A Month Across Europe: What We Loved and Learned

Recapping Our Epic 31-Day Europe Trip: Highlights, Lessons, and Future Travel Plans

Join Brittany and Josh as they recap their unforgettable 31-day journey through Europe in the latest episode of the 'We Should Move Here travels' podcast. Explore the highs and lows of their adventure across four countries, traveling extensively by train and staying in Airbnbs. They discuss what they loved, the challenges they faced, and how this trip has influenced their future travel plans. Learn about their strategies for finding potential new homes, the importance of rest days during long trips, and how they plan to adjust their travel itinerary for upcoming adventures. Plus, find out how you can vote on where they should go next in February! 

Vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/5ZL5NDW

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast

00:19 Recap of the Europe Trip

01:38 Train Travel Experience

03:41 Airbnb vs. Hotels

05:07 Duration of Stay in Each City

08:47 Future Trip Planning

10:31 Travel Preferences and Reflections

16:12 Upcoming Trips and Adjustments

20:59 Travel Challenges and Excitement

26:24 Importance of Natural Beauty

27:33 Exploring Graz and Ghent

28:20 Upcoming Travel Plans

29:08 Reflecting on Past Trips

31:09 The Importance of Rest Days

34:12 Accidental Perfect Planning

39:47 Future Trip Adjustments

45:33 Emotional Challenges and Communication

49:30 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

@WSMHtravels

Transcript

Brit 0:11

Hello and welcome to the We Should Move Here. Travels podcast. My name is Brittany.

Josh 0:17

I'm Josh

Brit 0:17

and we are your hosts. Today we are gonna be recapping our Europe trip where we spent time in four different countries and traveled throughout Europe, utilizing trains. And we're kind of gonna talk about, you know, what the structure of the trip was, what we liked about it, what we didn't, and what we're gonna change for future trips.

Josh 0:44

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, it was such an amazing trip. I think we can both agree on that. Mm-hmm. Uh, changed us in so many different ways and we've just been on quite a few trips now, so we understand what we like when Yeah. We go on a long trip like this. And so doing it the way we did this time, you know, 31 days we learned, like you said, what we liked, what we didn't like mm-hmm. Kind of how we wanna change going forward.

Brit 1:16

Yeah. We learned a lot about ourselves, about each other, about traveling. Mm-hmm. About Europe, about these countries. We just learned so much. Yeah. so we thought because it was such a long trip that we should recap, you know, what we've learned and all of that. So, maybe we should start with what we liked about the structure of the trip. Sure.

Josh 1:37

Yeah. I really liked train travel. I really enjoyed that. I thought not having to worry about a car was fantastic. there's also, you know, the rental cost of a car, having one every day. And since the trip was 31 days actually being in the countries more like 29 days. Yeah.'cause the, the bookend days were just specifically getting on plane, getting off a plane, so, um, wouldn't have a car those days. But, so the, it saved us the cost of having a rental car. But just kind of the freedom of a train. You know, you don't have to worry about, you know, where the car's parked, you know, is it locked up? All that stuff. I really enjoyed it. On the other side of that, it, you're kind of locked into what public transport can do for you, like where you can go at any specific times. So, that's something I really enjoyed. And then also kind of was like,

Brit 2:38

uh, felt uneasy at times. Mm-hmm.

Josh 2:41

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's a little different when we talk about our criteria in wanting public transport in a place. I think it's so different for wanting it there, so you can have it for your daily kind of routine travel, like going to work or going to school.

Brit 2:57

Yeah. Grocery

Josh 2:58

shopping, something versus wanting. Public transport or wanting a car to go out exploring or go somewhere new. So I think if we lived in a different country, we've talked about this before, I don't think we would need a car, but then we would very easily be able to rent a car for a short period of time. Yeah. And be able to travel places. So,

Brit 3:26

I mean, depending on the country.

Josh 3:28

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. Uh, long answer. I, I really like the train aspect. You know, I really enjoyed all the countries we went to, but, I, I just like trains. Yeah. So what'd you really like about the structure of the trip?

Brit 3:41

I really appreciated having our own space in Airbnbs and having that apartment like feel as if we lived there for that week. So I think having. A specific like apartment that we rented rather than a hotel, gave us that vibe of like, you know, we're living here for the week, we're testing this out, we're doing the in-person research for the week. Mm-hmm. whereas if we would have stayed in hotels, that would've been much harder to envision.

Josh 4:19

Yeah.

Brit 4:19

So I really appreciated that. I really did love spending a lot of time in Ghent I feel like I could spend, so I could have spent the whole trip in Ghent, so I loved it there. And I also, I really appreciated being able to do like the first class or the business class on the trains because it did give us more comfort. And, this sounds very privileged. I, I understand that. but it was much cheaper than we would've expected, I think. but yeah. I liked those things.

Josh 5:03

Yeah, I completely agree with those. The. Six days, six full days that we chose to do in each city was a positive and a negative for me.

Brit 5:18

Okay. What was the positive?

Josh 5:20

I definitely appreciated the time in each place. Like really getting to dive deep into each city, which I think if, you know any traveler is going to a city, they're gonna be like, well, I want more time in the city.

Brit 5:37

Yeah.

Josh 5:37

Or, you know, more time in the place I'm going, but because of the fact that we were on this trip for 31 days and we're doing this podcast for the reason of, we're looking for a potential place in the future, whenever that may be, to potentially move to,

Brit 5:56

yeah.

Josh 5:57

It's very easy for us. Know in a short period of time whether or not that one city is going to be a place.

