🔥 8,000 word, 60+ pics, and six hours of writing later… adventures from taking my wife and kids to Europe and Dubai for 3 weeks.
Here is everything we did, things I liked, things that weren’t worth the money, and how much it cost in total.
I’ll get to the financial part first. This cost $55,021.29 in documented expenses for flights, trains, hotels, and entertainment. This does not include food, which I didn’t itemize. I’d estimate we spent $100 a day on food, some days less, some days way more. $100/day X 19 days = $1,900.
Add in probably another $100/day in Ubers and taxis. Also, some days less, some days way more. There were some days we probably spent $300 on hopping around. $100/day X 19 days = $1,900.
Don’t forget souvenirs. Let’s just guess that one at $1,000.
Grant total = approximately $59,821.29
Nearly 2/3 of the total cost was just the round trip Delta One flights though, so you could save a lot there. More on that in just a sec.
Table of Contents
Start of the trip
We didn’t leave until around 11 am so we woke up on a pretty normal schedule.
What was wild was turning the keys over to someone to watch our house that we had known for less than 2 weeks.
I had been considering an executive assistant, and the trip expedited the need to fill that position.
Three weeks before the trip I put up the job listing. A week later we narrowed down the candidates, and started a two week trial with the top candidate.
No going back since we were leaving the next week and needed someone to watch our dog, the house, collect packages, and cash business checks.
Gave him the keys, and we were out the door to the airport.
✈️ We got to the airport early and hung out at the Delta Lounge, snacking and relaxing.
Right before boarding, I snapped a picture of my wife in the jet bridge and joked, “This is the last photo before the chaos that leads to our divorce.”
In good fun, of course.
What no one knew was that I’d booked everyone Delta One round-trip.
That was our first major expense. At $4,325 per ticket, times five people flying, that would be $21,625 for one way tickets there. That also did not including flights between countries once in Europe.
It was a ridiculous amount, but I figured;
- I didn’t want to sit upright for a full day of flying.
- If we were going to go all out, go all out.
Walking down the jet bridge, the kids were amazed by the size of the airplane.
They walked in and looked at me to tell them where to sit. I told them to go left, where the Delta One pods were, and their eyes lit up.
That’s when they realized they got their own full length pods for the 10 hour flight, and we were on our way.
🇫🇷 Paris, France
It was raining when we landed in Paris
They didn’t do any jet bridges, so we walked down the mobile staircase, across the runway in the rain, and onto a shuttle.
The flight went smooth and everything was going great until the airport.
Once inside the airport. We looked out and, coincidentally, the first shuttle we saw leaving the airport was people heading from Paris back to Salt Lake City. But getting through customs was a nightmare, over two hours of waiting, constantly losing our place in line.
They kept cutting the line in half and moving the back half to the front. No joke, that happened 4-5 times, and every time they cut it right after us. Everyone kept moving up while we kept getting stuck in the back.
We were always within 5-10 people of where it got cut, so there were a few others experiencing the crazy wait, yelling in French at customs and security.
Once we made it through, we grabbed a snack and an Uber to our hotel. And our first taste driving around Paris was pretty seeing all the architecture.
🏨 France had probably our favorite place we stayed out of the whole trip. It was a three-bedroom, two-story private suite with a view of the Eiffel Tower, a wraparound deck, and a hot tub.
We also discovered rolling blackout shutters that we’d grow to love throughout Europe. You think you’ve seen blackout? Not until you see Europe’s rolling, interconnected metal shades. They work so good we custom ordered some and had them installed on our house once we got back home.
Once we got to our hotel we had enough time to walk around. Despite being tired, and our body clocks being off, we spent a few hours wandering.
- The kids got an ice cream.
- We started to get a taste for how common graffiti is.
- And it rained a lot that first night.
We found a cool little, French pizza place called Brasserie Cafe.
🚬 Man, smoking is no joke in France.
Luckily we could sit outside. Honestly, it probably wasn’t that much better trying to avoid the smoke.
The owner was kind enough to cater to the kids’ American food requests (plain buttered noodles with no sauce or cheese). We ended up eating there multiple times over the next few days.
Back at the hotel, we had a three bedroom, two story private suite with a wrap around deck and a hot tub.
This was also our first exposure to Europe’s blackout rolling shutters. We’d go on to see these at nearly all the places we stayed. You haven’t seen true “blackout” until you see these. We loved them so much that when we got home,
Eventually we went to bed, but not before seeing the Eiffel Tower sparkle.
