WHERE ARE REAL FAMILIES TRAVELING 2026 PART 4

Part 4, Texas, Arizona, Colorado and all of the wide open spaces to let your family budget roam.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Well, good morning. It's April the 27th, 2026, and straight from the Helly Cav News Studio. This is according to Willie B, and I will be your host for the next half hour. Now, I'm about 98% fully recovered from the pneumonia, but I have to say something tonight before I get started in part four. I was proud of myself for not missing any episodes during the eight weeks of dealing with pneumonia. But what I am most impressed with and most thankful for is that each one of you tuned in every single week, even with me coughing, even with the voice issues, and that done my heart more good than you can ever imagine. And I am so grateful from the bottom of my heart because everybody showed up, everybody still participated. I still heard from uh so many of you thoughts, prayers, and everything. And it's just it was uh yeah, it it kind of kind of got to the old man, but I I appreciate it so much. And uh, but guess what? We're on part four tonight. Uh, you know, we did the uh northeast, the southeast, and the midwest. And now tonight we're gonna talk about the west and Texas and Arizona and just some of the biggest states out there. And let me tell you something. When you start talking about Texas, uh that's like a what they say is like a whole other country. I mean, so there's there is that. So, but we're gonna jump into this. Um, and I I'm gonna there's gonna be a lot to go through tonight because it's we're basically almost have the second half of the United States to talk about, but I was okay with it when I divided it up because we're basically looking at these travel destinations from a basically, let's call it a 30,000-foot view, almost like you're on a plane and you're flying in and you can see all of the landscape. What I want or what I hope everyone takes away from this four-part series, is that there are so many options right here in the United States for us to consider for a vacation. And we're gonna kind of break it down a little bit more tonight. And uh it's it's more of a getting an idea of some alternative travel destinations because let's be honest, airfare is it almost it's like if we listen closely, we can hear the prices rising in the background. And it's the same for cruises, it's the same for train, it's the same for every single thing. Everything is just getting more expensive. Yet our vacation dollars seem to still be in that mason jar, if you will. So we gotta try to figure out how to make the most of those travel dollars so that we get the most memories out of those dollars. So let's take a look at it, let's start talking and get into the West, the Southwest, excuse, excuse me, in Texas. I told you 98%. So that's that's the 2%. That's the 2% cough right there. Um, but it's real families with real budgets sitting around the kitchen table and making real decisions on how to get the most out of those dollars. You know, forget what influencers and social media is selling you. We're looking at where people, real people, not billionaires, are actually going in 2026. And I will tell you, travel has changed. We see more baggage fees, we see increased fuel surcharges, we're seeing surcharges in hotels. So it's it's hitting every single component of travel, not just if it was one. Let's say if if airfare was going up, but everything else was staying the same, or if car travel was so people are loading up the SUV, they're loading up the station wagon, they're putting the whole family in there, packing up for a trip, packing up for a road trip. And I'm gonna share something with you at the end of this podcast about what my favorite memorable parts of road trips were growing up, what really stuck right here with me uh growing up and all the road trips that my family took. So I do want to share that with you so you can get kind of a uh a perspective on where I'm coming from. So, you know, people are more selective now. Families want value. Uh, if they spend money, they want the most that they can get for that dollar. And it and that goes true for uh anything that we go purchase. Uh, it doesn't matter if you're buying a blanket off of Amazon, you want the very best for that dollar. And especially when it comes to our travel dollars, we absolutely want to get the most that we can because we're trying to extend that time with our family. Because let's be honest, vacations are no longer automatic, they're intentional. So we're gonna give you a requick, a quick recap without the word salad, of the last three parts. No, so we did the northeast, Cape Cod, Bar Harbor, Finger Lakes, which I thought was really cool. Uh, there's the lure of cooler weather up in those areas, and there's some nostalgia up in those areas, right? And then we got the southeast, and we got the beaches, and we got Gatlinburg, we got we got Myrtle Beach, and I I had somebody send me a message the other day, and they said, I can't believe that you mentioned dirty, I can't even say it without laughing, dirty Myrtle. And I'm like, but it's a vacu, it's a budget-friendly vacation uh town, and a lot of families still go there. So, you know, I had to put it on the list. I mean, it was just in the area and had to go on there, but these are easy driving trips, and it's it's got a lot of value and convenience. Uh, so and then we looked at the Midwest, which was kind of we figured out was a quiet sleeper region that you don't really think about. Because I'm gonna be honest, the Wisconsin Dells, I've never been there now. After researching for these four-part podcasts, uh now I want to go, and I'm I'm like, that that's really interesting. I didn't even know that existed, and so I've