can get home quickly.

Has anyone been to the Aran Islands? worth the side trip?

Thanks for asking, PrimeTimer. I think my friends are sick of me blabbing about Ireland-

[iolaire]

Cupcake, you all including your brother might enjoy the dinner with lots of included mead beforehand at Bunratty Castle - https://www.shannonheritage.com/EveningEntertainments/ we were thoroughly plowed at that and enjoyed a bunch.  There is a mingle/music performance beforehand and you can pound the mead.

PrimeTimer - on Friday we leave for a trip that probably could have been done on dialysis.  We are taking advantage of those $7/day car rentals out of Florida to rent a car one-way from Orlando to Atlanta - one night in St Augustine, FL and Macon GA, and two in Savannah GA.  We will spend the first night in Orlando and don't really have much planned there, we don't need to do the parks.   On the way to St Augustine we will stop at Captains BBQ which is supposed to be in the top 10 nationally for BBQ.  We are thinking of a hunted pub tour in St Augustine.  We have not yet planned Savannah but the other time we visited we enjoyed sitting on the river street dinking a wet willies frozen alcoholic slushy and watch the kids cruise in their cars down the street. 

If I was to do this on dialysis it would be receive treatments Friday morning, fly to Orlando, continue trip and get treatments on Monday in Savana and then either have treatments in Savanna before driving to Atlanta to fly home or delay treatments at home until Thursday AM.  (Trip is afternoon Friday - Wednesday PM)

[jambo101]

Kinda hard to go anywhere but local when one is confined to a dialysis chair 3 days a week

[Cupcake]

I hear ya. I feel liberated after transplant.

Iolaire-did you stay at the castle in Bunratty or at one of the local inns/b&b? Looks like a lot of fun and will take your suggestion. I was hesitant as I thought it would be a cheesy touristy thing (like Bateau Mouche in Paris or the Acropolis sound and light show in Athens) - I have never had mead. Does it taste like sweet beer?

[iolaire]

I hear ya. I feel liberated after transplant.

Iolaire-did you stay at the castle in Bunratty or at one of the local inns/b&b? Looks like a lot of fun and will take your suggestion. I was hesitant as I thought it would be a cheesy touristy thing (like Bateau Mouche in Paris or the Acropolis sound and light show in Athens) - I have never had mead. Does it taste like sweet beer?

We stayed at the George Limerick Hotel, I don't know what room we had maybe the Double Room 1 full bed - but the bed was too small for two people, my wife and I dealt with it but the other couple didn't like it.  It felt like their lower cost rooms were build for hen party groups of young small people.  But for a night it was ok, if we did it again we would get a king room - or any other B&B etc..

Mead is more like a sweet wine.  Maybe closer to sweet cider than a beer, but flat.  If you plan do it I'd do a tasting first before you leave to make sure your group can fully partake in the mead, if you were fully sober it might end up being too cheesy!  But excluding the ample drink we enjoyed, coming from the US with friends that like castles, it was a good experience.

Also we enjoyed the carriage tour of Ross Castle and Kenmare Estate in Killarney.   And our first B&B in Cork was the best of the trip with nice tea on arrival and nice breakfast (its a larger B&B) Garnish Guesthouse - http://www.garnish.ie/  We enjoyed it as a nice introduction to the trip since we flew into Dublin and drove to Cork in the same day.

[UkrainianTracksuit]

I'd love to get traveling with this transplant but my travel buddy (husband) is unavailable.  It's just not the same traveling alone....

He's got a very busy summer traveling all over for work looking at mines. He's currently in the oblast of Magadan for family and work. I'd like for us to plan a trip to Alaska but he can't get a tourist visa to the U.S. AT ALL. So, I need to find a buddy for that trip... and no one wants to go there!

[iolaire]

I'd love to get traveling with this transplant but my travel buddy (husband) is unavailable.  It's just not the same traveling alone....

Can you tag along on any of his trips?  A visit to some BC mines would be nice in the summer driving through the mountains.

[rcjordan]

We just got back from a 900-mile (return) roadtrip to Asheville, NC.  I'm on NxStage hhd. This was our 2nd week-long trip since Christmas. We pack everything in a Grand Caravan, planning for sessions in the hotel room.  I've built a custom recliner out of  a zero-gravity folding lawn chair, a wedge pillow, & 2 tv trays.  I've also built a special tractor-tread equipped dolly (3rd version, first two failed) to get the cycler up/down flights of stairs.  Everything worked great.