Once the kids passed out, my wife and I stood on the balcony watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle. I told her we’d be getting naked on that balcony by the end of the trip. 😏
Next morning, just me and our middle son got up early for croissants and coffee. He ate one up and loved it, so we got some for the rest of the crew, while I grabbed lattes for me and Hottie.
Kids ended up voting France for having the best croissants out of all of Europe, and Aleah and I thought they also had the best coffee.
The next morning me and my middle son woke up early, again. I wanted a haircut, and he wanted to ride bikes. We rented two bikes and ended up finding a little grocer store. After grabbing a drink we saw a haircut place next door.
I didn’t speak French and used a translator app. I told the guy who cut my son’s hair only to clean it up and not to cut any length off. He said he understood. But round after round he kept trimming up more, and more, and more,
Well, round after round, cut after cut, my son was losing inches off his hair. To the point that I was getting anxious.
It looked good, but I could see my son stressing. I didn’t know what to say or how rude it would be to interrupt.
By the time he stopped I was stressed how he’d react. Fortunately, he said he liked it. And months later he still wears it cut a little bit shorter.
When we went to pay they took cash only. I hadn’t converted any yet and only had USD.
I asked with the translator where a bank was. They said there was an ATM about two blocks away. They trusted us to leave, we got the money, and came back.
Right before leaving on the trip I had recently signed a new SEO client who connected us with a reservation at a local French restaurant.
The restaurant was Au Petit Riche, and I didn’t realize how exclusive it was. We showed up for our 12 noon reservation, and by 12:05 pm every seat was taken.
As I approached I said we had a reservation, and gave my last name. “Ah, Mr. Burton! Alain’s friend.”
Yes?
“I”m Francois!”
I also didn’t realize his friend, Francois, was the GM.
Francois was great at entertaining the kids. He asked if the could take their plate of fries and my oldest said they were saving it. He asked for what, and my son said so they could dip it in the ice cream. The bowed and thanked them for their “secret recipe.”
I at least tried a bite of everything I was offered. The kids? Not so much. The kids ate bread and fries while I tried veal brain.
The one exception was creme brulee. They all tried that. And our middle son absolutely loved it. He was asking for creme brulee for the rest of the trip.
Before we left, Francois gifted us a poster celebrating their 100+ years in business.
He also showed us their private room for VIPs. He said it hosted up to 40 people. Looked more like 12, but was cool either way to see all the pictures and autographs of celebrities and politicians from across the globe.
We also met up with my friend Shannol S. A. Grant.
He organized a guided tour of Paris where we visited:
- Basilique du Sacre-Coeur
- Funicular
- Montmartre
- Hotel de Ville
- Arc de Triomphe
- Moulin Rouge
- Champs-Elysees
- Pont Neuf
- Fontaine Saint-Michel
- Paris Metro
- Seine River
- and saw the Eiffel Tower from countless viewpoints.
The Eiffel Tower from half a dozen different views as we walked around the city. We had a full visit of it planned another day though.
When we got to the top of Basilica Cathedral of Saint-Denis we saw a statue of a guy with is head cut off. It was Saint Denis of Paris, who’s head got chopped off.
Legend says after being beheaded, he picked up his own head and walked several miles preaching a sermon, before finally collapsing. That’s why he’s usually depicted carrying his head. After learning that, we saw him with 2-3 other statues at other cathedrals.
It was cool taking the subway, and seeing so many historical places mixed in with just modern busyness around them.
Everybody just drives around like it’s nothing. Probably much the same I drive around the mountains like they’re nothing, because it’s what I’m used to.
One of the historical things I learned that was crazy was every war that Paris has won they do a celebration parade there at the Arc de Triomphe. And when Hitler invaded France HE did the same thing and did a celebration parade at the same place. 🤯
Then France did a celebration parade back there when they were able to recapture it from Germany.
On the tour we also saw two spots where cannons had impacted buildings in France from Hitler. It was wild that you can still see the physical remnants of what that dude did in the world just casually in the city.
[click to see Hitler cannon marks]
Back at the hotel we watched the Eiffel Tower, again. It was cool seeing the spotlight spin around. It does this huge bat signal like thing that rotates around the whole city in 360 degrees. But at the top of the hour it sparkles top to bottom for a few minutes.
The next day we wanted to go revisit a couple of the places we went to the day before, but take our time a little bit more at some specific sites.