Brit 6:07

Yeah. We, uh, we've talked about this in previous episodes, but I think we know within the first two days of being in a place whether mm-hmm. We get that vibe or not. Yeah. And I don't think it depends on like how much we enjoy ourselves in the place. Mm-hmm. It is how much we can see ourselves, right. Like being at home in this place. Mm-hmm. Right. So if we don't see it in like, the place that you see it or that you maybe live or a city that you love, that doesn't mean that we didn't love it too. Right. Just means that we, you know, don't see or envision ourselves living there.

Josh 6:50

Right. Yeah, of course. I mean. It's a home to someone. it's just not, not ours. Not ours. Exactly. So being those six days, there were, of course, if you've listened to our previous episodes on multiple cities where at day two, day three, day four, we were like, this isn't, this isn't going to be the place, this city. Yeah. So being structured with those six days and then knowing after day three or day four that this wasn't, it kind of threw a little like wrench or just kind of dampen the mood a little bit. We're like, yeah, man. Yeah. Like I had, I had really high hopes for this. I wish we. Had high hopes for all the places and we still loved them all. We enjoyed being there. Loved it. Yeah. And exploring them. It just in the back of our mind, because we are in the mindset for this podcast, is just kinda like, okay, well, trying to be present in the moment. Be here. But maybe the next place is it?

Brit 7:52

Yeah, for sure. And we ended up not getting that feeling or that vibe in three out of the four places. Mm-hmm. So it wa it did put kind of a damper on, you know, when we were in the places, we're like, we do like it here, but I just wanna move on to the next place, you know? Mm-hmm. And we were there for so long. Mm-hmm. So I think regarding like the structure of the trip, I think that we need to shorten our trips. Mm-hmm. Because not only because I really missed my cats, um, but also because we know within the first two days mm-hmm. Like I have known in every spot that we've gone to, that's in my top three, I have known within the first two days.

Josh 8:39

Right.

Brit 8:39

Yeah.

Josh 8:40

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's something we've already discussed and we've already started making those changes. Yeah. For our next trips, you know, we've talked about, potentially the trip in February or in the new year, that the one that people listening to this or watching are gonna have a chance to vote on. We've kind of talked about that trip a little bit, and that's pretty much the structure that we're gonna do for that trip, regardless of where we go is kind of a, a three or four day time period in a city, but we're also changing up and we're going to be there in one country.

Brit 9:21

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. you did mention the voting. Mm-hmm. So voting is open until December 10th. Mm-hmm. So please listen to that episode. That would be episode 13 and go vote.

Josh 9:36

Mm-hmm.

Brit 9:36

Make sure you vote.

Josh 9:38

Mm-hmm.

Brit 9:38

It's a democracy. Yes. So you get to choose where we go, which we're excited about. Yeah. Um, but coming back to this trip, yeah. I, I would have to agree. I think that, I think shortening the trip and limiting, you know, just one location so that we can really explore that one country.

Josh 9:56

Mm-hmm.

Brit 9:57

Which I feel like in the countries that we did not get the feeling in on this last trip, I feel like we kind of did them a disservice. Mm-hmm. Because we didn't explore throughout the whole country. You know? Yeah. So I feel like going to the one spot is definitely the way to go.

Josh 10:19

Mm-hmm.

Brit 10:20

But we tried it this way. Yeah. And I love that we did that because now we know that it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily work like that.

Josh 10:29

Mm-hmm.

Brit 10:30

Yeah.

Josh 10:30

Right. I think it's also a good tip for people who are lucky enough to go on a two week plus long vacation or trip.

Brit 10:41

Yeah.

Josh 10:42

To, uh, a different continent, you know, a different country. I think it's a good tip to them to maybe not overstay in one place.

Brit 10:52

Yeah.

Josh 10:52

I think there is something magical about every place we went to initially and we were like, oh my gosh, like, we're here. This is cool. And the exploring day, two, three days.

Brit 11:03

Yeah.

Josh 11:04

And then, you know, if it was vacation we left after three days, we for our purposes would know. But someone just having a vacation, you get to explore more places and you'd be kinda, I feel like a little more engaged in every place or just kind of have a little bit more of that magic every time,

Brit 11:21

you know? Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I love that magic.'cause that's kind of what it feels like when you're, when you're in a place that you can envision yourself, that you, feel connected to. Mm-hmm. I feel like magic. That's a good way to, to describe that.

Josh 11:38

Yeah. for some of the other trips we did, specifically, the one comes to my mind is Scotland, uh, that we did an episode on mm-hmm. Is kind of a similar format. As we're gonna try to do going forward, which is a shorter period of time, a little longer than what we did in Scotland, a day or two longer in each place.

Brit 11:59

Yeah.

Josh 12:00

for what we're doing going forward, I think about Scotland, because when we went there and we were in Edinburgh, I liked it, but I was like, ah, I don't know if I could live here. Me personally, you got a different opinion on that.

Brit 12:14

I loved Edinburg, loved it. I would definitely recommend people going there. Mm-hmm. Oh, for sure. But I, I, I could see us there, but I think I could see myself anywhere in Scotland

Josh 12:26

Fair.

Brit 12:27

Like, Portree is my number one, but really, like, it's Scotland. I, I wanna live in Scotland. Okay. Maybe that'll change. Um,

Josh 12:34

but you also wanna live in Belgium now, so, you know, I

Brit 12:36

mean, okay. Belgium was incredible. We did not get to explore as much of Belgium as we did Scotland, so I feel like that could be an upcoming trip that we do. I think that would be really fun. Like renting a car in Belgium and mm-hmm. Yeah, traveling. I think that would be so fun. But anyways, so, uh, what was I saying?

