Vacation Never Ends: Travel Chat

Meeting at Starbucks?

I have to admit I'm addicted to Starbucks.  I have been getting their decaf mochas for years.  It is more than the coffee, it is the whole experience that I can't get enough of.  Starbucks is also one of my favorite places to meet friends or colleagues.  Conveniently, they just launched a tool to help people meet at Starbucks:  http://www.letsmeetatstarbucks.com/.

I tried it out and it is a pretty neat tool.  I couldln't get it to work for me right at the very end so they are probably still working out the bugs.  They need to work on their error messaging, it is rather cryptic.  The searching for stores was great.  I will have to try it out the next time I want to meet someone at Starbucks. 

Meal Planning for you Group Vacation

Another important  decision your group has to make when traveling together is what you are going to eat.  The quality of meals can make or break any vacation.

If your group chooses not to eat out every night, someone is going to have to cook.  When cooking for a large group I prefer the 'build your own' method.  The 'build your own' method is preparing all the different ingredients and rather than combining and cooking it myself I let everyone pick up what they like and leave what they don't.  The two meals I do in this way are tacos and stir fry. 

Of course, having one person prepare all the ingredients is a large task.  Travel Group Planner has a section specifically laid out to help groups work through their meal planning.   Planning out your meals before hand will help take all the pressure of one or two people.

Harpoon Harry's - Great View & Fried Food

We just visited Harpoon Harry's last night.  It is a restaurant and bar  right looking over the harbor in Punta  Gorda, FL.  It is a tourist attraction in this area but we are in the off season and it was still crowded so the locals must love it too. 

It seems like you have to decide between good food and a great view but this time we had the fried food which is hard to mess up.  We sat at table right next to the water where we could watch the dolphins swim by.  My daughter thought they were whales.  It was fun to look down the tables and see all the kids leaning over the edge trying to spot fish, boats, dolphins, birds, or maybe even whales. 

If you are down in the Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda area be sure to have some drinks, food and enjoy the view.  We also caught a great sunset!