But the toughest part was eating out in restaurants with a crowd of foodie friends for a week.  And drinking 2-3 beers a day.   As a self-test, I let them pick the restaurants, leaving me to select meals from whatever the menu had available.  To make it worse, my labs were scheduled for the day after we returned home, so there's be no time to work on my numbers.  To our shock, my numbers came in great on all counts.  Woo hoo!

[PrimeTimer]

Bet I know what Cupcake will bring back as a souvenir from Ireland....be sure to bring back a little of their tea to pour into some of that Belleek china cup! Seriously, I'd get myself a cup and saucer and actually use it and not just let it sit on a shelf looking pretty. Why not live a little!

iolaire, as soon as you mentioned Savannah I thought of that movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil". One of my faves. Would go and watch to see if Lady Chablis pops out anywhere...ha ha. Maybe a visit to a local cemetery. Probably lots of famous people buried there. Yes, Savannah would be a fun city to visit. Even at midnight.

Ukrainian Tracksuit, I think iolaire has a good idea there. If I'm correct, I think the famous writer Agatha Christie got much of her ideas for stories while accompanying her husband on his archaeological digs. Perhaps you could play tourist while hubby works and then the two of you meet for dinner somewhere. But also, iolaire would be right about the scenery in BC. Canada is breathtaking. Particularly British Columbia.

My husband and I hope to someday travel to the Isle of Mann. For now if we're lucky we hope to accomplish some day trips or long weekend trips that won't break our bank account. Funny, we know we would have to plan ahead to schedule his dialysis (if we go somewhere longer than a weekend) but we don't think of it as impossible. That's largely in part because of some of you on here that have travelled extensively....and survived it! So we know it's doable. Just have to plan it right but with or without dialysis, most "big" trips require planning don't they? We certainly won't let dialysis get in our way. For us it's more about the finances but not impossible.   

[Riki]

I'm going to Philadelphia in July.  My best friend and I are going to Netroots Nation, and we will be members of the media, representing Netroots Radio, which is a Progressive Liberal talk radio station.  She as I both have shows on this station.  I also intend on eating my way through Reading Market, taking a walking tour of the historic sites (though it will be a rolling tour for me *LOL*), and my mom wants to try and get a picture with one of the parking attendants from Parking Wars.

I'm working with Davita for my dialysis treatments while there.  I asked for an evening shift if possible, so I wouldn't miss out on the conference, like I did in Atlanta 2 years ago.  The clinic I wanted to go to in Atlanta had flooded, or else I probably would have gotten the evening shifts I wanted there

[UkrainianTracksuit]

Iolaire and PrimeTimer (hey, PT, good to see that you are healing but I am pissed off that your asthma is acting up! Damn you asthma!)....

There are small towns in the bush that I can tag along with him. It gives me the opportunity to fly on a Fairchild Metroliner and watch my husband pray, pray, pray!  But one of his upcoming trips is to CAR (Central African Republic) and King Midas couldn't pay me with fancy shoes to go there!

[kitkatz]

Maybe San Diego or Oceanside for a few days.  No serious traveling until the October IHD.com reunion.

[Naynay99]

My parents are coming up this July to visit and we will be going away probably somewhere in the adirondack mts, upstate NY.
We used to camp and cabin up there all thru my childhood, Its pretty there, Near lake George area.   And parts of it feel like time have stood still. They have the same arcade games and restaurants and stuff there as 30 years ago, which I love. 

I Might go to Delaware or MD for a short road trip with a friend sometime this summer too.  I also wanted to go to NC to visit this old theme park from the 70:”s with a wiZard of oz theme (it looks so cheesy it’s brilliant!), but have to see how far away it is as I’m trying to stay fairly local. 

Wishing everyone happy travels. 
I am planning a big post tx celebratory trip in my head for sometime in the future when I finally get a new kidney.  Either to Australia/New Zealand, the Galápagos Islands, or Antarctica.   Somewhere awesome.  Gonna try to save some $ while I wait. 
(This is why I have no $ or really own anything of value- but imo experiences are better than stuff anyway). 
If you have the means and the time, I say go for it, whether with a travel buddy or solo.  Take it easy.

[MooseMom]

Oh PT, I'm glad to know you like hearing about where people like to go on vacation because I ask that question all the time, and people look at me like I'm nuts!   