We went back to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur because we had seen people writing their names on locks and then locking them to the fence. Me and Leah bought a lock, wrote our names on it, and locked it up. We took pics of where so next visit we can look to see if it’s still there.
What I didn’t know about the Eiffel Tower is they have plexiglass surrounding it, and you have to go through lines of metal detectors.
My son had bought a soccer ball so we could play if we found a field. Going through security they held us up and weren’t going to let us in because of his soccer ball. They didn’t want people throwing things off the top. I was stressing out because he just bought that ball.
One guy called another guy, and after waiting and waiting, I think, just because it was holding up the line, they finally just told us not to take it out of the bag and they let us go.
While we were at the top of the Eiffel Tower, my son spotted a soccer field down below. More on that in a sec.
We paid for the two elevator rides. There’s an elevator to the base. Then there’s a second one that goes to the top.
It was an amazing view. After we got down we went to find the soccer field my son had seen up top. It ended up being a community rec center.
When we walked in, nobody was at the front counter, so I told my kids to just keep walking in. 😆
Once in, my boys went and played soccer, Hottie did some laps around the track, and I got some cool pictures of my daughter doing gymnastics in front of the Eiffel Tower.
Once we got back to the hotel it was starting to get dark, but we still wanted to do something. I rented a bike for my oldest, and we followed him on foot while he cruised around the streets. We ended up making our way back to the same French restaurant.
After we ate we hopped in the hot tub as a family, and enjoyed the views of the city and the Eiffel Tower.
The next morning, more croissants and bagels.
We walked around to look for some thrift shops, and ended up walking quite a bit. But with it being our last day in Paris we had to go back and pack for Germany.
✈️ Flights to Paris from Utah
$21,625
🎟️ Activities
- Eiffel Tower
- Rec center
- Basilique du Sacre-Coeur
- Funicular
- Montmartre
- Hotel de Ville
- Arc de Triomphe
- Moulin Rouge
- Champs-Elysees
- Pont Neuf
- Fontaine Saint-Michel
- Paris Metro
- Seine River
🎟️ Viator is what we used to do a 5 hour walking tour around France. Guided tour was $342.90 for 2 adults and 3 kids.
🎟️ GetYourGuide is what we used to book tickets to the top of the Eiffel Tower. It was $681.50
We heard to book early, but didn’t hear that until we were already approaching 30-40 days before the trip. And by then, all the direct/official tickets were already sold out. So we had to go through a tour vendor. The costs weren’t too much, but were definitely inflated.
🎟️ We also had tickets for the Big Red Bus for $225, but didn’t get the chance to go. We just enjoyed wandering. Big Red Bus is great for a 24 hour ticket to hop on and off (and back on) to the major sight-seeing destinations. They also operate in a ton of major cities, and were available in Spain and Dubai, too.
🎟️ Another thing we missed was a river cruise. That was a 10 am brunch cruise for $289.
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at Edgar Suites Hameau-Porte de Versailles for $3,152.76 for 3 nights.
🇩🇪 Berlin & Potsdam, Germany
The flight to Germany was pretty smooth.
The planes were a lot more economy-based. What was also interesting was the advertisements on the back of plane seats.
The whole trip across all of Europe and Dubai was nice, everywhere… except Germany was the only place we ran into a few rude people.
First was at the airport. There was an employee that kept yelling at, not our family, but some other family. The kids were running around and playing. I guess there’s no fun in Germany.
The next rude person was surprisingly shortly after, and was directed at us.
We rented a car in Germany and we had about a 45 minute drive to our apartment. We stopped at a McDonald’s, and used the kiosk to make our order.
Once we received our food my wife was missing all of the sauces she requested, and the kids wanted salt on the fries. I forgot that fries that don’t come with salt by default.
My wife went up to the counter and all the sauces were facing the lobby, as if they were there for the taking. So she went up and grabbed a few sauces when a guy started yelling at her in German. When he could tell that she didn’t speak German, he started speaking English, and she said that you can’t just take the sauces. You have to pay for it.
She said she did order them and showed him the receipt. After that, he toned down a little, but still certainly wasn’t nice.
After that episode, and realizing kids didn’t have salt, we thought we were good, and went up and asked for salt this time instead of taking it. A lady helped us nicely, but for whatever reason, the same grumpy guy started yelling at the other lady saying “they didn’t order salt! They didn’t order salt!”
The last rude guy was the apartment owner. The whole set up was confusing, too.
