Category: Travel

Do any of you experience a fear of flying? Believe it or not, but I’m so scared of flying and I’ve had to fly ALOT! I had started chatting with another mom a few days ago at my daughter’s school and I discovered that she was also scared.

She was telling me that she has a work-trip to Europe coming up and she was so scared of it that she had made a doctors appt to get some medication.

Shoot, I know exactly how she feels and I gave her all the advice I could. I figured I should share this advice with all of my friends here too, just in case it can be helpful.

1) Do not drink alcohol. I tried this several times before when I was scared of a flight and it only made my fear worse. It made me more anxious and put my thoughts in a MORE negative space.

2) Sit as close to the wings as possible. This spot on the plane will experience less turbulence. You’ll still feel it, but it will be noticeably less than the other parts of the plane.

3) When booking, pay attention to the route. Even if it is more expensive or the timings are inconvenient, try to book the direct flights. If direct cannot work for you, then check for the shortest routes possible so you spend less time in the air.

4) Also while booking, pay attention to the model aircraft. The larger aircraft usually provide smoother rides, so check the specific aircraft before you book your flight. Planes with 3 seats on each side of the aisle (or even larger, for international) will suite you best.

5) Watch the flight attendants. If you hit a rough patch during the flight – maybe some nerve-wracking turbulence – take a look at the flight attendants. Most of the time, you will see them carrying-on like normal, which is an indication that they are not worried and you should not be either. This can be reassuring when there is a fear of flying.

6) Distract yourself. This is the tip that works best for me. If you can focus on a book or a game or some writing that will take your mind off the actual flight, that should help you. I play Candy Crush while I fly and I’m able to obsess on it well enough that my flights are much more comfortable than they’d be without the game.

7) Educate yourself. Sometimes fear of flying stems from a fear of the unknown – from not understanding the science behind it. Start learning about the mechanics of flight, and the safety procedures involved, and the statistics of how safe air travel is. Such facts might help override some of the fear.

8) Take flying lessons. Sometimes fear of flying stems from the lack of control – your life is literally in someone else’s hands. Learning how to fly will help you put yourself in the pilot’s shoes, and see/feel things from their perspective – which is a perspective of control.

9) Fly with a child or someone even more scared of flying than you are. If you are accompanied by someone that needs you to stay calm enough to be able to comfort THEM, then you should be able to rise to the occasion. I’ve noticed this when I fly with my own daughter. I do not, under any circumstance, want her to see me scared. So I literally fake it until I make it. And it works.

10) Do it. Despite your fear, just do it. Continued exposure to this fear, and well as successfully getting through it, should help reinforce to you that flying is ok. Or at least, that it is tolerable.

So those were the tips I shared with the mom I was chatting with. I hope she does well on her upcoming flight. Do you all have a fear of flying? What do you do to get through it?

I do enjoy taking my daughter to new places and seeing her experience things for the first time, and seeing her enjoy herself and her life. I wouldn’t want to miss out on a single instance of that.

But there are also many times where I would prefer to travel alone. In the last several years, I’ve had to travel alone for work and while I didn’t expect to enjoy it at first, I ended up realizing that it suits me very well.

Some of the reasons why I prefer to travel alone…

1. Saves money! This is definitely the case when you are part of a couple or a family (which is my scenario) and usually have to cover expenses for more than just yourself. The only exception to this is when you’re travelling with friends who will split costs with you – especially the lodging costs which are often very expensive.
2. Maximize time! You don’t have to wait on anyone else. You don’t have to wait on others to get ready for the day or deal with their personal matters. If others are slower than you and pokey, it won’t affect you at all.
3. Maximize activities! You don’t have to begrudgingly participate in activities you are not interested in because others want to. Your itinerary is 100% up to you and no compromises are necessary except for scheduling and timing.
4. Make new friends! When you’re travelling with your own family or clique, it’s very easy to silo yourself within your current group. When travelling alone however, you’re more likely to strike up conversations with others that share your same interests, and meet new people who could possibly evolve into friendships!
5. Great for self-confidence! You’re solving your own problems, planning your own schedule and activities, figuring out a new place all on your own, and you learn to LOVE your own company!
6. Indulge in selfishness! Imagine doing what you want, when you want, EATING what you want, and being as lazy or as active as you’d like. This is the ultimate “Me Time”.

So that’s my current list of reasons to travel alone. Perhaps I’ll come up with more reasons to add later. But what do you all think about travelling alone? Have you tried it yet? Do you want to try it?

In July, we made our first post-covid flight and visited the Wild West area of the United States, including Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota.

In a previous post linked here, I described our stop in Deadwood South Dakota where we stayed at the haunted Bullock hotel. But this specific post will focus on The Black Hills region of South Dakota, very close to the town of Keystone.

Keystone is actually a very active town to stay and visit. Even without those two attractions in the title, there were so many activities in the area and we did not come close to attending to all of them. Some of our options were…. Ziplining, Gold-Hunting, Cave-Exploring, Helicopter Rides, driving through Bear Country, and riding an authentic Steam Locomotive, among so many more… I would absolutely recommend this visit for a family with children just due to the variety of activities available.

