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rwwealth-blog · 6 years

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Offbeat vacation ideas for the adventurous CPA

Busy season is officially over.

You’ve been powering through all season. Returns are in, and extensions are filed. And most importantly, your clients are happy because you’re a powerhouse CPA. Now that you have free time on your calendar, it’s time to take your superhero-self on vacation.

Deciding where to go on vacation can be challenging, which is no surprise, considering many Americans spend up to 10% of their household income on vacations every year.

That means your vacation should be memorable and offer experiences and sights you’ve never encountered — perhaps because you didn’t even know they were there.

Take a gander at these offbeat vacation ideas to get your creative mind going and help you prepare for your best post-busy season yet.

Tour one of history’s most infamous castles. Do you like scary movies? What about vampires? Then Bran Castle in Romania is for you. Completed in 1388, this stronghold is often referred to as “Dracula’s Castle” due to its relationship to one-time prisoner, Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracul. Confront the history, superstitions and myths that spawned one of the world’s most iconic monsters.

Book a last-minute trip to the “Land of Fire and Ice.” With flights as short as five hours from Boston, Iceland is surprisingly easy to get to. Start with a visit to the National Museum of Iceland in Reykjavik to view rare artifacts from the Viking Settlement Period. Next, hike through the Thingvellir National Park, which was the site of one of the first pre-modern parliaments in the world. Relax and de-stress in Iceland’s colorful hot springs before chowing down on local cuisine like fish and chips, Fridheimar tomatoes and skyr (washed down with a pint of Egils Appelsin soda, of course).

Take a ride down U.S. Route 66. Do vintage cars, roadside stands and the wide-open road appeal to you? Then cruising down America’s historic highway can help steer you to pure relaxation. Retrace the route’s original 2,448 miles while stopping at some of the country’s most iconic spots. Pull off at California’s Cadillac ranch, where graffiti is encouraged, or take a photo with The Gemini Giant, a throw-back advertisement in Wilmington, Ill. See natural wonders like the Painted Desert, Grand Canyon and Meramec Caverns and grab a burger and malt at one of the Route’s famous vintage eateries.

Sleep under the stars on a multi-day Mojave Desert adventure. If you’re up for an adventure, get your dune buggy ready. Take an off-road adventure through some of the most scenic terrain in the Southwest. Starting in Las Vegas, retrace the routes taken by gold rush pioneers of 1800s. Or explore the famous old west and robust mining history of western Nevada. Timing for this trip is everything, as you’ll no doubt want to take part in Las Vegas’s premier conference for the accounting profession. From June 9-14, join your colleagues for AICPA ENGAGE at the MGM Grand for four days of limitless possibilities.

Stay local and explore. Sometimes, all you want to do is stay home. After months of late nights and working weekends, who can blame you? But be sure to get out a little. Explore the offbeat landmarks and attractions your state has to offer. Maybe you live near the world’s largest chest of drawers (High Point, N.C.) or the official center of the world (Felicity, Calif.). Or you might want to find out more about the tree root that ate Roger Williams (Providence, R.I.). Browse the recommended attractions in your state then get ready to discover the hidden gems in your community.

So, what’s next on your list? Whether it’s a Nordic adventure or car ride to the past, now is your time reenergize. Congratulations on a job well done!

Allison Carter, Communications Manager – Tax, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants

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RWWealth.com

https://rwwealth.com/offbeat-vacation-ideas-for-the-adventurous-cpa/

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followthatfreckle · 8 years

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The Best Day EVER

Wednesday I think was by far our best day in Iceland. After having a fun night last night, we decided to sleep in, and let me tell you just how nice that was! It was nice. We took our time getting ready, made oatmeal, and tried to decide what to do for the day. Nick and Lynz really wanted to see a black sand beach, so they looked into renting a car, but we advised them against it since we had reservations for the Blue Lagoon early in the afternoon. We all decided it would be best to get up early tomorrow morning, rent a car, and drive down to Vik so that they could get a taste of the landscape of Iceland.

Since we weren’t escaping the city, we headed down to the coast so that they could see the ocean. We ended up walking probably 3 miles just up and down the coast. I was amazed at how far away the Harpa seemed to be in the distance, and yet how close it felt at the same time. Reykjavik is a big city, but the downtown area feels small. When we finally decided it was best not to go any further, we ended at some kind of metal museum. There were weird sculptures in someone’s yard and it was a little creepy for my taste, but we walked around for a second and then headed back.

When you walk that much, you’re bound to get hungry, so we explored town looking for a place to eat. We ended up deciding on a restaurant themed after the movie, The Big Lebowski.” There were bowling balls on the wall, memorabilia from the film, and two pages of different types of White Russians. Ty and I split a chicken burger with blue cheese and bbq sauce on it, which I thought at first might be a strange combination, but ended up being quite delicious. We also tried some jalapeno poppers. We are so American sometimes. Ty has also been digging the local orange soda, Appelsin, so he had one of those as well.

The bus to the Blue Lagoon picked us up at 3 from a bus stop right outside of our apartment. Someone was apparently supposed to pick us up sooner to take us to the main bus station, but they didn’t, so luckily a different bus swung by and picked us up. He sped to the bus station and we got there in record time, took the last 6 seats on the bus and started the 45 minute journey.

