Look, Muffy, a blog for us

Renew your passport, it's just good life admin, you never know when you might need it. But don't add pressure and complexity to this vacation trying to force an international trip, there's plenty of great places to go stateside.

I tend to plan my solo trips off of one stupid idea that gets stuck in my head, like a moment I want to have. I wanted to see the sunrise in Joshua Tree on New Year's Day. Or I wanted to order room service (a waffle! and a carafe of coffee!) and eat it on the patio at a specific hotel in the Berkshires. I wanted to wear a dress I own (and never wear) to The Metropolitan Opera. Things like that.

Then I work backwards from that moment and just fill in the rest of the picture. Generally, my stupid ideas give me a few specifics (almost always a specific place and season, sometimes more) so every other decision is easier to make because I already have that north star decided.

More literally the next steps I take:

I use Google Flights to see when I could get the best deals on flights, and to play around with how many days I want the trip to be

I make a My Map (I think this is what this feature is called? It's kind of a mess tbh but I haven't found anything better) in Google Maps and start putting in everything I definitely want to do, and might want to do. This helps me plan days that have a flow to them and figure out what I want to prioritize

I make a note in my notes app where it's easy to dump every recommendation I stumble across - it's better than using the map for this because I find it easier to drop context for the recommendation top (e.g. For drinks only, free entry on Tuesdays and Thursdays)

Ideas for solo trip destinations, a lot of these admittedly you do need to rent a car though: Chicago!, Palm Springs, Portland Maine, New Orleans, NYC, Upper Peninsula Michigan, Yellowstone National Park, California Coast roadtrip, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Berkshires. If you don't want to have to rent a car you pretty much have to limit yourself to a certain size of city, it's just a fact.

It's a little hard to make "over the heat" and "chill beach vibe" congruent, but maybe Whidbey Island or one of the other little islands (San Juan Island, Orcas Island) near Seattle? I've always wanted to stay at the Captain Whidbey, it looks cute as sin.