We had to drive to one location, an office on the other side of the town, type in a code to get inside, get a key, then drive to the other side of the town, use one key to unlock the building, then another key to unlock the actual apartment door.
When we get to the apartment complex it didn’t say which apartment door was ours. So I called him back, and he was mumbling beneath his breath to whoever was in the room with him, saying, “It’s happening again! It’s happening again!”
Maybe if it’s happening again you should clarify how to get to your rental apartment. 🤷♂️
You could definitely tell there was a lot of history in Germany. What was different about the historical architecture in Germany vs other countries is the other countries felt historical and eclectic. Germany just felt old.
The next day I woke up and everybody was asleep, so I walked around by myself around small town called Potsdam.
At first I didn’t know what to think about it, because it was such a small town. That ended up being what I liked about it.
The town was probably a dozen or so blocks by a dozen or so blocks, and you could just walk and it was countless. You could tell it was a self-contained society, where locals probably mostly stayed in town.
While there wasn’t entertainment, there were countless shops and restaurants, so it was fun. Walking around and we ended up really enjoying it by the second day.
Kids found fresh watermelon. I asked the lady if she could cut it up and she said no. Well we didn’t have any way to eat it then so I started to walk off. And then she asked if I was going to cut it. I didn’t understand what she meant. She didn’t mean cutting was not an option. She meant SHE won’t do it. 😂
Then she pointed my kids to use the big butcher knife themselves. Which I kind of laughed at.
We found a cool sneaker shop, and some thrift shops, then went back to shower.
Unfortunately, once the apartment guy got my money he didn’t seem to care to help after that. After turning on the shower the hose broke, and he didn’t care to reply to me thought WhatsApp showed he read the messages. Which meant we ended up going for the rest of the trip in Germany without really any way to shower.
I also messed up the flights. Fortunately, just this one time. So we had to stay in Germany one extra day and cut Italy a night short. Which ended up working out because we left Potsdam and went and stayed in downtown Berlin.
I also got a ticket in Germany.
Came to an intersection and it went green. It was a long, twisty intersection. So long that I didn’t even make it to the end before it went red.
I saw a big flash and wondered if that was some sort of ticket.
I looked in my rear view mirror and there was a guy that was still running the light behind me. I guarantee it wasn’t me, but nonetheless, sure enough, about six weeks later I got a ticket.
It’s since been months and I’ve still been trying to get a hold of anybody.
- I’ve replied to the car rental company from the email they sent me.
- Sent an email to the contact that they gave me in the email from the car rental company.
- When I had no reply from either of those I looked up the jurisdiction and sent an email to them. No reply.
- Even made a post asking if anybody I knew spoke or was on German hours that could reach out. Found someone, and they’ve tried in person so many times with no luck that they said, “I don’t think anybody really even works there.
I don’t know what to do about that anymore other than hope I don’t have a warrant.
Once in Berlin it was a nice change of scenery, and there was a different vibe.
Again, it was raining a lot.
We walked around. I enjoyed walking in the rain in Europe.
The kids got more smoothies and boba.
I really wanted to go to some of the camps in Germany, but they were too far away. So we did the Jewish Memorial.
There was a lot of crazy stories from the war that we read, and had the opportunity to explain to the kids about the whole thing.
After that, we went to the Mall of Berlin.
One thing that I had to get used to in Europe was paying for toilets everywhere.
Mall of Berlin was about three stories. We found a fun slide for the kids to go down from the top of those three stories to the bottom floor.
I looked up where the Berlin Wall used to be. It was actually right where we were. The DMZ zone was right where the Mall of Berlin was later built.
After the mall we walked a couple blocks and we were able to see remnants of the Berlin Wall.
Because I had messed up the flight we had to get whatever hotel last minute we could.
A “big room” in Europe is like two beds. Finding anything with three or more beds was next to impossible.
We found one place that was kind of like a hostel, but they had one grand suite is how they presented it. It had three beds and a couch. It was the only room out of all of them that had it’s own bathroom. Sold.
On our last day we drove around and hit some shops, and the kids found some Labubus that were at peak demand, which I’m sure we’re not the most authentic. They didn’t care.
After that, we were off to Italy.
✈️ Flight to Berlin, Germany from Paris, France
$1,285 via EasyJet
🎟️ Activities
Just wandered, visited Mall of Berlin, saw remnants of the Berlin Wall, and shopped local shops in Potsdam. The only paid activity we did was visited the Jewish Memorial, which was free.
