September 11, 2023

Everyone Needs a Vacation

Despite where we are in our lives, we found a way to make a vacation happen. Our trip to the Pacific Northwest was our first in over a year.

Don’t call it a honeymoon, but this is Jess and I’s first trip since our wedding in June. While we wanted to follow the modern wisdom of not over spending for a wedding and instead saving it for practical and future life expenses—we followed traditional wisdom and had the dream celebration that we really wanted.

The best day of our lives

We knew that we didn’t leave a lot to have a proper honeymoon set in a dream destination. To add to that Jess was still recovering from being a part of layoffs earlier in the year and I myself was in a period of extremely unstable income running an LLC on my own as a freelancer.

Despite all of that we still wanted and needed a vacation, a time to breathe, and time to be together as a married couple.

We knew that we had a limited budget to work with and we could not escape all of our external pressures, so we tried to plan a trip where we could rely on our credit card points and the generosity of our friends.

We landed on the Pacific Northwest as a destination. We always spoke of wanting to go to Portland, Seattle and Vancouver together. Flights from NYC to PDX were cheap and we had a friend who offerred their guest room for us for half of our trip. We also wouldn’t be travelling too far away from home in terms of timezone, so we could still tend to matters we needed to maintain our careers and our stability.

We felt that there would be a perfect mix of city, food, friends, culture, and nature. Most importantly it’s a place we are both excited about experiencing together.

Let’s try to hit that refresh button. We’re headed to the Pacific Northwest.

This post is part of a series from my Pacific Northwest 2023 Trip. See the other posts from this series below:

Day 1 — Portland: Settling into Downtown with Food
Day 2 — Portland: Riding Bicycles Around the City
Day 3 — Portland: Columbia River, Mount Hood and Estacada
Day 4 — Portland to Seattle: From Cozy Diner to Fine Dining
Day 5 — Seattle: Rest Day in Bellevue
Day 6 — Seattle: Being Tourists in Downtown
Day 7 — Seattle: Rattlesnake Ledge and Ballard Locks
Day 8 — Seattle: Hiking in Mount Rainier National Park
Day 9 — Seattle to Vancouver: Thrifting and Noms
Day 10 — Vancouver: Riding Around Stanley Park
Day 11 — Vancouver: Exploring Gastown, Good & Bad
Day 12 — Vancouver to Portland: The Farewell Tour