Newcastle, United Kingdom + Encinitas, California
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Alison is obsessed with her countdown calendar for the driveway tour, it’s the Horizon app! You can plug in countdowns for music releases, holidays, travel plans, and more! Plus you can share countdowns with friends and chat with them in the app! Lulu is obsessed with our new gear! With the help of our Indiegogo campaign, we were able to upgrade our equipment
Alison is wishing for a new Macbook case, and doesn’t want to pay the $50 they usually run. Lulu is wishing for a closet of Spanx leggings.
Timeless elegance with modern amenities await Lulu at The Vermont Hotel, like 24/7 Room Service, concierge services, and discounts on chauffeur services in a Rolls Royce. The spacious Presidential Suite she books is the largest at the hotel, boasting a "gentleman's lounge" and a king size bed. This hotel has guests spoilt for choice when it comes to dining and drinking. You can find a wide range of international cuisines at The Maven, or pop into Redwood Bar for a tipple of Scotch or an afternoon tea. Discover a nighttime playground in Livello, inventive Asian dishes at Aveika or enjoy a concoction at their on-site cocktail club Atomic Blonde. Great place to end and start the day, for sure!
Breakfast is at standout The Dispensary. Their Instagram serves up mouthwatering images of pancake stacks with their “signature” maple syrup syringe, in unique and often limited-time-only flavor combinations. Some that caught Lulu’s eye were the pancakes topped with banoffee, Kinder bueno, Biscoff, Nutella, and Mint Aero bars, to name a ton. They also have Candy Floss Hot Chocolate and Creme Egg espresso. After all of that she is going to have to order at least one savory thing to prevent a sugar coma (but oh how worth it!).
Ruins, forts, museums, oh my! Off to a culturally significant start with a visit to Hadrian’s Wall, a UNESCO World Heritage Site spanning over 80 miles (128 km) east to west of Northern England cutting through Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and Cumbria. This 2,000 year old coast-to-coast man-made border was built to protect the Roman Emperor from invaders from the north.
There is much to see and do, and of particular interest during these "unprecedented times" is The Conqueror Virtual Challenge. Starting at $29.95 USD you can virtually walk over 90 miles of Hadrian's Wall. Once you sign up you can sync with your Apple Watch, Fitbit, RunKeeper, and more to keep track, and for every distance activity you complete, you can see where you are along the wall with Google StreetView! They plant a tree every time you complete 20% of the challenge, you get a medal, can get a t-shirt, and can do the challenge solo or with friends! Any of our 10K Dollar Baes interested in starting a group? Seriously, email us! P.S. This program also has other virtual challenges, like the Inca Trail, the Grand Canyon, and the English Channel. This is the best fitness motivator we've stumbled across yet!
Even thought this is virtual, Lulu seized the opportunity to ‘fit herself with some serious gear. She got the Garmin Marq Adventurer Modern Tool Watch for $1750. This smartwatch tracks altitude gain and weather changes has a 360 degree compass bezel, it monitors blood oxygen levels for climbing, logs hydration, tracks stress and respiration, and has preloaded topographical ski maps and has course view maps of over 40,000 golf courses. Like seriously, you’d think we’d have hover boards and self-driving cars by now if this watch can be had for under 2K!
Next up is a lesson where Lulu learns how to drive a tram! Beamish is an open-air museum that tells the story of life in the northeast of England during the 1820s, 1900s and 1940s. This is a hands-on day where you take the controls of the tram, driving around the site and exploring the past. All about theme, Lulu dons this train engineer halloween costume for her jaunt through history. She also grabs some mulled wine drops from the gift shop on the way out!
Now for a stop at Dacantus Gin Lab for a tasting session, where you sample 5 gins and get a Gin & Tonic with one of the gins you tasted. This place has over 90 specialty G&T offerings on their menu, as their gin-ologists pair the perfect botanical(s) and tonic to each gin. Gin lover's heaven right here.
Dinner is at The Valley Corbridge Restaurant’s Passage to India, a “Raj style” escorted train that departs from Newcastle with "people who love style, style in life, style in food" aboard. You order while in transit and your meal is waiting for you upon arrival. Lulu decides to do the seven course tasting menu with all the naan, and orders a drink to enjoy on the train.