We purposely came here in order to see Mount Rushmore (a lifetime bucket-list item). And we also purposely chose a scenic route through the national park in order to see the distant views of it get closer as we made our approach. It’s pretty amazing to see it from so far away and realize what a landmark it is.

But quite accidentally…. we then found ourselves visiting the Crazy Horse Memorial. I have never heard of this before in my life! But en route to Mount Rushmore, we saw some signs for it and it piqued our curiousity enough that we wanted to check it out. Have any of you all heard of this?! Is this the country’s best-kept secret, or have I been living under a rock (pun intended) this whole time?!

And holy smokes, I’m so glad that we did we stop because this was the highlight of my entire trip for me.

In the same Black Hills area, a few miles away from Mount Rushmore, they are actually carving a statue of Crazy Horse into the mountain in his tribute. Crazy Horse is one of the most famous native American warriers from the Oglala Lakota tribe.

They’ve only completed just his face up to this point, but when they are done… it will be him riding on top of his horse. When this is finished, it will be the largest statue IN THE WORLD. A legit contender for the 8th Wonder of the World. And it’s in South Dakota of all places. Can you believe it?!

Just to give you some perspective on how huge this will be when it’s done… the faces on Mount Rushmore are 60ft tall. Crazy Horse’s face (already completed) is 87ft. And they still have to complete his body and a horse! Below is the design they are planning for this when it is done:

This was the coolest thing for me to see. They say it will take 30 years to finish it, and I hope that I’m still alive when it is done because I do want to view it with my very own eyes. I’m adding this finished memorial to my lifetime bucket list when I’m finally retired, as this will be amazing!

If you want more info about this memorial, their official website is linked here. One of the most interesting things about this effort, is that they are accepting absolutely ZERO government funding for it. Which makes sense considering WHO they are paying tribute to, as Crazy Horse died fighting against the U.S. government. Seems just. So this is funded by private donations only and the link to their official website above has info on how to contribute if you are so inclined.

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoyed my recap of my trip here. If you’ve visited already, how was it for you?

Sorry I’ve been awol this week everyone but I’ve been on vacay! Still am, actually. Nobody guessed correctly my destination but I’m ready to reveal it now. We’ve been on a Wild West road trip through 3 states: South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana.

Our first stop was Deadwood South Dakota and we stayed at the #1 most haunted location in the entire state, the Bullock Hotel, according to this top 10 list here. We flew into the Rapid City South Dakota airport, and Deadwood was a comfortable 45min drive from there.

And Deadwood was great as far as preserving the history and the stories of the Wild West days. They have several tours and if you want to cover everything you easily can, it’s all jam-packed into about 3 blocks. I heard that they do a daily reenactment too but we missed it unfortunately.

Here are some photos of the small town of Deadwood South Dakota, you may recognize the names of some of it’s most famous residents, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane…

We also stayed the night at the famous Bullock Hotel which is said to be the most haunted location in South Dakota. Apparently, Deadwood had so much lawlessness during those Wild West days that murders and tragic endings were the norm, so there is more than enough material to fuel all the ghost stories.

My only “weird” experience at the Bullock Hotel was that I was woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of my hotel keys jingling. They didn’t use card keys, but the older metal keys on a metal keychain instead. And that’s exactly what I heard jingling. It freaked me out, but I didn’t pick up my head to look bc I didn’t want to see anything. So I kept my head buried in the pillow until it stopped. And then it stopped. And that was it.

Lol, too bad I don’t have a better haunting story for you all! But here are photos I took of the hotel and room 320 we spent the night in….

There are actually a couple of ghost tours in Deadwood to choose from. We ended-up chosing to do the ghost tour for the hotel across the street instead, the Fairmont Hotel, because it was featured on an episode on one of my favorite shows “The Dead Files” and I wanted to see it in person. They said it was also on an episode of “Ghost Labs” too but I haven’t seen that one.

It doesn’t look like people can stay overnight at the Fairmont Hotel anymore; it seemed to be a casino and restaurant/bar only now. But they do host the ghost tours on the 2nd and 3rd floors where the guest rooms should be.

I’ll say, the ghost tour would be very valuable even for those of you that aren’t interested in ghosts at all, because 75% of the tour was historical information and characters and context for how the Wild West days used to be. So I learned alot and not much about ghosts actually.

But it was still creepy for those of you that like ghosts too. The only weird thing that happened to me during the ghost tour through the supposedly haunted rooms of the Fairmont Hotel, was that I kept hearing my daughter say something to me, but I could never catch what she was saying, so I would turn and ask her “What did you say?” and she’d look at me strange and answer “I didn’t say anything.” But I swear she said something to me, so I’m quite stumped as to what happened there.

So here are some pics from the ghost tour…

Anyhow, that sums up how my visit to Deadwood South Dakota went. And I enjoyed it very much. I hope you all enjoyed reading about it.

If you’re into the haunted experiences, I’ve also visited a haunted castle in Ireland and you can check it out here.

Until next time…