Ashley:  Today we're doing something a little different, and we have a special guest. 

Hello and welcome to episode 42 of the Ready Set Depart Podcast. We are so glad you’re here!

 Today, we're gonna do a little game of This or That, but we have brought in Brent to be a part of our episode today. So Trooper's gonna ask us some questions, this or that, and this is gonna be a really fun one. So welcome to the podcast, Brent. 

Brent:  Thank you. Glad to be here. 

Ashley:  All right, Trooper, we're ready for our first This or That. 

Trooper:  Well, let's start off with which would you rather, road trip or fly? 

Ashley:  Road trip. 

Brent: Fly.

Ashley:  I think that road tripping just slows you down. Why would you rather fly?

Brent: Because  I have to do the driving. 

Ashley: That makes sense. He does have to do the driving.

Trooper: And which creates better family memories out of the two? 

Ashley: Well, I think if it's just the travel part, I think it's road tripping creates better family memories, 'cause you have longer to travel. 

Brent: Agreed 

Trooper: Okay, which would you rather? National parks or theme parks? Theme parks includes Disneyland. 

Ashley: That's a really hard question.

Brent: National parks. 

Ashley: National parks. Mostly. I love Disneyland, so that's what throws it in there. Other theme parks, it'd be a for sure national parks. I do love a national park. I think that you get to see some parts of this world that are just amazing in national parks, and we have been able to visit a lot of them and we just love them.

Brent: Agreed. National parks, there's so much diversity, they're so much fun. 

Trooper: Which would you rather, a hotel or a vacation rental? 

Ashley: Vacation rental. 

Brent: Easy… vacation rental. 

Ashley: Easy vacation rental. We love having a kitchen. We love having more than one bathroom. We love having more than one bedroom, and they're often really cute.

Brent: Yeah. Having space to spread out as a family is very beneficial for us. 

Ashley: Yeah, and especially when we travel with grandparents. That's just really nice to have, to all be still in the same place but have places we can go to be apart. 

Trooper: Which would you rather, the mountains or the beach?

Ashley: This one's gonna be different, I know it. 

Brent: Mountain. 

Ashley: Beach. But I don't know if I'd say beach, but I'm gonna let Brent explain mountain first. Why would you choose mountain over beach? 

Brent: Uh, I love the mountains, I hate sand. 

Ashley: That's true. And I also don't know that I would say beach as much as ocean. Like, for me, the choice would be ocean over mountain, because I don't love the beach, but I love the ocean. 

Trooper: Which do you actually vacation at more? 

Brent and Ashley: Ocean. 

Brent: Because you plan all of our trips. 

Ashley: I do, yeah. Because if no one has a suggestion, we go to the water. 

Trooper: Yep. Which would you rather, plan every single tiny little detail, or go with the flow on the trip?

Ashley: Plan. 

Brent: Go with the flow. Less rigid, more exploring. 

Ashley: I think that I've gotten better at this. Like, I used to feel like you plan every second, but now I sort of plan- 

Brent: You plan the big milestones. The big things, and then we fill in the rest. 

Ashley: Yeah. I think that's a good compromise. 

Trooper: Which usually leads to a better trip. 

Ashley: Oh, that's a hard one. Um, I think sometimes we can find really interesting things that we didn't know were there. 

Brent: Right. We stumble across some things that we weren't planning on, so…the unexpected. 

Ashley: Yeah, the unexpected, yeah. 

Trooper: Which would you rather when you're flying: a window seat, an aisle seat, or a middle seat?

Ashley: A middle seat. Is anyone gonna say middle seat? 

Trooper: Window seat. 

Brent: First class seat. {laughter}

Aisle seat. 

Ashley: Aisle. Yeah. I don't like having to make people move if I have to go to the bathroom.

Brent: Agreed. Aisle seat.

Trooper: Are there any strong opinions with those three? 

Brent: Not middle. 

Ashley: Not middle. 

Brent: Not at all. Yuck.

Trooper: Well, middle, like, I can do middle if I'm sitting by you two. 

Ashley: Well, yeah, that's different. 

Trooper: Like, and if it's just, like, I can usually do middle. I do well with people, so.

Ashley: Yeah, that's true. If it's just the three of us, that's true. It's not as big of a deal, but I still would prefer the aisle. 

Trooper: No, I usually get the middle. 

Ashley: It's a fight for the window. I don't want the window, though. 

Trooper: Yeah. I like the window. I'm okay. I like being at the window. I like having control of the window.