Josh 12:58

Well, I was talking about like the format similar to Scotland is what we're gonna be doing going forward, and I think it is a great way to maybe find. A place in the country mm-hmm. That you like more than another. Right. That's, yeah. That seems like a pretty straightforward, well, like, yeah. Just the way you did. Like you said it, it feels like we did a disservice to the countries that were like, ah, this wasn't the place. Because Absolutely. It could very easily have been, you know, Germany, we stayed in Augsburg and we're like, uh, you know, this isn't the place. But if we would've spent, two and a half, three weeks with a car four different cities in there that we had picked out from our list.'cause Augsburg was just one of a few that we had done research on.

Brit 13:46

Yeah.

Josh 13:46

maybe one of those had really worked out and we're like, oh my gosh, this is it.

Brit 13:51

Yeah. Well, and with Germany specifically, we wanted to go to Oktoberfest. Mm-hmm. So we had to stay somewhere close to Munich. Mm-hmm. Whereas next time, I definitely would like to go to Berlin.

Josh 14:04

Mm-hmm.

Brit 14:04

And maybe like more North Germany.

Josh 14:08

Mm-hmm.

Brit 14:08

but I also really loved Austria and I think there would be so much to explore in Austria as well. Yeah. Like the mountains that we saw when we were on that train going to Graz.

Josh 14:21

Mm-hmm.

Brit 14:21

Incredible. Yeah. Like these mountains were, ugh. They were so dreamy.

Josh 14:27

They were dreamy. They were mythical. And while we were in Graz, you could just, it was so clear. We could see mountains just about every day. Just, yeah. Just looking around. Yeah. So, but yeah, I mean that's something that we definitely, obviously if we have time, you know, with this podcast, hopefully we got plenty of time in the future. Like, oh, let's go back to Germany. Let's do that trip. I think it's already in the car, it's already in the books for like, Belgium was so great. We kind of have to do it for Belgium. Yeah.'cause of how much we loved it right off the bat.

Brit 15:02

No, for sure. You just said mythical and it stuck in my head and I'm like, I don't think that's a word. And then I'm like, mystical is what you meant.

Josh 15:11

Mythical. No

Brit 15:13

mystical.

Josh 15:14

No, no. I'm talking mythical. Like a myth. Like mythical. Like a mythical creature.

Brit 15:19

Oh, okay. I don't know if that's how I would describe those moments. It was like a like, uh, like it wasn't real. Yeah,

Josh 15:27

exactly. Kind of like Harry Potter esque or you know, dragons like, you know, kinda in my mind, sorry, took me back for a second.

Brit 15:37

Um, game of Thrones. Anyways. Yes, I, I agree. And I think Belgium would be an incredible trip. Mm-hmm. I think Germany and Austria would also be an incredible trip. And the Netherlands, like if we did, two weeks there, that was probably my least favorite spot that we went to, although it had some great food spots. Mm-hmm. But I do think that there was just so much more in the other places, like you could feel that there was, it felt like there was a lot more Yeah. Like the mountains, the, yeah. All of that. Um, um, so as far as restructuring our future trips, we kind of restructured our next trip, which we'll probably talk about But we shortened it a little bit because we realized we don't need six days mm-hmm. In each of these places. Right. I'm really excited for this trip and I'm glad that we shortened it.

Josh 16:36

Oh yeah, same, same. When we were booking the trip initially and looking at it, we were struggling to add more to the trip. Like, what are we going to do? Even though we are going to have a car for this one. We were still like, okay, if we're still focused on this city, in this area, what all can we do? And we're like, just three or four days is, is it? Yeah. To, to get, to get a really good feeling, a really good vibe for a place. So, like you said, glad we're changing up to shorter and who knows, like maybe we'll go do it. And we're like. Three days isn't quite enough. I think, you know, it might just keep fun, you know, just a little tweak here, a little tweak there and, and that's

Brit 17:18

okay. Mm-hmm. This is our own thing. Like we get to the cool thing is that we get to design this. Mm-hmm. We get to make this whatever we want to make it. Right. So. Right. I think that gives us a lot of freedom and I mean, how many people get to do that? Like, I feel so incredibly grateful and privileged Absolutely. To be able to do this, so.

Josh 17:39

Absolutely.

Brit 17:40

Um, yeah. But I think it is very cool that we, we do get to structure it however we want. We're just learning.

Josh 17:48

Yeah. so for our next trip to Europe, the one that we presented two episodes ago, me presenting Ireland and you presenting Finland, I presented a trip where we would have a vehicle the whole time driving round. Yeah. And you presented a trip where we're still using. public transportation as well as, planes and buses and just other modes of transportation besides the vehicle.

Brit 18:13

Yeah.

Josh 18:13

it will be interesting, no matter which one ends up getting voted for Ireland, no,

Brit 18:21

Finland,

Josh 18:23

how it turns out with that three or four day structure with public transportation or a vehicle the whole time. Mm-hmm. And being for this podcast, you know, could we live here?

Brit 18:36

Yeah. I mean, I find it interesting that you chose to have a vehicle the whole time when you're the one that's called Gung-Ho about public transportation. Mm-hmm. And I'm a little. Indifferent because I'm a passenger princess.

Josh 18:48

Right.

Brit 18:48

And I chose the public transportation route. But

Josh 18:51

you're like, it's, it's all public transportation because I'm not driving.

Brit 18:54

I mean, basically, obviously.