I didn’t know much about the Blue Lagoon before arriving there. We had pre-booked, which you have to do, to arrive there at 4. We chose to get a fancy package, which included a robe, flip flops you could take home, a towel, and an algae mask. You get a wrist band to keep track of all your purchases which makes it nice, and it also controls your locker to keep all your stuff safe.

The first requirement after getting checked in is to shower. Usually at pools this is a suggestion, but here it is a requirement and you have to wear just a smile while you do it. There are probably 8 showers with ‘doors’ (I say that because they don’t close all the way and really are just there for decoration) and a ton of people trying to get through them. They are smaller than a phone booth as well, so that’s nice. They definitely aren’t trying to make sure you stay and take a long, hot shower. It’s suggested that you put a lot of conditioner in your hair and you should just throw it up in a bun right away. If the sulfer touches it it will dry it out and nobody wants that. I followed those simple instructions and before long we were entering the lagoon. I was surprised to see that you couldn’t tell that 5 other gigantic busses had pulled up at the same time as us. The place is huge, and there are people everywhere, but with the steam coming off the lagoon you can’t see more than 10 feet in front of you.

The water is milky white, luckily doesn’t smell like sulfur, and makes your skin softer than a babies bottom. Everyone is entitled to a free silica mask, so we waded through the water looking for the stand. It was pretty entertaining seeing everyone swimming around with some white stuff on their faces. We had a good time helping each other put it on and then making our way to the swim up bar. You are only allowed to have 3 drinks while swimming in the water, which makes sense as it’s just a giant hot tub, and our package gave us one free drink each. It was hard to find the bar at first, since you don’t really have a sense of direction, but we followed the people carrying beverages until we found it.

You have quite the selection at the bar, so we each grabbed our drink and then found a place to hang out. We were really lucky with weather today, since the sun was shining and it wasn’t overly cold. The only way you could tell that it was even cold outside was by the lifeguard security gentlemen walking around in their big puffy coats. Once we finished our round, we sent out on an exploration mission, trying to figure out just how big this place is. It’s big. There are also sections of the pool that are warmer depending on your preferences, so that’s nice.

We picked the perfect time slot. We had dinner reservations at 7, so we had about 3 hours in the pool, which means we got to watch the sunset. It didn’t disappoint us tonight! To see the lagoon in the light, then at dusk and then again at dark was a pretty cool experience.

Dinner was phenomenal. After a nice relaxing afternoon it was nice to enjoy a really good meal surrounded by friends. I decided to go with the fish of the day, which was haddock. It was accompanied by kale and some other kind of healthy things like pine nuts and onions. There was some kind of fruit, maybe a pear, I’m not sure, but it was good. Ty had the best tenderloin he thinks he has ever had in his life. It came with some mushrooms and French fries. The added bonus there for me is that he doesn’t eat mushrooms, so I got to eat them! Our friends had the lamb and Ray even branched out and tried the celery root. We all tried a little bit of everything, and it was all really good.

Now, we have been watching the northern lights forecast for over a week now, and have been pretty disappointed by their lack of appearance. We knew that tonight was supposed to be the clearest night we have had, so we started to get our hopes up a little bit. On the website, they rank the activity of the Aurora, and it told us that they were sitting at about a ‘3’, so moderate activity. This was a much better number than the ones Ty and I had seen allllllll week prior to this. We stared out the window the whole way home, watching and hoping that we would see them. We didn’t. We got home and all kind of spread out, on the couches and beds and just hung out for awhile. Around 11 Ray came in the room all excited saying that he had found a live stream video and he was pretty sure he could see them on the screen. Ty looked outside and didn’t see them, so I decided I would do some online investigating as well. It turns out Ray was right, so we all rushed as fast as we could down to the shore to get away from the lights.

It’s hard not to get so excited about these kind of things. The Northern Lights have been on my bucket list for a very long time, and it was getting more and more challenging not to be sad that we hadn’t seen them and quite possibly wouldn’t be able too. Well, as we got closer to the water, there they were. Pretty faint because of all the city lights, but we could see them. I don’t think I’ve been that excited in a very long time.

Because of our long walk this morning, we knew the perfect spot. Just a little past the creepy museum we speed walked, trying to get the light pollution behind us. It couldn’t have been more perfect. They were light at first, but ended up putting out quite the display for us. Life complete. We stayed out there watching them until about one in the morning, and then had to make the long trek back to the apartment.

Ty was able to get some incredible shots with his camera, and I am still in awe. I don’t understand them, and it’s not that I don’t get why they are there or where they come from, but I really mean that staring at the sky, watching them dance is so overwhelming it’s hard to describe. We found the perfect spot during the day without knowing it, we were cleansed of all of our stresses and other things weighing on our souls (I guess I can’t speak for everyone else, but that was my experience) while at the Lagoon, and now this. It’s totally cliché, but I would consider ourselves #blessed today.

We didn’t settle down for bed until after 3 in the morning, which was a bummer since we had planned to pick up the car at 8:30 and head south. Oh well. It was TOTALLY worth it!

#northernlights iceland travel bluelagoon

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