researched it so much, it's like I have to put that on my list of places to go. And of course, we talked about Branson, which is how can I describe Branson? Branson is ordering the biscuit at breakfast and thinking it came with gravy, but it costs extra. So that's Branson. And I love Branson, don't get me wrong. And then we talked about the Michigan Lake Towns, and basically what we could kind of put that all in a nutshell for the Midwest was less hype, more value. Now, some of America's best trips don't make the flashy list, okay? So there's that. But tonight we're gonna talk about the West, the Southwest, and Texas. Now, Texas is, you know, like I said, their slogan is it's like a whole other country, if you will, okay? You've got San Antonio, of course. What is San Antonio known for? They have the Riverwalk, but you've also got the hill country, and like right now, they've it's springtime, and I can promise you, some of the most beautiful drives you will ever make is throughout the hill country because the wildflowers are just in fields as far as you can see, and it is absolutely breathtaking. You almost don't even realize you're in Texas anymore, and there's some really, really unique towns through the hill country, and one of my favorite uh, and you got to research this, and that's Fredericksburg, Texas. Now, interesting about Fredericksburg, Texas, there's also a Fredericksburg, Virginia, and they have a lot of similarities, but I thought that was cool. Same name, different states, and so many similarities. So uh, but they're both really cool towns. You can spend a whole weekend in either one. The thing about Texas is you've got everything that everybody else has. And if you can think of one thing that any other state in the U.S. has that Texas doesn't have, I want to know about it because Texas has beaches, Texas has mountains, Texas has desert, Texas has theme parks. I can go on, but we do have to limit this podcast to 30 minutes. So you you have all that, but you've got Galveston beaches, you've got Corpus Christi beaches, and I've told y'all my opinion of Galveston beaches, and I'm not gonna continue to harp on that. I got I got kind of some uh not so nice fan mail, fan fan mail on when I was harping on uh Galveston beaches. I grew up there, I know what it's like. But the thing about Texas, of course, me being a foodie, is the food culture. Now, if you remember, if you go back and listen to the France episode, one of our earlier episodes in this podcast from last year, I did an episode on France, and the gastronomic capital of France is Lyon, L-Y-O-N. Go look it up. Texas is like if you took Lyon and you made it a state, because Texas is beyond serious when it comes to their food. Barbecue, that's a religion. Tex-Mex, that is a way of life. You just don't mess with your food in Texas, they take it very seriously, and they're one of the biggest food cultures. If you want to take a culinary trip around the world, you can go to two places in Texas, and in a weekend, you can make a whole trip around the world, and that is either Dallas Fort Worth or Houston, Texas, especially Houston. Houston is just one of the most diverse culinary cities that I believe I have ever seen in my entire life, and I live there, so I I can vouch for it, and it's not just um, you know, this this food is similar to this country. No, no, it is so authentic. You could literally just take a trip around the world, uh, culinary-wise, going to Houston. So there's that, and that there's a strong value in Texas if you plan it right. Again, this is all about planning. So I will make this one statement: Texas isn't one trip, Texas is 10 trips, uh, and then some. Uh then, you know, there's Colorado, and with Colorado, here we are again. We've got mountain towns, we've got cooler summer travel, and sometimes in the summer heat, it's nice to go somewhere where it's just a little bit maybe under 100 degrees in the shade, so you don't melt. But there's scenic uh family memories. You've got cabins, so you got that cabin in energy. And the thing nowadays that we're seeing is that families loading up in the car, taking these road trips, you know, it's not just the family anymore, um, the immediate family, so to speak. They're taking grandparents along, they're including other family members, and they're just piling up in the car and making these massive family memories, and they get the most for their dollar, I can guarantee you. Um, but Colorado, and then of course, if if you uh we're talking summer destination, but Colorado is also a uh winter destination. You got the ski. Now, I for one, yours truly am not getting on a pair of skis. I'm sorry. You do not want me on two little wooden slats going down a hill at 80 miles an hour. That's not gonna end well for either one of us, nor the skis. Uh, then there's Arizona. Um, you've got uh desert resorts, uh, some of the most amazing resorts uh in Arizona that you could ever even imagine was there. We stayed in one last year, and the name of the place escapes me off the top of it because it just popped in my head. But it's just this massive resort, and it's got everything you could possibly want: the pools, the water slides, the uh I mean music venues, every everything you could possibly fathom that you would want. They they have it. And so you've also got the Grand Canyon. You could uh now here's a side caveat on the Grand Canyon. It is extremely impressive if you've never been. It's kind of like going to the Statue of Liberty. Yes, it looks cool on the internet, but until you stand at the base of that Grand Canyon or the base of that statue, or whatever, you have not experienced it. And the Grand Canyon is definitely a family style trip. There's so much to go out and see out there in that area. You wouldn't think because