Josh 18:56

But with, with Ireland, it's, it's a place, again, we talked about this two episodes ago when we presented. It's a place we both wanted to go. I wanted to go back to, and we both wanted to go. There's just not enough public transportation to get us everywhere we would like.

Brit 19:14

Yeah. Finland has that. I mean, we'll be flying, but whatever the public goes on that form of transportation. So it's public transportation. Anyways, we're not on that right now. Vote for Finland.

Josh 19:30

It just kind of adds to the fact of exploring a place, a single country as much as we can.

Brit 19:39

Yeah, no, and that's why we, that's why we chose just one country each. Mm-hmm. Like I really wanted to do a whole Nordic You know, country like I wanna do Norway, Finland, Sweden, all of it. Mm-hmm. Iceland. Mm-hmm. I wanna do all of them. Mm-hmm. But we had to pick just one. Mm-hmm. Because we, we realized on this trip that four countries, six days a piece, 31 days, don't need it.

Josh 20:11

No.

Brit 20:11

Too much.

Josh 20:12

Yeah. Yeah. It was, again, that, those six days or too much for that one city. And 31 days total is just a long trip.

Brit 20:21

Yeah,

Josh 20:21

a long trip. Again. Great. Amazing. So happy we did it. very privileged that we got to do it, I think it's, it's a benefit for the podcast as well, because we will kind of conserve our energy to be able to do more trips and kind of like a, a two week margin, going, going on a bunch of 31 day trips would be exhausting. It'd be a lot.

Brit 20:47

It really would.

Josh 20:48

You know, if, if we did that every other month, if we did six months outta the year, we would be toast. But you know, if we did six, two week trips, that'd be

Brit 20:57

Yeah. Really different vibes. Mm-hmm. I. Love traveling with you so much. Mm-hmm. But I don't think I could do that. I don't think that I like traveling like that much. You know? Like, I love traveling.

Josh 21:13

Those are fighting words.

Brit 21:14

I mean, 31 days is a long time if we're taking half of the year on planes and, but I just push through on planes and transportation because I feel like it's gonna be worth it. But I hate those situations. I hate them with a passion. I'm sure I'm not alone in this. Like I really Oh, you are not. You are not. I really hate being on a plane. Don't like it, but it's worth it to me. It's, it's an, it ends up being worth it because you get to go to this whole other country experience, a whole nother culture. we go to places that I never thought I would see.

Josh 21:57

Mm-hmm.

Brit 21:57

You know, it's, it's worth it.

Josh 22:00

Yeah. It's also where we're so different.'cause I love planes. Ugh. I like, don't get me wrong. We fly, we fly economy, basic economy. Yeah. So it's, it's not like we're in lay flat and it's super comfortable. Like No, it's definitely uncomfortable. It's

Brit 22:15

uncomfortable. It's gross. People are gross.

Josh 22:19

We're gross. Yeah, we're

Brit 22:20

gross.

Josh 22:21

Yeah. but, but I do truly love just the. The excitement that builds on a plane. Like it doesn't matter to me if it's two hours or 13 hours, the excitement that builds when I'm on a plane, you know, and I'm sitting there and I'm eating whatever plane, food or snack is given to me, you know, a little drink, and I'm scrolling through, it's a international flight, I'm scrolling through the movies and or TV shows on the screen, you know, occasionally popping into the flight view and seeing that we're over the ocean or we're over a different country. I get so hyped up for those. I don't know why. But it's also the same thing for trains. Trains just get me like so hyped.

Brit 23:08

We are so different in that way. Like I literally push through. I have to push through in those situations because we're, we have to,

Josh 23:17

but I don't know if we would go as many places if we both hated planes or if we both hated travel. Like it would be, it would be tough.

Brit 23:27

Don't get me wrong, I feel I feel excitement. I feel all of those things as well going to a place. However, I just think public transportation in any sense is really gross because we're all in this metal tube, breathing the same air, and I don't like germs. Okay. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone. I don't like germs. I keep that hand sanitizer close.

Josh 23:55

You are who you are.

Brit 23:56

Yeah.

Josh 23:57

I will take as many train trips, as many plane trips as I can.

Brit 24:03

I will too with you. Hmm. Aside from Australia, we're not gonna go there. I am really nervous though, about New Zealand only because we have a 48 hour travel day. 48, 43.

Josh 24:18

It's, it's much more than 24 hours. Yeah. From the time we step in our local airport to the time we are finally done in New Zealand, it's,

Brit 24:28

it is travel days.

Josh 24:30

Yeah.

Brit 24:31

That we are going to have, and we're traveling with my mom. so it's gonna bring, a whole bunch of. Challenges just traveling, you know, 48 hours,

Josh 24:41

right? Instead of two people being tired, it's three and three being hungry and, Different energy levels and all those things. It'll be, that'll be something, but

Brit 24:54

that'll be something.

Josh 24:55

But anyways, as far as, uh, structure of trips and what we're gonna be doing going forward, I think we will do a better job, vetting a country for ourselves. Mm-hmm. By doing it this way. Yeah. Which I mean, seems really obvious when you say it out loud like that. But that's not really something that we thought about. We were like, oh, we're going to, go to this city and we're gonna get a vibe for the country by going to this one city.

Brit 25:27

Yeah.

Josh 25:28

And that's not at all what really happened. Which makes sense because even in our own state, it's a different vibe from here in Menasha, Wisconsin to up north.

Brit 25:43

Yeah.

Josh 25:43

To,

Brit 25:44

we were just in the Dells and they have like, basically mountains Yeah.