🏠 Hotel
We stayed 2 nights in Potsdam at an apartment for $328.13. Then one night in Berlin at Hotel Bellevue am Kurfürstendamm for $365.35.
🇮🇹 Rome, Italy
We landed in Italy really late because on the way there we had to stop at Sanzio Airport.
The pilot came on and said there was “one cloud” over Rome. I looked on the map and it literally looked like one cloud. Pic attached from that moment.
They stopped everything for that. Was thinking how funny because back home they’ll fly in a whiteout blizzard.
We waited and we waited on the EasyJet plane. The staff was nice but, again, some of the accommodations took some getting used to.
Their booking classes were also funky as far a what class ticket you need to buy to choose your seat versus not, versus carrying luggage versus not.
We waited on the runway for about an hour, then announced the corporate team decided we were going to turn background and go back to Germany. The plane erupted.
They said we had a choice, and had only about five minutes to make it.
- We could either get off and be left on our own to figure it out.
- We could fly back to Germany and be on a plane back the next day.
I was kind of excited and asked the kids if they were up for an adventure and surprisingly they all said yes.
I started to book a hotel just in case, because we were still an hour away from our destination. And I didn’t know with how late it was if we could find a car or anything.
The whole airplane owes me a big thank you because right when I finished booking a non-refundable hotel the pilot got back on and said the airline decided we were going to continue on anyway. 😆
We landed pretty late and had to grab a taxi.
People drove pretty crazy in France. And once in Italy, it went from driving super conservative in Germany to no rules at all in Italy.
Got to our hotel at about 11 o’clock at night.
It was a giant 15-foot door where they carved out a little 5-foot door in it. You could tell the door was older than America.
There was a keypad that opened up the little cutout, and once inside there was a big foyer between other shared apartment entrances with marble that had to be thousands of years old.
We got inside and the apartment was nice and modern on the inside.
We found a killer little cafe next door. The croissants were good, but nothing ended up beating France.
Everybody was high-paced and high-strung, but you could tell it was just how they were, and in the end they were actually pretty nice.
We were right across the street from Piazza Giovanni Paolo II, looked at a few shops, and grabbed more ice cream.
We then walked to the Colosseum.
It was cool just to see all the excavation sites. You hear about the Colosseum and other things, but they’re still ACTIVELY digging other discoveries.
The contrast of thousands of year old architecture with modern cars whizzing by couldn’t go unnoticed.
We hit some more shops, and learned how to “drink from the water fountain” in Rome. They have these water taps that have two holes. One you put your finger over it which pressurizes it, blasting water up to ten feet away. You’d gauge how hard to press it so that the water shot up like a fountain to drink from, but there were often casualties of people walking by.
I tried to balance things so our days were action-packed, but not overwhelmingly packed. Some days were more busier than others, and today was one of those days because of the short amount of time we had in Italy.
After seeing the Colosseum we went to the Rome Pizza and Pasta School where we got to make handmade pasta and pizzas. It was in a lady’s back yard. She had canopies and tables beneath acres of land and trees. Total, calm change of pace from the busy city.
We had made the dough, and used pasta cutters. They nicknamed them pasta guitars, because they were little boxes with guitar-like strings to slice the dough into pasta pieces.
The pizza dough they had started, but we got to pound it out while he talked about how it’s made, the timing, how it rises, and all that while we added our ingredients. After that we took turns putting them on an oven tray with a six foot handle, and into the kiln-like cooker, and enjoyed fresh pizza that we made ourselves just minutes later.
Surprisingly, the kids like their pasta better than their pizza.
Because of the mix-up in Germany, we only had a quick two nights in Italy, and we’re off to Spain next.
✈️ Flight to Rome, Italy from Berlin, Germany
$1,492 via EasyJet
🎟️ Activities
No paid activities. Just visited Colosseum, excavations sites, and shops.
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at Vacanze Romane Laterano for 2 nights for $667.14. The random non-refundable hotel I booked that we ended up not needing was Hotel MarYsierra in San Costanzo for $143.92.
🇪🇸 Spain (Valencia)
Spain and Dubai is where we spent the most time.
Spain, we split it up into two places. We did two and a half days in Valencia, and two and a half days in Barcelona.
All of the places I booked for the whole trip, I never booked it based on location. I booked it based on how many beds they would fit. But we got lucky because that ended up always being in the best place.
We stayed right across the street from the boardwalk, and had a private rooftop patio with lounge chairs. The beaches were really cool, with long shallow beaches for the kids to play.