I have a long-time friend in Oslo, Norway who had her 50th birthday party last year, and she asked me to come despite the long distance I'd have to travel.  It was a very posh affair, held in a museum, of all places.  It was a sit down dinner, and my friend kindly sat me near people who spoke English (because my Norwegian is pants).  I asked them where they liked to go on holiday, and they told me they'd go to exotic places like the Seychelles or South Africa.  When they asked me where I liked to go in the summer, I told them that we spent every summer in Petoskey, Michigan, right on Lake Michigan.  They were so impressed because 1, most of them didn't really know exactly where the Great Lakes were, and 2, they thought that Lake Michigan was sooooo exotic!  Just goes to show that it's all a matter of prospective.

Anyway, we go away twice a year, first to one place to which we've never been, and then to exotic Petoskey in late August.  Last month we were in Victoria, BC and had a massively good time.  Butchart Gardens is a must, but I bet it would be heaving with visitors in high summer.  We took the Clipper catamaran to and from Seattle; on the return leg of our journey, we stayed in a nice bed and breakfast next to Green Lake in Seattle.  The climate is such that everyone's gardens made me envious.  They obviously don't get a polar vortex in the wintertime.

I don't know what we're going to do next year.  I'd like to take my husband to Oslo and then maybe on to Bergen (I've never been there).  He wants to go to Helsinki.  Not sure about that.  I don't think he's thought that through.  Maybe a Nordic cruise?  We took an Alaskan cruise last year, our first cruise ever.  I'm still not sure whether or not I liked being herded around.  But I did enjoy talking to people at dinner, which was the part of the whole cruise experience I thought I'd like the least.  I love love love talking to people who see the world and/or think so differently from myself! 

UT, CAR?  Oh, no no no no no!  Not an option!

[UkrainianTracksuit]

I know where Petoskey is! 

As for Norway, it is a beautiful country and I highly suggest seeing as much as you can. It often seems like a person can't pack everything into one trip so it turns into multiples. The one place that is on my "to-do" list is Svalbard but primarily Barentsburg. I want to see that before there are no more Russian (well, Ukrainian) miners there. It's something I'd have to do by myself because doo doo doo te dooooo, my husband can't get a visa! He needs one issued prior to entrance (as do I) but I am no problem. See the pattern here? 

Helsinki really is a short flight from Norway and flights run daily so you guys could easily pull it off. And sure, there are cruises!

[iolaire]

UT you have all sorts of Russian enclaves on your travel list!  They are are unique, thanks for sharing them.

We were thinking of Norway for last week’s holiday as a cousin and her family are living there now. We couldn’t commit to an Alaska like climate before it really warmed up. Maybe the first week of September or another year.

[PrimeTimer]

We stayed at the George Limerick Hotel, I don't know what room we had maybe the Double Room 1 full bed - but the bed was too small for two people, my wife and I dealt with it but the other couple didn't like it.  It felt like their lower cost rooms were build for hen party groups of young small people.  But for a night it was ok, if we did it again we would get a king room - or any other B&B etc..

Mead is more like a sweet wine.  Maybe closer to sweet cider than a beer, but flat.  If you plan do it I'd do a tasting first before you leave to make sure your group can fully partake in the mead, if you were fully sober it might end up being too cheesy!  But excluding the ample drink we enjoyed, coming from the US with friends that like castles, it was a good experience.

Also we enjoyed the carriage tour of Ross Castle and Kenmare Estate in Killarney.   And our first B&B in Cork was the best of the trip with nice tea on arrival and nice breakfast (its a larger B&B) Garnish Guesthouse - http://www.garnish.ie/  We enjoyed it as a nice introduction to the trip since we flew into Dublin and drove to Cork in the same day.

From PrimeTimer:
Those rooms look pretty descent. I remember a friend from Germany explaining that back in the day (in her country) they didn't build houses with closets and the rooms were much smaller. They used wardrobes or what we might call "armoires". Beds were probably smaller because the people were or else the size of the rooms dictate the size of the furnishings. Even here in the US historical hotels or BNBs will have much smaller rooms, etc. I think this is what makes a place "quaint". Of course some of us want large fluffy beds to relax in at the end of the day, especially while on vacation. We do love to be spoiled! I love that you include links to photos of the places you've been. It's fun to take a sort of virtual walk thru places and daydream. One never knows where they may end up visiting someday.     

[UkrainianTracksuit]

Just a little travel frustrated so excuse this rant.. 