Josh 25:48

uh, Madison, Wisconsin. You know, there's a totally different vibe in each section of just this state alone. drastically different if you go from like Wisconsin to say Texas, like completely different vibes. So. I don't know. It's, we're, we're definitely gonna be, like I said, vetting these countries and I think it's going to make us do a lot more research on a country beforehand, before we commit to, you a full two to three week time period being in that one.'cause that's what we're looking at doing.

Brit 26:23

Yeah. Yeah. And I also feel like there were things that we talked about on this past trip, That we didn't necessarily realize that we wanted, or that was so important to us. Mm-hmm. Like you, for instance, talked a lot about wanting to have mountains or wanting to have some sort of beauty very close by mm-hmm. Where you can, do hikes where you can, just see all of the scenery. Mm-hmm. And you really love mountains. I do as well. So, I feel like that's something that we learned that mountains and just like the natural beauty is so important to you.

Josh 27:03

Mm-hmm.

Brit 27:03

Because there were places that we went that yes, it had some natural beauty, but it wasn't like mountains.

Josh 27:09

Yeah. Just in the immediate vicinity. Of like Utrecht and of Augsburg and of, well, Graz is different, but Utrecht and Augsburg and the immediate vicinity. There just wasn't a ton. I mean, we saw some stuff on like the train ride in and the train ride out.

Brit 27:32

Mm-hmm.

Josh 27:33

But it was just different for Belgium and Graz. Graz is surrounded by mountains and we spent, seven hour day basically going up the mountainside one way and then down the mountainside, you know, another way. And just that was

Brit 27:46

so fun.

Josh 27:46

Surrounded by mountains the whole time

Brit 27:48

we went down a slide. Yeah. So fun. And then, Ghent had a freaking castle in the middle of it mm-hmm. Which had its own kind of beauty mm-hmm. And there's like a canal and, um, every building feels so medval, medieval. Yeah. And it's just architecturally, yeah. Very beautiful. not that the other two countries weren't mm-hmm. Or the two cities weren't, but, They just didn't have that feel. Those two were just different. Yeah.

Josh 28:18

Yeah. Yeah. So, no, no, you're right. I'm, I'm looking for that place where if it's something in the city or something right around it that really, gives me the vibes, gives me chills,

Brit 28:30

And you think, do you think any of the upcoming places that we are already planning to go are going to do that?

Josh 28:39

I Think for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it's also ha in part due because of the structure of us staying in one country, we're gonna see a lot more of the country and, different areas have, different time period architecture. Yeah. And also we're going to be in different parts of the country, you know, it could be on the coast. It could be, rolling Hills, it could be in the mountains. You know, we're gonna be exploring those, every three to four days.

Brit 29:07

Yeah. It does make me wonder a little bit about states and like this next trip we are staying in the US mm-hmm. And we're gonna go to three different states. Mm-hmm. So I wonder if the three different states is going to be a similar thing. Mm. Or um, if we're gonna find out that, you know, because it's all on the east coast, that we're all, we're gonna get the same kind of east coast vibe. Right. And. Not that it's not gonna matter which state that we're in. Mm-hmm. But that we feel equipped to do that. Right. To like, explore. Yeah. Um, but I could see us feeling like we need to spend two weeks in a single state. I could see us feeling that way as well after this next trip. So that'll be interesting to, you know, see how that goes. Um,

Josh 30:00

I, I totally agree on that point.'cause we've done longer stays in a single state. One that I reference a lot that I really enjoyed no surprise is Colorado. Oh yeah. We, we stayed just over a week there.

Brit 30:15

Mm-hmm.

Josh 30:15

Driving through Colorado, through the mountains.

Brit 30:20

Yeah. I mean, we did that two week trip in the Pacific Northwest and that was an amazing trip. Mm-hmm. We did, um, Portland. Oregon and Seattle. Washington. So we also got that kind of vibe there, and I loved it there. Mm-hmm. I could see us out there.

Josh 30:39

There are so many places I could see us.

Brit 30:41

Yeah.

Josh 30:42

That's why, that's why we're doing this.

Brit 30:44

That's why we

Josh 30:45

do this. Hopefully narrow it down. Or maybe it just is gonna expand it. Who knows. Yeah. And we talk about this all the time. It could be, couple years, it could be 20, 30 years. Like, who knows?

Brit 30:58

We could go on this N Next trip and be like, oh my gosh, this is it. We're moving.

Josh 31:03

This is it.

Brit 31:04

I doubt that's gonna happen though.

Josh 31:06

Who knows? That's the excitement of it though. So, yeah.

Brit 31:09

Is there anything that we learned about each other on this trip?

Josh 31:15

I think we both learned, and we knew this maybe a little bit beforehand, but on a longer trip you're going to have to take like a down day.

Brit 31:26

Yeah.

Josh 31:27

You know, at some point, especially when you're doing as much exploring as we're doing, it's gonna come a time where you're just gonna need a day just to, relax and

Brit 31:37

otherwise your body will tell you to Yeah.