When we got to the beach I forgot about the whole topless beaches thing, and made some jokes with my wife about our teenager.
In Valencia, the whole point was just to see my online friend John Caprani.
John and I met years ago when I hired him as a freelance copywriter. I didn’t realize at the time I was his first paying customer, and we ended up staying in touch ever since. He was kind enough to “repay” me, though he didn’t owe me anything, and wouldn’t let me buy any of the meals. (Thanks, John!)
We had a great time with John’s family. Our daughter hung out with his, and our boys hung out with his while the adults chatted.
After the day with John we went back to the hotel for a bit.
Years ago I took my kids to watch Messi play when he first joined Miami in Florida. After the game we stayed out late and went to the beach and kicked around the ball. That’s now become a thing where every time we were at a beach town we go out and kick the ball around late at night.
Once we were leaving Valencia, it was off to Barcelona.
✈️ Flight to Valencia, Spain from Rome, Italy
$938 via Wizz
🎟️ Activities
No paid activities. Just beach time, restaurants, and shops.
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at Valencia Luxury – Malvarrosa Beach for 2 nights for $834.64.
🇪🇸 Spain (Barcelona)
I was really looking forward to Barcelona, because I had some surprises for my boys that both play competition soccer.
We took the bullet train from Valencia to Barcelona. I heard about some political issues going, political tensions at the time, and also the usual petty theft that train stations to watch out for.
I had one of those traveler wallets where it was wrapped underneath my shirt. But it would get itchy and uncomfortable, and so I put it in my pocket at the station.
I walked over to ask one of the workers how long to go wait in line to board the train, because I saw the train was there and there was huge lines, but I didn’t know which line was what. They said, yes, I should go get in line.
When I was walking away, somebody came up, tapped me on my shoulder, and other than them saying hello in Spanish, I couldn’t understand what they said. But I had dropped my wallet moments before and they saw and gave it to me.
Out of all the places to drop your wallet, that wasn’t one of them.
I was grateful that the person that found it was honest. It didn’t have my passport, but it did have all my cash and credit cards.
We took the Renfe train and paid for the business class train car. The seats were comfortable for a train and fully reclined.
About 2 hours later, we were in Barcelona.
It was definitely a bit bigger city. We weren’t having the best luck in with Uber here, so we had to take a taxi. Luckily, we found a five person taxi.
The place we were staying ended up having a private pool area and playground, so we took the kids down there.
One thing that I noticed in a lot of places in Europe is that there are rules just to be rules for some reason. Though it was a gated, private entrance building only you still also had to have these orange paper bracelets to get in. You also couldn’t eat food in one area but could in another.
The building didn’t look anything fancy, but inside was probably one of the nicest places we stayed in as far as size and accommodations. I think the only one we liked better than this, or equal to this, was Paris.
We slept in nicely because of, again, the blackout shades.
We went check out the beach and they were much different here.
Valencia’s were nice and spread out with clean, long, shallow shorelines. Barcelona’s were deep, rough, and dirty. Trash everywhere in the water.
We told the kids we had a surprise but wouldn’t tell them what it was. It was going to be another one of those busy days.
First, we had to go take a ferry boat. Once we got from the boat across the harbor, it was kind of hard to hide what was next because helicopter was right there with a big sign about the Barcelona Sky Tour.
We were taking the family on a helicopter over Barcelona. None of us had ever been on a helicopter before.
We got to fly over:
- The Forum
- The Olympic Stadium
- Barcelona soccer team’s Camp Nou
- Spain’s version of the Arc de Triomphe
- as well as other historical markers
After that, we took a taxi to the stadium we just flew over, walked around for a bit, grabbed some snacks, and up next was Greece.
🇪🇸 Spain (Barcelona)
🚆 Train to Barcelona, Spain from Valencia, Spain
$365 via Renfe
🎟️ Activities
Helicopter tour over Barcelona = $252 x 5 = $1,260
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at Enjoybcn Marina Apartment for 2 nights for $1,083.43.
🇬🇷 Athens, Greece
Greece is where we had the hardest time finding Ubers. They also didn’t have five-seat taxis, so we had to book two separate taxis. That was a little nerve-wracking having the family split in two. I took my daughter and sent the two boys with Hottie.
This time we flew Aegean Airlines. Similar to all the other European airlines, the economy seats had random setups, and no jet bridges.