Okay, I'm going to answer this first. Which would you rather, early morning explorer or sleep in? 

Sleep in. Sleep in. Sleep in. Sleep in. 

Ashley: Comes from an almost 13-year-old. Um, I think it depends on what we're doing. 

Brent: Uh, morning. I like mornings. 

Trooper: Sleep in. Sleep in. Sleep in. 

Ashley: Yeah, I like mornings too, because it's usually quieter and cooler.

Brent: Quieter, cooler, get up and get going. 

Trooper: Does this change depending on the destination? 

Ashley: Yes. I mean, it depends on what there is. Like, I will get up before the sunrise to see the sunrise over the ocean back east, but I wouldn't get up before sunrise here probably. 

Brent: Yeah, it depends on the activity. Depends on what we're doing. 

Ashley: Yeah. 

Trooper: Carry-on only or checked bag? 

Ashley: Hm, I'm a check-in bag gal. 

Brent: Depends on where we're going and what we're doing. 

Ashley: That's true. 

Trooper: And if you're by yourself. 

Brent: If I'm by myself, yeah.

Ashley: He's a better packer than me, though, so he's much Tetrisier than I am. And plus I'm short, and so getting things into the carry-on is hard for me.

People do help. Like, I shouldn't be super rude. They will help me, but I don't like asking. 

Brent: You don't like the struggle. 

Trooper: Is it worth paying for the, like, luggage? 

Ashley: Oh, here's a travel tip. Brent found this out, so I'm gonna let him tell us this travel tip about using a credit card.

Brent: If you get the airline's credit card, you get free baggage, so great tip. Um, if you're going anyway, you might as well get free bags for it, so. 

Ashley: Absolutely, and we are Delta fliers for the most part, and so we have a Delta card. And it saved us, just that saved us lots of money. 

Brent: Hundreds and hundreds.

Ashley: Hundreds of dollars, yeah. 

Trooper: Which would you rather? One long vacation or several short trips in that same amount of time?

Brent: Depends on how far we have to go for that trip. So if we're traveling a long way, we wanna spend more time If it's closer than more shorter trips? 

Ashley: Yeah, I agree. We have kind of... Well, I guess it's probably my rule, but if we have to fly 14 hours somewhere, we're gonna stay at least that many days, 'cause that's a long flight and I don't like it. But I like both. I mean, I think both can be really fun. We talk all the time about travel with your family doesn't have to be, like, these huge undertakings. It can just be driving down the road to see something you haven't seen together and make some memories. And so both to me. 

Trooper: Which would you rather? Big cities or small towns? 

Ashley: Ah. 

Brent: Depends. 

Ashley: I fell in love with New York. But visiting big cities I like, but I wouldn't want to live in the big cities. 

Brent: Lots to do in the cities, lots to explore and so they both have their place, so.

Ashley: Yeah, true. 

Trooper: Where do you find the most surprises? 

Ashley: I think if you're open to it, I think you can find surprises in both. Like, certain things in New York City, we went to Manhattan and like you can look at a map, but when you're actually there and you're seeing and you're like, "Oh, Times Square is right next to Broadway, and Radio City Music Hall is like three blocks down the road," like it just, it makes it different, and that was surprising to me.

But I think in small towns you can find different sort of surprising things. 

Trooper: Which would you rather, visit somewhere new or return to a favorite? 

Ashley: New. 

Brent: New. 

Ashley: I love to revisit places, but like if I had a choice it would be someplace new. 

Brent: Someplace new.

Trooper: How do you decide? Like say we go Glacier or revisit Joshua Tree.

Ashley: Well, I think for me, like if we made a trip, if it was an effort to get there, it would be Glacier, because that's new. But if we were in San Diego and we were four hours from Joshua Tree, that's not as big of an effort to go to, and so I'd say, "Well, let's go see Joshua Tree again." 

Brent: Yeah, if we're in the area, proximity to, for sure.

Trooper: Okay. Which would you rather, a guided tour or explore on your own? 

Brent and Ashley: Explore on your own. Explore on your own. Explore on your own. 

Trooper: They help sometimes. They are good every once in a while 'cause they give much needed information about what is around, and they give the stuff that we wouldn't have learned otherwise.

Ashley: Well, I think a tour guide and a guided tour are different things. So like if you go someplace and they and a guide takes you on a tour of that museum, to me that's different than someone driving you in a bus and saying, "You have 15 minutes at this stop." 