Josh 31:40

Yeah. Which happened and we were also, you know, throwing in the mix, going to yoga multiple times. Yeah. In a new place. And it's just a lot of excitement. A lot of stress. I'm sure our, our body's stress levels, emotions were all over the place. I know I've looked at my like, whoop data because I wear a whoop band. I look at that data and daily stress was like

Brit 32:04

all over the place. All over. It

Josh 32:05

looked like a heart rate monitor. It was what it was, wondering what I was doing, you know? And

Brit 32:11

yeah,

Josh 32:11

We were walking a bunch, trying to navigate a train, doing yoga, and then going to bed and then waking up, doing yoga, getting on a train. It's just constantly like that. So

Brit 32:25

yeah, it was a lot. It was a lot. I'm so glad that we did have those rest days because I feel like it allowed you and I to be able to trust each other deeper mm-hmm. On this trip. Mm-hmm. Because whenever you said like, I need rest, or whenever I said I need rest, we just trusted each other and we did that. Mm-hmm. And then the next day we just picked up where we left off. And I feel like that's not always what people do on these kind kinds of vacations, um, or these kinds of trips. And I just feel like that's so important because if we didn't get those, I don't know how I would've survived.

Josh 33:12

Right.

Brit 33:12

Yeah. And at the end there, you were like, I don't, I don't know how you would've survived. Because that one day in Graz, you were like, Nope. Can't do it.

Josh 33:21

Yeah. Yeah. I, I try. We got up, we started moving, and then I was,

Brit 33:25

and we just need to listen to each other.

Josh 33:28

Yeah.

Brit 33:28

Like I, I'm so glad that we didn't feel pressure from one another to keep pushing ourselves past our limits.

Josh 33:37

Mm-hmm.

Brit 33:38

Like, that's not, that's not at all what we want to do to each other. Right. So I'm glad that we, we were just able to trust each other on that.

Josh 33:46

Yeah. Absolutely. We, we've talked about this before and it's out there in the social media universe about travelers versus vacationers.

Brit 33:56

Yeah.

Josh 33:57

I wonder if vacationers get that way, like, oh, I just need a vacation from this vacation. I, I don't think, I don't know if that would happen. We are not vacationers. We've never attempted that.

Brit 34:08

No. But I do feel like I've needed a vacation from our traveling.

Josh 34:12

Oh yeah. Well, I think those are rest days, but we were just talking about this and I think that's why Japan, we accidentally did it. Perfect. Yeah, because we, we had the day at the Onsen, we accident spa. Yeah. We accidentally did it perfectly.

Brit 34:33

And you know what? Finnish spas are incredible. So, I mean, could be end up being a perfect trip as well. So hold on, Finland, stop promoting

Josh 34:45

your trip here.

Brit 34:46

Vote Finland.

Josh 34:47

Knock it off. But honestly, we, we accidentally did that perfectly for Japan.

Brit 34:54

No, we did. Yeah, we did that onsen right in the middle of the trip and it was exactly what we needed. We had such an, an incredible rest day there. Mm-hmm. It was an expensive hotel, but so worth it.

Josh 35:10

Yeah. I mean, and we just did for the night and. We talked about on the Japan trip. Go listen to that episode if you haven't. Amazing trip. But you know, city traveling. City traveling, single day break and that's all it was. Spa day. Foodie day. Like just veg out in the comfy hotel room day.

Brit 35:34

Mm-hmm.

Josh 35:34

Next day. And train to Tokyo.

Brit 35:37

Yeah.

Josh 35:37

For, you know, four, five days, whatever it was. And then we were done. So it was just like it was perfect that, I don't know why we didn't think of doing that for this last trip. I think that would've made all the difference in the world if we had at the end. Or like between, we had maybe we're like, oh, let's go here and stop off for like a spa day. Like we talked to those people, um, in Germany.

Brit 36:09

Yeah.

Josh 36:10

That I think were from the east coast that done the Berlin Marathon between coming from Berlin to Augsburg, they stopped in Baden Baden and I believe it was, which is known for their spas. Yeah. Or you know, this spa hotel. And they spent like two days there just recovering from their marathon.

Brit 36:33

We're not at all running a marathon.

Josh 36:35

I was gonna say, not at all. Not trying to compare that, how that is

Brit 36:39

not our thing.

Josh 36:40

No. trying to compare us to doing that, but they did that

Brit 36:44

mm-hmm.

Josh 36:45

For the benefit of the trip.

Brit 36:46

Yeah. We, we should have thought of that. And I think that future trips we will. However, I also feel like, Scotland, that Airbnb that we had in Portree it just had a, a hot tub. Mm-hmm. But I feel like that was enough to give us some sort of like a spa vibe mm-hmm. And, um, help us recover, because that was also in the middle of our trip.

Josh 37:11

Right. Right. Yeah. Yep. Well, and, and we did also have after that we stopped at the one day in like the tiny home Airbnb. Sure. just kind of a quiet day.

Brit 37:23

Yeah.

Josh 37:23

So we've done it accidentally on all the other trips, and then this one we're like, oh, we're just gonna go 31 days straight, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Uh,

Brit 37:34

yeah. Like, it doesn't work like that. But I don't think we've ever, we've ever sat down and really thought about like, where these spa days or the hot tub days mm-hmm. Where they fit into our, our trip. They just happen to be right that way. So now that we're thinking about that, we will also think about that for future trips.

Josh 37:56

Absolutely.

Brit 37:57

Absolutely. Like, um, our next trip, which we will talk about in the next episode mm-hmm. Where we're gonna go and all of that, but our very last stop is gonna be in Vermont and we're staying at a place that has a pool. Mm-hmm. Right. And that's so. Important to me. Mm-hmm. Like, I love feeling water about me. Mm-hmm. I don't know what it is. Maybe I was a fish in a past lifetime. but I, I think that even this next trip, we accidentally just did that, you know? Right. where I think that'll feel kind of like a spa day.

Josh 38:31

Yeah.

Brit 38:32

Yeah.