Our hotel was one of the quirkiest, but we also enjoyed it. It was an old apartment in the middle of the city. So much so in the middle of the city that we didn’t even know what we were looking for because it was all shops on the bottom and apartments up top. Eventually we found it.
There was a weird mannequin shop below us, and lots of cool graffiti everywhere.
There was a juice shop across the street called Fresh Juice that we went to every morning, and every night. They had great fresh fruit and good smoothies. They were open really late. They weren’t open 24 hours but they were open until something like 2 in the morning and then they reopened at 6 a.m. By the second day they remembered our names.
We walked around and found a bunch of shops. There were some weird things in Greece about sexually related magnets and keychains everywhere. Serious 🍆 upon 🍆.
I asked somebody and they said it was the God of Fertility, and it wasn’t really a thing nowadays, but it was great for merchandising.
The next day we went to the Acropolis.
The views from up top were crazy, especially how packed the city was.
It was almost indescribable how tightly crammed everything was. But showing the kids all of the historical things was amazing.
If you look at the picture of my finger pointing down… somehow I was able to find our apartment.
It was hot and humid, so we didn’t stay long.
We spent the other two days just walking around, checking out thrift stores and clothing shops. My kids are big into that right now.
The boys started collecting soccer jerseys, and soccer scarves. I think we were successful in finding a scarf from every soccer club in every country.
One of the two airport taxi guys was cool and said that if we needed another person, we could hire private transportation, and he gave us the number of his friend. That friend ended up being the one that drove us around a time or two and we used him to take us back to the airport.
Because we had to check out early, but we didn’t have to be to airport until a near midnight flight, I asked if I could just hire him for the day and keep our bags in his car and he said yes. It was cool because he ended up taking us sightseeing and showed us some cool local secrets, like a public pond that tourists don’t know about because it’s surrounded and they think it’s pay only. Nope. Free. You just have to know where to go to get there.
Our last stop was five days in Dubai.
✈️ Flight to Athens, Greece from Barcelona, Spain
$2,825 via Aegan
🎟️ Activities
Mostly enjoyed wandering, checking out graffiti, and shops. Only paid activity was the Acropolis for $69
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at “Apartments Historical Center” for 3 nights for $468.26.
🇦🇪 Dubai, UAE
We took an airline called AirArabia. The trend continued of random accommodation, and economy seats arrangements.
One we landed my kids looked out the door and saw a sign and said, “Dad, there is a person holding a sign with your name on it.” Sure enough.
That’s because I paid for guided service walking through the airport, because of all the places Dubai is where I felt like I was going to be the most confused. Not sure why, but wanted to minimize issues if it were the case. It was nice service just to walk us through and get us through quickly.
Once we were on the road in a taxi, Dubai was quickly becoming everything that you hear it is with crazy infrastructures. Unbelievable architecture and sites.
We ended up staying at a place called Rove City Walk. I loved it. The location was amazing, was close to everything, and they had a restaurant that was in the lobby that we ate at quite a bit because they good food and smoothies.
What’s crazy is it was only $133 a night, and it beat 99% of hotels in the US. And that was for TWO rooms, so more like $67/night.
The first day we walked around and checked out shops and the Dubai Mall. The Dubai Mall is 12 MILLION square feet.It’s the largest shoppable mall in the world.
Where a regular mall might have one Gucci or one Prada, or whatever, They had up to FOUR of each of ALL of the major fancy brands. 😅
Found tons of sneaker shops, clothing stores, and bought a few knickknacks.
Years ago I did SEO for a company called the Emaar. I knew they were huge, but I had no idea how huge. Their name was on nearly every building there was, including all the major malls, and the worlds tallest tower Burj Khalifa.
The second day we had a safari planned. We drove an hour into the middle of the desert.
We got to go:
- sandsurfing
- ride camels
- dune bashing
- ATVs
After a few hours of activities they served a multi-course meal, with a fire show and belly dancers.
There were a lot of things that people misinterpret about Dubai. I’m sure it’s true that in some areas, but one of the things was alcohol. I don’t drink, but it was available in a lot of places. It was also offered with our safar meals.
The next day we hit Ski Dubai, an indoor ski resort. They also had a penguin exhibit.
Pictures weren’t allowed, but I had my Meta glasses, so I was able to sneak some pictures that way.
The next day was another surprise helicopter ride, this time over Dubai where we could see
- the world’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa
- flew over the man-made islands and Palms islands, where Dubai dumped billions of pounds of sand to make resorts, attractions, and luxury residences
After we flew by the world’s tallest tower, I then surprised the kids with a visit to it.