it's desert, but there is hiking course, it's hot, but what do they say? It's a dry heat. Yeah, okay. So uh Will's nothing but a puddle by the time we get done, so uh just leave it at that. But you know, there's so many areas, there's some ghost towns, um, like old western ghost towns out in Arizona, and then you've got Utah. We cannot forget about Utah because we got a lot of national parks in Utah. We got and families want real scenery now. You've got uh Zion National Park, and of course, yes, I know my last name is Bryce, and we've got Bryce National Park. I had nothing to do with that, so I just want you to know. And then you got the arches, you just got so much nature there, and talk about getting the family out on a road trip, looking at the scenery, and having a great time and making those memories. That that's some areas that is just absolutely budget-friendly. Um, and one thing I'll say is you can't duplicate nature in a theme park. You can try, but you'll fail because you just can't duplicate nature. Let's talk about California. So now we've we've if you noticed we had Arizona, we had Texas and Utah, and those were all budget friendly. You get into California, the budget just went out the proverbial window. Literally. Now you've got beautiful beaches, which are budget friendly, those areas are not gonna be budget friendly, hotels are gonna be expensive. Let's go ahead and break that down for you. You got a lot of theme parks, a lot of theme parks, and not just Disneyland. Um, but again, if you from what the trend is showing, most people aren't doing that seven days, ten days at a theme park anymore. It regardless of how whether it's Disneyland, Disney World, or Universal or whatever the case may be, people are doing two to three-day theme park at the most, and then they're dividing it between the beaches or the mountains or something. So they're still getting, they can still get that four to seven-day vacation, but they were able to do the exciting part of the theme parks in a couple days, and then they can go and have some relaxation time at the beaches or the mountains or the desert or whatever the case may be, wherever you're located. But just understand when you get into uh California, you were talking the prices just went up exponentially. So always be prepared for that. And I I know I say this a thousand times. Matter of fact, somebody pointed out um about a month ago, they said, you always seem to remind us that uh, you know, we got to plan and get the most for our travel dollar. And I'm like, well, that's like one of the most important things because you basically we're not billionaires. We're going to work, we're saving our money, we're sticking it in a mason jar, and we're hoping that the at the end of the year, when we get ready for our vacation, there's enough money crammed in that mason jar that we can go experience something really um you know extraordinary for the family and make memories. So it's not like we have an unlimited budget. So the more you plan, the more you strategize, the further you can stretch that dollar. Excuse me. I'm telling you, one of these days we're gonna get past this. I think eight weeks is enough for anybody to deal with this, but we're gonna we're gonna keep going. So, you know, there's there's definitely the combo vacations. And I could told you on some of the areas you can have even a three-part vac combo vacation. You can do one to two-day theme park, you can do one-to-day beach, you can do one to two-day mountain, and and every one of these areas that we've talked about in the US, if you really plan it out, you can get that three-part combo, and you've just satisfied everybody in that car or SUV, because you've put so many different components into that trip. You've got the theme park, and you got the beach, and you got the so everybody kind of got a little bit of taste of what what they what their personal preferences are, so to speak. Um because families are choosing shorter stays when it comes to the more expensive areas. Now, driving vacations are really strong in 2026. Airfare is getting expensive, so families are packing their cars again. I remember growing up that that's what we did. We rarely flew anywhere. We drove. My dad was a driving machine. So I'll go ahead and tell you some of the things what made it memorable for me growing up. Um now you have to understand this has been a this has been a few days ago, if you will. Um okay, years ago. It's been a few years ago. But you gotta understand it's like I remember making trips to Florida and we had a 1973 Chevrolet pickup with a the old aluminum style camper shell. And dad put in a sheet of plywood across the bedrails, and there was a piece of foam mattress across the diet, and us kids would because sometimes cousins would go with us and we would lay on that foam mattress and we could look out through the front windshield of the truck so we were able to see out and see what was going on. That was back in the day before everybody wore the seat belts, and it was just a completely different time. Uh, as far as stopping for food, uh that usually meant Kentucky fried chicken with my dad. And so they would buy a family pack of chicken, and we would pull over to a roadside park and we would have our little picnic of chicken, and back on the road we would get because dad would always tell you, if you're not back, we stop for gas, you're not back in the car by the time he gets done, he's gonna leave you. And we always wondered if he really would. I don't think he would have, but we weren't gonna test the waters, I can promise you that. But there were so many different memories of just making um road trips. I remember my great grandparents used to travel with us uh quite a bit, and my great grandmother, I'm gonna tell this