So we went on a cruise with a lot of my family in the British Isles, and so every single place we went we took a tour because we had older folks with us. And I felt so stifled by that, that I just wanna go back to all the places and do what we wanna do. 

But we went on a cruise of the Hawaiian Islands, and because we had lived in Hawaii and we kind of understood it better, we just drove everywhere, and that was so much more relaxing and so much more fun.

Brent: Did our own thing, for sure. Planned our own trip, spent time where we wanted to.

Ashley: Yeah, 'cause there were places when we were on our tour where it was like, "You have a half of an hour here," and I'm like, "Well, I want two minutes here, and I want an hour and a half here." And that's not how it was.

Trooper: Have you ever had a great or terrible tour? 

Ashley: Yes. Like, you learn interesting things on tours, but then you can also have people who are less enthusiastic tour guides that make it not quite as fun. 

Trooper: I don't get paid enough for this. 

Ashley: So, I mean, it depends on the people. 

Brent: Depends on the tour guide.

Ashley: Yeah. But we've had some really great ones. We had one in Korea. She was amazing. And then we had one in Japan who was very difficult to understand, and kinda grouchy, and you know. So I mean, it just, it kind of depends. 

Trooper: Which would you rather go to, a fancy restaurant or a local hole in the wall? And they both have good stars, equally good stars. 

Brent: Local hole in the wall 

Ashley: Brent will drag us ... Not drag us, I shouldn't say drag us. Brent finds hole in the walls that always turn out good, but when we're looking at them, we're like, "Okay." But he's good at finding them. I don't think we're a fancy meal every time kind of people. Like every once in a while, but not every time. 

Trooper: Which creates better travel memories?

Brent: Unexpected. 

Ashley: Yeah. Whatever it is, yeah. 

Brent: Whatever it is, so the surprises ... unexpected. 

Ashley: Yeah, surprises. 

Trooper: Which would you rather, get a souvenir or get the experiences? 

Brent: Experiences. 

Ashley: Yeah, I like souvenirs AND experiences. 

Trooper: I like having souvenirs from my experiences. 

Ashley: Yeah. I've narrowed it down, like I've kind of started just doing like stickers because they're easier to travel with. Um, but then it helps me remember that experience. 

Trooper: Which would you rather spend your money on? Like let's say like you want this little statue that's $10, or do you want to take the tour that's $30 per person?

Ashley: Oh. Oh, for sure, like the experience. 

Brent: The experience. 

Ashley: If it was a choice between those things, it would- 

Brent: Take the experience ... 

Ashley: Because you can take pictures usually, or just take a picture in your head. 

Trooper: Which would you rather, have a day in a museum or a hiking day? 

Ashley: Oh, depends on the museum. 

Brent: Depends on the museum.

You can hike around the British Museum all day. And it would be awesome. 

Ashley: It would be awesome. Like some of the Smithsonian museums are amazing. Like yeah, I think that depends. 

Brent: It depends. 

Tyler: Which would your respective families pick? 

Ashley: I think we lean a little bit more towards museums.

Brent: Lately it's been museums. But that's just been where we've traveled to. 

Ashley: Yeah. Because it depends. 

Trooper: Okay, this is kind of a weird one. Which would you rather, a national park passport stamp or a refrigerator magnet? This is directed toward Mom. 

Ashley: Passport stamp. 

Brent: Passport stamp. 

Ashley: I love the passport stamps. I think it's so cool because it tells you so many things in this one little stamp. It tells you the date, it tells you where you were, it tells you, like, the state. Like, the colors mean something. Like, it's, it's really cool. 

Trooper: Which do you collect? 

Ashley: I do not collect refrigerator magnets, and Brent is not a collector.

Brent: Not a collector. 

Ashley: Yeah, so I collect stickers and passport stamps, and Junior Ranger badges. I've started doing that. 

Trooper: Which would you rather? Travel in the summer or travel in the off-season? 

Ashley: Off-season. 

Brent: Off-season. 

Ashley: Um, we all like it when the crowds are down, and that's one of the great things about homeschool is we can go when the kids go back to school, and then it makes it a little less crowded usually. 

Brent: Yeah. A little more enjoyable. 

Ashley: Yeah. 

Trooper: What are the pros and cons of each respective one? 

Brent: Off-season, like we've talked about, less crowds, get to spend more time. But during the busy season, hours are sometimes longer at the places. Um, more activities. Um, so there, there's definitely pros and cons to both.