Josh 38:32

it's just so interesting sitting here, thinking about now. And we didn't even, we didn't plan this conversation for this episode, but sit, no. We barely

Brit 38:41

planned anything for this episode. No. We were like, we're

Josh 38:43

just gonna go on. Let's wing it. Yeah. We're gonna talk about the trip. But thinking back now to all of our other trips,

Brit 38:50

yeah.

Josh 38:50

We've done it on

Brit 38:52

all of

Josh 38:53

em. Like for the most part, Italy did it.

Brit 38:57

Yeah.

Josh 38:57

We, we had those places. Colorado. Did it.

Brit 39:00

We did, yeah. In Aspen.

Josh 39:02

Mm-hmm.

Brit 39:04

Uhhuh. And that was all you. We weren't gonna have that, but you were like, no, I wanna go to fricking Aspen. I

Josh 39:11

want to go to Aspen.

Brit 39:12

You were pushing hard. And that was my favorite part of the trip.

Josh 39:15

Yeah.

Brit 39:15

So thank you for pushing hard for that.

Josh 39:17

Also, I want to say, I said it, before we left on our Europe trip, that Ghent Belgium was gonna be a hit and it was a hit. So I, you called it, I have a knack for accidentally doing things correctly or picking things correctly.

Brit 39:35

I love that. I love that so much. And it's not like purposeful. You just, you carry this, uh, lucky energy around you.

Josh 39:44

Lucky energy.

Brit 39:46

Yeah. I love that. but yeah, so these next couple trips, I think the way we plan them will look a little bit different mm-hmm. Than this last one. Mm-hmm. Because we will think about, you know, that spa day. Mm-hmm. Maybe in the middle of the trip we will think about, you know, the length of time that we're there. We'll think about how long we are in each spot, and maybe we just adjust that a little bit depending on where we're at, where we're staying. yeah. I think these are all things that we've learned from this last trip.

Josh 40:18

We've learned from previous trips as well, but this trip really kind of because of the length and the time where it's like, oh, this is important. And again, I kinda mentioned it. Earlier. I think it's really important for people listening who just wanna do a long vacation or doing any vacation at all. Like give yourself some grace if you're a traveler. Maybe if you're a vacationer. I've never been one, so I don't know. But especially if you're a traveler, give yourself a break. Give yourself a day in there.

Brit 40:49

Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. I can be the kind of person that really just pushes through to get to the the end goal. Mm-hmm. But I think doing this podcast and doing the amount of traveling that we just did, mm-hmm. It really helped me give myself a lot of grace mm-hmm. In those areas of like, well, I mean, yeah. We're in another country and we sh we should explore as much as we can. Mm-hmm. However, I am not going to take myself out doing this.

Josh 41:21

Mm-hmm.

Brit 41:22

Like, I still need rest. I still need, phone time. I still need, um, sleep. I still need showering every day. I still need, you know, all of these things that help me to take care of myself. And now we know that another way to take care of ourselves is have giving ourselves those days mm-hmm. On the trip. Yeah. And having a hot tub, that's. That's a good call. Yes.

Josh 41:50

I'm glad you threw that one in there. That's,

Brit 41:53

well, I mean, am I wrong?

Josh 41:55

No, you're not wrong, because it's important to you. So that means it should be important for the structure of a trip.

Brit 42:01

And to you, I think it is important because we've had those, we just had that conversation about spa days.

Josh 42:06

Yeah, no, absolutely. It's important to me. I just, water and pool time. It's, it's you. Every single trip we've ever gone on, it's like, yeah.

Brit 42:16

Is that, is that gonna pool not true? Because the last trip, not one spot had a freaking pool, not one,

Josh 42:25

but you, when we were planning it, you were like, does that. Is this gonna have a pool? Does it happen to have a pool? Can we go And I maybe I should have, I should have listened to, maybe we should have put that in there. It would've gone a little more smoothly. Maybe different outcomes. Who knows?

Brit 42:40

Hey, you know, in Finland there are hot tubs that you can look over the Northern Lights. So see that's

Josh 42:48

something I can get behind. However, I'm gonna have to clip all these out.

Brit 42:53

No, to

Josh 42:54

keep you away from sabotaging the votes.

Brit 42:57

I am just sneaking mine in there. You can do the same if you want.

Josh 43:01

This is collusion. This is tainting the results of the study. This is whatever you want to call it.

Brit 43:10

No, I'm just marketing,

Josh 43:13

marketing,

Brit 43:14

marketing.

Josh 43:15

Okay. Um, I'm

Brit 43:17

allowed to talk about it.

Josh 43:18

You are, you are. Absolutely. You're allowed

Brit 43:20

to talk about yours. Mm-hmm.

Josh 43:21

Mm-hmm. So Ireland, we're going there in February. If you haven't heard as soon as you vote for it,

Brit 43:27

no. Vote for Finland.

Josh 43:29

Oh, man. All right. So anything else you can think of about this past trip or, you know, I guess any past trips at all now that,'cause we've been talking about those as well, that you're like, oh, that's something we need to do, or That's something that we need to adjust for future trips going forward.

Brit 43:48

Yeah, I mean, I think we talked a lot about the things I had in mind. Um, I do think that with the cats, I don't know if I need to check the cameras more or check the cameras less because I missed them so freaking much on this trip. And it was really like the third day maybe that we were gone that I was like, I miss the cats. I'm already homesick. Yeah. So I mean, I have a lot of comfort in being able to check the cameras and see them, you know, make sure they're eating, but when they're not, I have no control over what happens. And that really gives me a sense of anxiety. Like we have great people that can look over them, that, they're awesome and we are so grateful to have them. But I mean, they're my babies, so I just wanna take care of them.

