Year: 2020

Travel Safely and Comfortably with Hilton Grand Vacations

This article is sponsored by Hilton Grand Vacations, part of the Hilton Portfolio of brands. As always, all opinions are our own. Photos were provided courtesy of Hilton Grand Vacations.

The global pandemic of 2020 has changed the world in many ways, and one that may leave the longest lasting impression is in the travel industry. From taking a long-distance bus or train to attending an event, staying at a hotel, or even jumping on an airplane, many in the travel industry are simply holding their breath waiting to see what the future brings.

Us included.

Early trends are emerging; however, and there are recurring themes popping up when discussing the future of travel, namely: familiarity, comfort, and of course, safety.

While we yearn for the days where we can pop around from place to place, stay in an untold number of hotels, and generally move freely, for the foreseeable future we see staying close to home, returning to places we know and love (like our recent socially distant road trip to the Finger Lakes), and booking extended stays at any given destination. 

One such travel style that checks all those boxes is vacation ownership, and Hilton Grand Vacations is doing a lot to help travelers feel safe when visiting in the future.

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Why You Should Book a Plitvice Hotel and Stay In the Park

Before we even started our RTW trip, we knew that Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia was one of our must-see stops. The logistics of planning a trip to this remote location were slightly trickier, however.

At first we considered visiting the park on a day trip from Zagreb. With only a few hours in the park, we wondered if the trip was worth the cost ($50+/person).

Our next thought was to stop at Plitvice on our way from Zagreb to Zadar, but the bus schedules still would have only allowed us a few hours in the park and it would have cost about the same as a day trip.

We finally realized that in order to see the whole park we’d have to spend a night there, and that meant booking a Plitvice hotel.

After researching accommodation options we found that there were a select few more expensive hotels within the actual park, and cheaper options farther from the park. 

So to help you make the best choice for your stay in Plitvice, we’re summarizing them here and including information we did not find online and only learned after our stay at the national park.

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How to Take a Socially Distant Road Trip During the Pandemic

Being stuck at home for six months was not originally on our 2020 travel plans, and as much as we have tried to minimize our outings, there was a point where we hit a wall and needed to get away for a few days for sanity’s sake.

So we decided to take a road trip.

Our original intention was to head northeast to Maine to spend some time with friends. But after thinking about it, we decided to stick closer to home and spent a weekend in the Finger Lakes instead. In this one, we wanted to share some of the extra steps we took to safely go on a socially distant road trip during the pandemic.

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Kinzua Bridge State Park Should Be on a Pennsylvania Bucket List

One place that has always been on our Pennsylvania bucket list is Kinzua Bridge State Park. This 339-acre park in northcentral PA is famous for one particular reason- it is home to a railway bridge that was once the tallest rail bridge in the world and it was almost completely destroyed by a tornado in 2003!

You don’t see a sight like this one every day, and it was a spot we wanted to visit for years.

But there was one problem with why we never did. Kinzua Bridge State Park is remote. Thankfully, we added this one on as a detour from a recent weekend trip, and in this one we want to share a bit more why you really should check this one out sooner rather than later- if you can make the logistics work at least.

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