I barely traveled in 2020—to New York, Denver, and then little trips and experiences around Florida. Once January 2021 arrived, I was feeling apprehensive but also hopeful as COVID-19 infection rates were growing and vaccines were about to be rolled out. I thought to myself that I should really plan a trip. But I also wanted to be safe.
I wanted to go on a trip like to my tiny house trip last summer. I wanted it to be far enough and different enough to feel like I was truly away.
After hemming and hawing my way through January, I finally made a decision to take a mini 4-day road trip down the Gulf Coast of Florida. My next few posts are going to be all about this trip. In this post, I talk about what went into planning it! Planning something so last minute came with a few road blocks—but it all turned out great in the end.
Taking Time Off
Just me slacking off at work with my feet up.
Taking time off is challenging at any time. But as someone who works in higher education, it’s difficult to justify in the middle of a semester. The middle of the semester is peak time when students need support. I also had a grant application due right in the middle of February. But I looked at my schedule and saw one Friday and one Monday that was relatively free of meetings.
I’ve also been building my team over the last 6 months to get it to a point that things could function without me for a short period. This weekend would be a nice test of that!
I finally asked my supervisor for the days off, “Heh heh… yea so it’s next Friday and the Monday after that. Is that ok?” I am lucky to have a great supervisor who had no hesitations about my last minute request.
I suppose it pays to be perceived as a hard worker in this country. Because when you do ask for time off, at least my supervisor was willing to give me the break (guilt-free!).
If there’s one thing I learned from traveling so much around the world it’s that the USA is maybe the only country that sees time off as “lazy.” Taking vacation time (or even sick leave) communicates that you’re not as serious about your job as someone who never uses up those days. And some don’t even earn days off, which is just insane.
In so many other countries time off is not only respected it’s expected—even required in some cases. Working without time off is a cultural norm here that just doesn’t make any sense. Taking time off shouldn’t even be a deviation since it is so normal everywhere else.
Everyone needs time off. Study after study shows that workers are more productive and more mentally capable when they return to work after taking breaks or time off. Even knowing this, being back working in the USA for the last 5 years, I still ask for time off as if it’s going to be a mark against me. Because taking time off is a mark against so many workers in the USA.
Deciding On A Route
In my car, ready for this next road trip!
So it was February 10 when I officially asked for my time off. I had a week until I would leave for my trip. Oops! Time to get searching.
I started asking friends and colleagues about places to visit around Florida. In particular, I was looking to go to the Gulf Coast because I heard from my friend Dani (over at Globe Trotter Girls) that the manatees were out at this time in Crystal River.
My trip started to form around snorkeling with the manatees!
I saw manatees twice in 2020—here’s one of the times at Black Point!
My supervisor and another friend also recommended Devil’s Den—a beautiful spring a little north of Crystal River. Perfect! Now it was looking like I would be starting my trip up in that area—about 4.5 hours drive from Miami.
Another friend recommended that I check out Siesta Key. I learned that Siesta Key was named #1 on Dr. Beach’s 2017 Americas Best Beaches list. And it’s only about 3 hours from Miami further south of Crystal River.
I also researched and found a really neat canopy walkway at a park near Sarasota. Myakka park was something I could maybe do on my way back to Miami.
My route was forming—approximately a 750-mile round trip! I would travel after work on Thursday to the Devil’s Den area then make my way down the coast to Sarasota, FL where Siesta Key is located.
My approximate route from Devil’s Den down the Gulf Coast to Siesta Key (Click to Enlarge)
Booking Airbnb Stays
I started looking at Airbnb stays around the Crystal River area. This is when I ran into my first roadblock—limited airbnb options.
There wasn’t much in the way of low cost “entire home” stays. Because I am still trying to remain in quarantine, I filtered my search for entire homes so I would have minimal to no contact with the hosts. I was also looking for the “Enhanced Clean” option that Airbnb started up in response to CDC cleaning guidelines during the pandemic.
Most of the stays that were under $75 per night were campsites! I didn’t have the gear together for camping. I also wanted to have at least some home comforts and amenities after spending my days out in nature.
Searching for entire home stays really narrowed down my options
I guess a lot of people already snatched up the good bookings in the area. When not filtering for my dates, I found so many awesome places for low cost. But the pickings were slim for my restricted time frame.
I needed to figure out how to balance my time. I figured 2-3 nights in the Crystal River area would be good. I felt I only needed 1 night, maybe 2, for Siesta Key.
I found one place for $50 that was about halfway between Devil’s Den and Crystal River. Feb 18-20 was available but that was it—done! I snatched it up quick. The place wasn’t super luxurious from the photos, but it had a kitchen, decent looking bathroom and a queen bed. More than enough for me! The total came to about $167 after all the Airbnb fees.
For about $70 a night, I found a place in Sarasota. This place looked really nice and it was about 25 minutes from the beach. Feb 20-22 was available so I snatched that up, too. The total came to about $184.
Packing And Going
I packed my car with my new bicycle, my portable kayak, my snorkel mask and fins, my own linens for the bed, and a few other comforts from home. I packed mostly workout cloths and beach clothes because I planned to spend most of my days outdoors being active in the water and sun!
Enjoying the Florida sun from my kayak in January
Side note - I continue to be so grateful to live in a warm climate during this pandemic. And I continue to send all my love to the rest of the country struggling through snowstorms, cold weather, and detrimental power outages. I knew Florida was a good move for a number of reasons for me, but never did I think moving here would pay off this well and afford me so many privileges! (Please consider donating here to Rep. AOC’s fundraising page for Texas)
I also packed my own food from home because it was only going to go bad while away. Yes, I was such a poor planner for this trip that I didn’t even time my food shopping right. I basically just threw whatever I had left over into my cooler backpack.
At 5pm on Thursday, I packed my car and hit the road. My hope was to have time to stop in Orlando to pick up a few extra grocery items but I ended up not having time. I drove 4.5 hours straight only stopping for gas. I even managed to avoid stopping for a restroom!
Arriving - Night 1
I arrived to my first Airbnb at about 10:30pm last Thursday. My host knew I would be arriving late—a few hours after the check-in period. But, apparently, the manager of the space was not aware of my arrival at all.
I’m not entirely sure where things went wrong on their end. But I walked into the Airbnb space and the dirty linens were off the bed and piled on some chairs.
The bed was not made up.
Dirty linens and pillows?
There were cleaning supplies out on the counters. The garbage was not taken out yet. Mops and brooms were propped up in the bathroom. Yikes! And so began roadblock number 2—the unenhanced clean. This is definitely not a typical Airbnb experience. I figured this was one of the issues with booking things so late (shrug).
What I didn’t know is that this frightfully messy situation was about to get more uncomfortable and then quickly get resolved. But in the end, I turned it into a really neat opportunity!
You’ll have to tune in 2 weeks from now to read about how things turned out. I will be writing about my visit to Devil’s Den!
Until next time…