We rode to the top. I believe it’s also the world’s fastest elevator.
It was unbelievable how quickly you get to the top. After that, we went over to the Sky Walk. I thought the Sky Walk and glass slide was at the same building of Burj Khalif, but it was a totally different building.
The Sky Walk was cool, but the glass slide was a bit lame. Do it once? Sure. Probably never again though. At least the slide. It’s way shorter and slower than social media makes it out to be.
✈️ Flight to Dubai from Athens, Greece
$1,750 via AirArabia
🎟️ Activities
- Dubai Mall = free
- Ski Dubai = About $135 US per person (~$675 for our family of five) for the “Snow Premium” package that included two “Snow Bullet” (zipline) rides, 40-minute penguine encounter, unlimited chair lifts and snow rides, meal (that we never used), photo inside the park, included lockers and handwarmers, hot chocolate, and ski and snowboard equipment rentals.
- The Dubai helicopter ride was $1,856.15. This was worth doing once, but probably wouldn’t pay that much to do it again.
- The Burj Khalifa and Sky Walk are in different buildings. Thought they were in the same building, especially since you can buy the tickets to both in one transaction. Tickets were about $75 each ($375 total).
- The safari was THE BEST DEAL of the entire trip. TripAdvisor was used to book our 7 hour safari in Dubai, and our helicopter ride over Dubai city and their islands. For just $280.25 for all five of us it included pick up from our hotel, hour drive into the desert, dune bashing (jumping the sand dune hills in an SUV), camel ride, sand boarding, 5-course bbq dinner, fire show and belly dance, and ATV ride.
🏠 Hotel
We stayed at Rove City Walk for 5 nights for ONLY $665 for two connecting two bed rooms (four beds total).
🇺🇸🛬 Homeward Bound
We wrapped things up with Delta One flights back home, stopping in Amsterdam, a fitting full-circle moment since it was the one place we couldn’t squeeze into our itinerary to see a friend. Eight hours there and twelve more to the US, and our three-week adventure was over.
Since being home I’ve been thinking about the impact of the trip.
There were two main reasons I went:
- To plant memories for my kids to look back on years later
- To see if I’d have any profound new perspective on life
Whether my kids fully appreciated the trip in the moment depends on which moment. There were moments they paused and said “thanks” for coordinating the experiences. But that’s less of a priority than planting the seeds that will guarantee they have something undeniable they’ll appreciate in the future.
I could see their gratitude started settle more towards the end. They started thanking me more for making the trip happen, thanked me for specific moments, and for the Delta One seats.
I have been wanting to do a multi-week trip for years. Probably a decade. We’ll never stop traveling, but this big trip did what it needed to do for me.
I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t do a multi-week trip at least once. I also knew it wouldn’t be perfect. Surprisingly, this one was pretty near damn perfect.
I expected that the trip would change my life. It did, but not in the way I expected.
I loved all the things we did, but it wasn’t those that changed my perspective. It was that those did NOT change my life is what changed my life.
Despite all the amazing things, it didn’t “blow my mind.”
It wasn’t life changing in the sense like as if I suddenly solved problems and found the meaning of life.
There was just enough shifts in perspectives that I don’t feel the urge to travel as much. I will always travel, but I don’t have a much smaller urge to go book anything right now.
This was a grand enough experience that I don’t feel like I’m in a rush for the kids to see the next big thing. Yet, before it was like “What other cool stuff can we show them?”
I used to feel some subconscious countdown to always plan trips. Time was ticking for memories. It still is, but that doesn’t mean a trip every month.
One of my biggest takeaways from the trip that made me feel more fulfilled was like, “Damn, we did a lot of really cool shit.” Yet, it didn’t alter my life. So maybe things are pretty good already.
I “knew” a lot of that, but I struggled being content. I love my life, but this just put a magnifying glass on how I actually enjoy a lot of the simplicity of it more than I realized.
✈️ Flight home = $21,625, minus the miles we used on me and my wife’s flights. That saved us $8,650 for a total there of $12,975 for the flights home.
Totals
Subtotals:
✈️ Flights = $42,890
🚆 Train = $365
🏠 Hotels = $7,041.49
🎟️ Activities = $4,724.80
🍕 Food = $1,900
🚗 Uber/Taxi = $1,900
📸 Souvenirs = $1,000
Grand Total:
$59,821.29