story, and yes, this is at my expense. I assure you, there's a lot of stories at my expense. She had this hard. Overnight case that she always carried. And to this day, I can still have a very strong memory of the smell of Noxema because she used Noxema face cream. But inside that little night over that little night case that she had, she carried, I can't believe I'm telling you guys this. She had cans of prune juice, the little tiny cans of prune juice. And at least a couple times during the trip, uh, we were subjected to um drinking the prune juice because it was good for us. To this day, I do not care for prune juice, and I don't know many people that do, but I especially have a very vivid memory of why I do not want to drink that. Uh, but it was it's it's a memory, and that's what I tell y'all. It's like sometimes a memory is not about standing at the base of the leaning tower at Pisa or the Eiffel Tower. Sometimes a memory is just something that our own brain, just chemistry-wise, chooses to hold on to. But the good part about it is I want you to remember this. Remember, we always talk about lights, camera, go film your own 4K movie in your brain, and that's basically what that does is when you get these memories that are so intense, whether it be good or bad at the time, they are or controversial or just distasteful, we'll call it, they really burn their their place in that memory bank. And the thing is, is when you get older and and you still have that memory, do I think about the prune juice? Yes, I do. And I think about how I did not like it. But more than that, it it reminds me of having my grandparents with us and traveling. And the my grandf my great grandfather was an absolute character, and so it reminds me of that. So I might initially think of the prune juice, but then it starts bringing up all the other memories that go with it. And so that's what I tell you is hang on to every single memory because you never know what components, because your brain is gonna do its own editing of that movie that you film in your brain, and it's going to hang on to the important parts, and it's going to hang on to the parts that help you recollect memories that maybe you would have never otherwise remembered, because there was that one component that really was the fuel to bring that back up, and so that's that's one of the things that's just it travel was so uh unique to me growing up, and I guess that's why I still love travel today, but it it makes me think of you know the travel I've told I think I've told you guys the story of when we would go somewhere new, especially Florida. Now, this was back in the days in the 70s where he would walk into a hotel, or back then really a motel, and they had these huge banks of uh cards that uh had all kinds of sites to visit and see in the area. And we would collect all the ones that we and we would go in the motel room and we would get up. My sister and I would get up in the middle of the bed with my mom, and we would go through all these brochures and we would pick out the things that we wanted to do. And my grandparents did the same thing, they would see some of the brochures that they found interesting, and my mom did her, I would say she did more than her absolute best. She was really able to cater to everybody's desires, and it was such an amazing time, and so for me, that's what was so amazing about road trips growing up, because you know, uh things about setting around campfires, uh cabins, beach sunsets, road trip laughs, um, you know, it's that's what it's all about. So, you know, sometimes shorter trips are better because I'll promise you, four great days is better than seven broke days. You know, closer destinations are winning now, and you know, things just changed. Like I told you a couple weeks ago, airports just don't feel the same anymore. The airport was like the beginning of your vacation, but it doesn't seem to be that way anymore. Um, you know, when I was younger, I thought vacations were places, but now I know they're moments and they're the moments that you're going to remember. So always always keep that in mind when you're doing your research to plan your trip because the moments is what you're after, not the miles, because there's a lot of moments in those miles. So after the four episodes, we can wrap it up and say that Northeast, full of charm, southeast, easy fun, Midwest, underrated value, and west, it's a bucket list beauty, let me tell you. Families still prioritize memories even in the tough time, because we're trying to maximize that time, not only with our family, but for our family. So I will tell you this one day your kids won't remember the price, but they'll remember the trip. They may remember the prune juice, but real families are still out there making memories, and I love to see that. This has been according to Willie B. Don't forget to caffeinate and conquer, and I'll see you again next week. Who knows what we'll talk about? I'll be thinking hard on it. Hope you will too. We do have a new show coming up uh that launches this coming week, and it's called The Mad Food Critic. So it will be an adjacent to the Culinary Highway uh team. It's straight out of the culinary highway. This will be the final segment of what we had planned to come out with out the out of the uh culinary highway uh series, and this will bring us all full circle, so to speak. And um, so it'll be another food, uh, another podcast. It'll be another um all kinds of social media. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it, get a lot of laughs and getting a lot of comments back on it. But until I see you again next week, y'all have a great day, and I appreciate each and every one of you. Bye bye, and I'll see you right here again next week behind this big old mic. Bye bye.