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Planning a trip with girlfriends – Part II

How do we start?

So you’ve got your group of friends ready to go. Now it’s time to think about where and when you want to make this happen. My group’s first trip was a Halloween cruise to the Mexican Riviera that left out of San Diego. We had such an amazing time, we vowed to take a trip every two years. I actually think this cruise was a great way to “test the waters” and see what is like to travel with these friends. A week on a cruise should help open your eyes to whether this is a good or not so good idea.

Our first adventure… 1999 Halloween party – Yes, we were a basketball team for the Halloween party, complete with blow up basketballs and reversible jerseys!

I don’t really have any big desire to do another cruise, but that’s just me. For some people, a cruise offers everything they are looking for! Again, there are no rules. It is about what you and your friends view as the getaway of your dreams. It’s about creating memories and lifelong friendships. 

Now,  we book houses, often fully staffed, including a cook whenever possible. (LOVE!) The most important thing is to remember this trip is all about reconnecting and completely relaxing. I am all about creating a pampered, comfortable, upscale and fun environment. A lot goes into all of this, which I will go into at a later time.

Beautiful Troncones, Mexico. Casa de la Sirena at the time included 8 villas. We took over the entire property. Each villa had an indoor air-conditioned bedroom with an outdoor living area. Loved it!

Once you begin the planning process, you will find that one of the biggest challenges is finding where you want to go and the place you are going to stay. After this, the rest is just fun details! My planning buddy (Diane) and I work out the details together. With two of us, we can really look at the big picture and bounce off ideas and observations. This system works magically. What I don’t see, she does, and vice versa. And if I may say so, so far, we are pretty awesome! It has actually gotten to the point that when its time to plan the trip, our group just asks where, when and how much. They may glance at the location, but they know we have everyone’s interest in mind, we know the different needs of each person, and they just trust we have found yet another great place for us all to land.

Manual Antonio, Costa Rica. Again fully staffed with views of the world. Amazing!

Personally, I love the hunt! It’s like putting a puzzle together.   We typically concentrate on beach locations outside of the US, mostly because some of my friends live in cold places with no beach. The majority us live in San Diego – and we are just spoiled, that’s all! So we do what we can to cater to these cold-weather friends.

In looking for the next great adventure, I look for a house that is unique, comfortable, big enough, plenty of bedrooms ( preferably all with king-sized beds), in an area that offers some fun exploration, hopefully fully staffed, with a property manager/owner who is open to having some fun as we put the details of our trip together. I have made some incredible connections over the years with people who I met during the search and whom I now consider to be friends. In many cases, we still communicate and I am so grateful to have them in my life. This is definitely an incredible bonus to putting together these adventures.

In looking for the best place for your group, you need to decide what type of accommodations you want. Cruise, Hotel, B&B, Condo, House? What is everyone looking for in a trip? Beach, mountain, in the U.S., outside of the U.S.? What is important? What do you love to do? Does anyone have any special needs? Is there somewhere you really want to go but just have not had the chance.

The best part of this is that you will be splitting the cost with your group. As an example, we stayed here in October 2018 …

A little slice of heaven in Bucerias, Mexico.

The price included a full staff who were just the most amazing people. Our chef, Patricia, prepared incredible gourmet breakfasts, snacks, and dinners. Our concierge, Alex, took such amazing care of us — and the bonus treat is that he’s a mixologist. He made sure our refrigerator was stocked with great food and the bar area full of great wine and tasty, freshly-made cocktails. Angela made sure our rooms were spotless, full of fresh towels and our beds cozy. And you know what the cost of this fully staffed house was per person for the whole week? $425! Priceless!!!  I am planning a return visit here for sure!

The moral of this story is get creative. Find your budget, but think big! Don’t rush. We usually start about a year and a half out from our next trip so we have plenty of time. Hint: I look for houses on VRBO.com. I read all the reviews and communicate with the manager/owner to see how they respond. Sometimes we book through here and sometimes we do it outside of this service.  The best part is that starting here will reveal a lot about the place and the people that run it. Start here and follow your gut! But most importantly, have a blast!!!!

My crew! Cheers friends! Here’s to the memories!
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The magical little town of Bucerias, Nayarit, Mexico

While looking for a place for our ladies’ trip for 2018, we stumbled across the most lovely little town in Mexico. It actually started from a kind of selfish desire to find a location that was within a 2-3 hour direct flight from our home in San Diego, where most of the women in my group live. For several years, the San Diego contingency ended up on crazy flights and we were always the last to arrive at our destination. With the Tijuana airport directly across our border and with the new CBX airport border crossing (so awesome), we decided to see what we could come up with. Puerto Vallarta is about a 3-hour flight from Tijuana. We were able to find great flights on Volaris (the Mexico equivalent of Southwest Airlines) for around $200. So this is where we began our search. We discovered a lot of cool little towns north of Puerto Vallarta. After several very impressive possibilities -which were ultimately rejected for various reasons – we found Bucerias. And then we found what appeared to be the most amazing house (and it was amazing, but it deserves its own post, so more on that later).

By way of introduction, Bucerías means “place of divers.” It is a small beach resort town on the Riviera Nayarit, on the Bay of Banderas, between La Cruz de Huanacaxtle and Nuevo Vallarta. It’s about a 30-40 minute drive from the Puerto Vallarta airport. While researching this little town, we saw nothing by rave reviews. The property manager of the house we were interested in (Shayne) was delightful and so willing to help us pull together all the fun activities. While looking for things to do, we found some really amazing possibilities. By the time we left for our trip, I already felt a sense of family with the people I had been communicating with and was confident we had made the right choice.

Miles and miles of walkable, beautiful beaches!

And we were definitely not disappointed! Bucerias is a charming town, full of wonderful people, great food, fun activities, a lovely beach and some really unique little places that pleased everyone in our group. One of the things that really struck me was how clean this little town was and the pride the residents took in keeping it that way. Every corner had a can for recycling. These cans must have been emptied every day because I never saw one filled up. I was advised that take the environment very seriously here, so the fewer plastic bottles we used, the better.

The flea market is a fun adventure in shopping!

The beach was great and went on for miles and miles. The water was pleasant and the sunsets were amazing! While many of the shops contained similar items, there was always a shop that contained that special item you had your heart set on finding. There were a lot of different restaurants along the beach with some really, really good food. Art was plentiful and there’s actually an art walk that takes place on Thursday nights.

Camarones platter from The Fat Boys on the beach…. YUM!

But what really struck me the most was the people. So loving. So kind. So determined to make us feel special. So incredibly caring. Everything about our visit there was special and memorable. Definitely coming back!!!!!