A few weeks back one of my co-workers turned friends invited me to tag along with her crew to Crystal Beach for the Memorial Day weekend. I hadn’t done a holiday on a beach in a while so I immediately accepted and on last Friday morning we were on our way to the Galveston ferry. I’ve done trips like this before, usually with at least 5 cousins, my step-mom and an aunt, but those paled in comparison to this past weekend. I consider myself a seasoned traveler, but even I learned a thing or two and I wanted to share them with y’all.
Don’t be afraid to travel with someone new. It was a total of six of us in the beach house and I knew four of the people. I went with two couples and my co-worker and her husband volunteered to room with me just in case I wasn’t too comfortable rooming with the other solo person, a guy. I assured them that I was totally okay with it, and I’m happy that I did. I got to know him over the weekend and we were honestly only in the room when we went to sleep. It worked out perfectly because we seemed to be the only ones who didn’t snore loudly, and we had different sleeping schedules. I was the early bird and he was the night owl.
Pay a little extra for your own bed. Growing up we’d all head down the Galveston and stay at my aunt’s timeshare and I’d be lucky to get a corner of a twin bed. That bled a bit into my late teens and early adult years. I used to be okay with just getting a corner in a room to crash in if it would mean I’d save a few bucks. Well times have changed. I make pretty good money at work so I’ve learned to spring for my own bed (and room if possible). It worked out pretty well this past weekend; I had an entire bunk bed to myself. I slept on the bottom bunk, which was a full-sized bed, used the stairs to dry my bikinis and used the top bunk as a catch all for my electronics when I wasn’t using them.
Vacation cravings are a real thing. I don’t know what it was about being on the island, but I constantly had the munchies. It probably didn’t help that we had just about anything you could think of snacking on in the beach house (shout out to Lindsay for doing the grocery shopping). We had so much food! Homemade tamales and burritos, lasagna, BBQ, sandwich fixings and so much breakfast food. I let myself indulge for the weekend, knowing I’d work it off at the beach and then again when I got home. It’s okay to loosen the reins on your diet on vacation.
Start the morning with a mimosa. And if you can do it, try it with pineapple juice. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to watch the sunrise than to sit on the wrap-around porch working on a blog post and sipping a mimosa while the smell of bacon wafted through the air. It was absolute heaven!
Travel with people who have different energy levels. I realized a few years ago that I’m perfectly okay with doing things by myself on vacations; I’m even okay with going on a solo vacation. I’m not always at a ten, some days I just want to veg out and I know that a lot of people like to take advantage of their vacations and explore or constantly be on the go. We had a good mix of that on this trip, and I loved it. I didn’t realize how draining being out in the sun all day could be, and most evenings I just wanted to come in take a hot shower and chill with a book or with a movie. I would’ve been perfectly okay watching the Harry Potter marathon or whatever DCOM was currently playing by myself, but I always had at least one person in there with me. It was nice. It was like everyone had a buddy; the night owls stayed up until 2AM hanging out and popping firecrackers and the early birds called it a night around 10PM. I’ll have to make sure that I have a mix like that on my next group vacation.
So what did y’all get into over the Memorial Day weekend? Did you learn anything while lounging by whatever body of water you were at? Comment below or email me and let me know!
[…] where you can find a 38m statue of Christ The Redeemer overlooking the bay. Then there are some of the best beaches in the world. Namely the Copacabana and […]