Josh 44:45

yeah, I, I think you're just a good pet parent, worried about your cats. And I think also what affected it is knowing that we were gonna be gone for so long. So it didn't, it didn't matter that it was only three days in, four days in. You knew that we had another 25, 26 days before you saw him again.

Brit 45:06

Yeah.

Josh 45:07

So whereas, um, these next two trips, four days in you can be like, a week or it's just, another, it's just two more weeks. Mm-hmm. Instead of it's, it's still three and a half weeks until you see'em again. So,

Brit 45:21

no. Yeah, no, that's very true.

Josh 45:23

Mm-hmm.

Brit 45:24

Yeah. And I feel like that's really helpful.

Josh 45:26

Yeah. You're, you're a good, you're a good pet parent.

Brit 45:29

Thanks, boo. Yeah. So are you. Hmm. Thank you. Yeah. Um, anything else that for you that you wanna mention?

Josh 45:38

No, I mean, we talked about before the Europe trip, you know, how it was gonna be different emotionally trying to look at a place in a way that could we live here. Mm-hmm. And that affected the trip so much. I think it's important that, at least for me, that I keep on doing that. You know, not thinking of it as just a. Vacation.

Brit 46:02

Yeah.

Josh 46:02

because, if we do move to a place in the future, whenever that might be, short, short time in the future, long time in the future, you know, I'm gonna look back and if I had that mindset when I was there, I'm gonna feel better about talking to you about like, Hey, let's move here. Like, remember, remember how we felt being here instead of, if we went to, no, knock on like Disney World, but if we just went to, you know, Disney World and it's like, ah, let's move to Florida because we went to Disney World. You know what I'm saying? It is just kind of, let's

Brit 46:36

never move to Florida. No offense if you're from Florida, but let's not do that.

Josh 46:42

Just not, not that warm weather people that's just. But yeah, just keeping the focus as a traveler and looking at a place like, oh, this is a place that we could live. Yeah. Keeping that as a focus is important. It's tough. It makes the traveling tougher.

Brit 47:00

Mm-hmm.

Josh 47:00

cause just emotionally exhausting and I mean, that puts stress on us too. Like we were not perfect emotionally

Brit 47:10

no. To each other

Josh 47:11

on this trip at all. However, I think we did a pretty good job. Like we, we had some, we had a couple moments. We bookends getting there and getting ready to leave. Always stressful no matter how long the trip is.

Brit 47:26

Yeah.

Josh 47:27

And we gotta continue working. I definitely gotta continue working on myself in those situations, but we did, I think, a pretty darn good job at communicating.

Brit 47:37

Oh, I agree. Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I think that, well, we've learned a lot about each other's communication styles and mm-hmm. Um, just how to communicate things effectively. Yeah. I think that transitions are just really hard. You know, they're not just hard for kids, they're also hard for adults, and we just. We expect too much out of people sometimes in transitions, and we don't necessarily realize that's what we're doing, but you and I talk about it, like it's gonna happen.

Josh 48:09

Yeah.

Brit 48:10

That's gonna happen for sure. But, uh, we talk about it.

Josh 48:14

Yeah.

Brit 48:14

And I think that's the most important thing that you can do when you're, in a long, healthy, committed relationship.

Josh 48:20

Mm-hmm.

Brit 48:21

You're able to talk to each other, you know?

Josh 48:24

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it definitely is something that we got better at with being 31 days, 24 7, right next to each other,

Brit 48:36

which I loved. Yeah. I love being next to you.

Josh 48:39

It was a great trip, and we got really long, it was a long trip and we got another trip. It's only been. Two weeks since that one and we're about to head out again.

Brit 48:50

We're doing some hard work for the pod.

Josh 48:52

For the pod.

Brit 48:53

For the pod

Josh 48:54

for ourselves. But for the pod.

Brit 48:55

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes We inspire ourselves by saying it's for the pod. Oh yeah.

Josh 49:01

A hundred percent.

Brit 49:02

If we don't wanna do something, but we have to, we're like, oh, it's for the pod. For

Josh 49:06

the pod,

Brit 49:07

and then we get it done.

Josh 49:08

I also just do that with anything that I wanna do to give it more emphasis. Like go to like a restaurant of some sort. Like how to do it for the pod.

Brit 49:17

How to do it for the pod. Yeah.

Josh 49:19

Or go to it, go to this castle, like, gotta do it for the pod. Like, come on. Oh

Brit 49:23

my gosh, yes.

Josh 49:24

Not that I would have to do extra convincing, but it just adds a little like. Exclamation point. A little

Brit 49:29

spice. Yeah. Spice. Next episode we will be talking about the next trip that we are about to take. Yes. So we will be staying on the East Coast mm-hmm. Of the US And, one of the most exciting things about this is that we're gonna be in Salem for Halloween. Yes. So, we'll talk about all of the things that we are excited for, that we have planned, and, uh, really why we picked the locations that we did as well. Mm-hmm. So, look out for that. don't forget to vote. Voting ends December 10th, and you can make your voice heard. And you get to decide where we go. So it is either Ireland or Finland. You can listen to episode 13, which is where we kind of discuss what places we chose and why.

Josh 50:18

Mm-hmm. As always, don't forget that if you have any tips, comments, places you want us to visit or see, leave us a comment, send us an email, just get in contact with us.

Brit 50:30

Yes. And don't forget to follow us on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.

Josh 50:34

Mm-hmm.

Brit 50:35

Thank you so much for listening. And until next time,