I'm getting pretty tired of waiting to go to all these places so I made an offer to a group of people about Alaska. Just to see if any one of them would bite, you know? There are travelers or those who want to travel in the group. Nope! But they want to go to Miami (been there, done that.... heck, even my grandfather was so over the city before he died), Mexico, Dominican Republic or Jamaica. Typical places people from the cold want to head and you see the difference between that and Alaska?

Then I said, well, maybe a solo trip to St. Barts is in order for me. After the last few years I've had, I deserve it, right? Looking at flights, there are only a handful that aren't 25+ hours (2 stops and layovers). Not sure if that's worth it for an island but just in case, anyone got a PJ I can borrow?  (private jet...)

Maybe if I didn't have a transplant (and were younger), I wouldn't care so much about getting run down prior to a vacation, but I know what happens when I get run down: sick. And I wouldn't want to risk that or ruin a trip that way.

[Riki]

I just found out that the Atlantic Branch of the Kidney Foundation no longer gives loans to help pay for travel dialysis, so I'm not sure how I'm going to pay for dialysis while in Philadelphia next month.  I was kind of counting on that loan, as I've gotten it before and didn't think there would be an issue.  The Executive Director of the branch actually called me from Newfoundland to tell me that they don't give out the loans anymore.  I'm out about $2000 if I can't go, cuz my flight and hotel room are already paid for.  I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do.

[UkrainianTracksuit]

I'm in a bit of a mental pickle debating whether to do this or not. There's a work opportunity that looks pretty fun in Karaganda region. One of the organizing heads called me about it so it's just nice that someone thought about me. But, he didn't know that I'm a tx recipient. Ooops.

It's just 3 weeks which is totally fine and in the window of my drug supply. But, we'd be located in the rural parts of the region and I have concerns over getting to adequate health care, quality of food and quality of water. Obviously brands of Russian bottled water will be available for purchase, but you know, there are still questions like bathing, etc.

There's still a lot of time before I have to give a definitive yes or no but I admit, I'm scared to go. Obviously I'll ask my doctors what they think and I know to check the travel clinic first. But to be blunt, the local travel clinic knows piss all about Central Asia. Sure, give them Mexico, Dominican Republic or those places...

Times like this I wish I was born normal instead of a collection of defective genes and cells!

[iolaire]

I'm in a bit of a mental pickle debating whether to do this or not. There's a work opportunity that looks pretty fun in Karaganda region.

I'd do it.  As long as you are fairly stable transplant wise and are not under active immediate monitoring for it.  I don't think you have much to worry about bathing wise - you are long past the healing wound phase?  Use bottled water for brushing teeth etc...

If you are worried about food sanitation pretend you are kosher and bringing most of your food in the form of energy bars, shelf stable and camping food, drinks should be ok since those are mass produced.  That practiced with normal basic food safety eating out and you should be fairly good.  Usually you know when you are eating risky things, i.e. buffets with cold food that is warm and hot food that is not hot. 

It took about 1.5 years until my nephrologist told me he feels I can eat anything, but he still doesn't like filter feeders like oysters and mussels as those are just nasty in his eyes, and lots of healthy people get sick from them.

[okarol]

I just found out that the Atlantic Branch of the Kidney Foundation no longer gives loans to help pay for travel dialysis, so I'm not sure how I'm going to pay for dialysis while in Philadelphia next month.  I was kind of counting on that loan, as I've gotten it before and didn't think there would be an issue.  The Executive Director of the branch actually called me from Newfoundland to tell me that they don't give out the loans anymore.  I'm out about $2000 if I can't go, cuz my flight and hotel room are already paid for.  I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do.

Maybe start a GoFundMe and see if you can raise enough?

[Riki]

I just found out that the Atlantic Branch of the Kidney Foundation no longer gives loans to help pay for travel dialysis, so I'm not sure how I'm going to pay for dialysis while in Philadelphia next month.  I was kind of counting on that loan, as I've gotten it before and didn't think there would be an issue.  The Executive Director of the branch actually called me from Newfoundland to tell me that they don't give out the loans anymore.  I'm out about $2000 if I can't go, cuz my flight and hotel room are already paid for.  I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do.

Maybe start a GoFundMe and see if you can raise enough?

I thought of that, but I set one up when my brother had his accident, and his gf needed the money to pay bills while he was in the hospital.  He only got $250.  I need $1000.  I talked to the renal social worker, and she's looking to see if there are any other programs out there that could help.  She didn't know that the Kidney Foundation wasn't giving out the loans anymore either.

[iolaire]

Did they offer loans (you pay them back) or grants (they don’t get paid back)? (Thanks just clarifying.)