Ashley: So, like we went to Yellowstone on the off-season, and I think we went in September, like it was late September, I think, and there were a lot of places that weren't open 'cause they're only open in the summer. And so that was kind of frustrating, and then, like Brent said, the hours were less and, and stuff like that.

So you just have to kind of look at it. Um, but for sure, like Alaska cruises, the shoulder season, way better than the middle. 

Trooper: Okay, I know the answer to this one. Which would you rather, go to Disneyland or go to Disney World? All of the parks in Disney World. 

Ashley: Disneyland. 

Brent: Disneyland.

Ashley: We are the OG Disneyland. We like Disney World, right? 

Brent: We like Disney World. 

Ashley: Like, I think Animal Kingdom's amazing. But if we had to choose, it would be…

Brent: Disneyland. 

Trooper: Okay. Which would you rather, Disneyland, Universal California version, or Universal in Florida? 

Brent: Well, since we haven't been to either of them

Ashley: I've been to Universal California, but not since I was a teenager, so I have no idea. All I remember is the shark, and I didn't like it. 

Brent: Haven't been to either. 

Ashley: But I do hear that, like, the Harry Potter section in Florida is bigger than the one in California, so that, that might make me say Florida just because Harry Potter land would I don't know, it's, it ... What is it called? The Harry Potter Exper- ... I don't know what it's called, but whatever it is, the Harry Potter stuff would be cooler if it was bigger. 

Trooper: Okay. Which would you rather, a roadside attraction, the American one, or just skip the roadside attraction to get to your destination quicker?

Brent: Roadside attraction. 

Ashley: 'Cause we often skip them because we're like, "No, we just wanna get where we're going." And I don't wanna be like that. Like, I want to stop at the roadside attractions.

Trooper: It's America. 

Ashley: I wanna see the world's biggest ball of twine. I think it's important. So I think we kinda do both, but I wanna slow down a little bit more. 

Trooper: Okay. Which would you rather, have a sunrise adventure or a sunset adventure?

Sunset. Sunset. Sunset. Sunset. 

Ashley: Sunrise. 

Brent: Sunrise. 

Trooper: Sunset. 

Ashley: And I'll tell you why. Because I'm afraid of the dark, and I feel like you'd have less dark time with sunrise than you would with sunset. 

Brent: It's harder to get out of bed, but sunrise is better. 

Trooper: Okay. Which makes for better memories? 

Ashley: Oh. Both. 

Brent: Depends on where you are. 

Ashley: Like I said, like, when we were back east, I really wanted to see the sun come up over the ocean because we've only seen the sun go down over the ocean 'cause we're West Coast people, and, and so, um, I think both are really…

Trooper: It's horrible. It's so early. 

Ashley: I think both are cool. Like, it was cool seeing it rise, and it was cool, it's cool seeing it set. 

Trooper: Okay, now we're going into the rapid fire round. Zoo or aquarium? 

Ashley: Zoo. 

Brent: Zoo. 

Trooper: Train or airplane? 

Ashley: Airplane. 

Brent: Train. 

Trooper: Tent or hotel? 

Hotel. Hotel. Hotel. 

Ashley: Hotel. 

Brent: Tent. 

Trooper: National monuments or national park?

Ashley: Monument. 

Brent: National park.

Trooper: Printed map or phone GPS? 

Ashley: GPS. 

Brent: Printed map. 

Trooper: Travel with friends or just family? 

Ashley: Family. 

Brent: Just family. 

Trooper: Cruise or all-inclusive resort?

Brent: Cruise.

Ashley: Cruise. 

Trooper: Photo or video? 

Ashley: Photo.

Brent: Photo.

Trooper: Snow or sunshine? 

Snow, snow, snow, snow, snow, snow. 

Brent: Both. 

Ashley: Sunshine. 

Trooper: Morning flight or evening flight? 

Ashley: Evening. 

Brent: Morning.

Trooper: Campfire or hotel pool? 

Ashley: Hotel. 

Brent: Hotel. 

Trooper: Local festival or famous attraction?

Brent: Local festival. 

Ashley: Festival. 

Trooper: Adventure vacation or relaxing vacation? 

Ashley: Middle. 

Brent: Adventure. 

Ashley: And that is the end of our rapid fire round. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so glad that we had Brent on, and we hope to have him on again soon.

And as always, let's keep making traveling with your family easier, one trip at a time. See you next time.