With such a unique and luxurious train/dining excursion, Lulu trades in her cheap train engineer costume from earlier for a more elevated train engineer-inspired look. This $2600 Gucci appliquéd cotton jumpsuit and these $795 Christian Louboutin Pigalle Follies Pumps have her pulling off the train engineer, but make it fashion look.
Lulu ends the night at every plant-lovers dream drinking locale, The Botanist. They have locations all over the UK, and we'd seriously take a trip just to imbibe at all of their locations one after another. Lulu settles this time for a visit to the Newcastle outpost, where she tries their "Botanist Pornstar" which has vodka, interesting fruits, peashoot, rose cordial, prosecco…and comes with a warning that it contains sulphur dioxide, the toxic gas responsible for the smell of burnt matches, sooooo, there’s that.
Alison found this four-bedroom oceanfront Encinitas retreat on Airbnb Luxe, the portion of Airbnb with a "selection of pristine, expertly designed homes with high-end amenities, services, and dedicated trip designers", so you know this is going to be good. The master bedroom has a fold away glass wall with a deck that erases the line between indoor and outdoor living. This Airbnb luxe boasts panoramic ocean views, Tuscan-inspired architecture and nearby beach access, and by nearby, it is literally right on a bluff overlooking the beach. Perfect for the ocean breeze to come in when the fold away glass wall is open. There is a spacious patio kept private by a fence and row of palms, which likely means Alison will be doing a bit of nude sunbathing.
This "retreat" has a 7 night minimum, and around the time of release, that came out to $15,583. Divided by seven days and 8 people (4 bedrooms, 2 persons per room), thats $278 per person, per night. We are reallllyyyy trying to see how doable this is, because do you see how incredible this looks? Take us there noooowww.
Getting a solid start to her day, Alison fuels up at Potato Shack Cafe, where the American Fries are all you can eat, and the pancakes are literally the size of manhole covers!
Next up is some shopping, as she pops into Lone Flag, a “concept space dedicated to providing global access to premium contemporary menswear and lifestyle goods that are made well with a core emphasis on made in USA and made in Japan denim.” Her husband would love this stuff, so she buys him a black leather card holder and a pair of jeans.
Since she bought some things for her hubby, Alison decides to visit Seaweed & Gravel, a “retail extension of the collective conscious of non-conforming-never-grow-up-weirdos.” She buys Soft Deer Skin Brown Leather Riding Gloves, a vintage black leather jacket, a Seaweed & Gravel sweatshirt, and a Craft + Foster “Leather and Teak” Candle…now she just needs a motorcycle and a surfboard and she’ll fit right into this Cali town.
For a little lunch (okay a LOT of lunch) Alison heads to Crack Shack for the “Big Flock” meal which comes with 10-piece bone-in fried chicken, 12 nuggets, a large fry, classic slaw, 6 biscuits, and 2 cookies. She also gets their SoCal Distancing beverage, a mix of vodka, cherry and limeade! She loves a clever pun….and booze.
Encinitas has some great surfing, so Alison is going to take a 2-hour private surf lesson! They also offer an add-on of goPro footage so of course, she bites! Speaking of bites…Alison is bringing her own wet suit, because she found one that deters sharks. The Arena Sams Carbon Wetsuit uses technology specifically designed to reduce the risk of shark attack. Basically a bunch of scientists studied how sharks see under water, genes and retinal pigments and the like, and developed a pattern that is unrecognizable to a shark! While she’s at it she buys some Sharkbanz, wearables with magnetic technology that deters predatory sharks! Seriously, watch this video of how it works, it’s wild!
Alison builds her very own custom surfboard with Rusty Surfboards. She is so very ready for these lessons, and just knows she is going to kill it.
To celebrate the ease and grace with which she mastered the art of surfing in her two hour lesson, Alison takes herself, her surf instructor, and any other surfer dudes and dudettes she encounters on the beach to Pamplemousse Grill for some French fine dining. She reserves one of the private rooms, The “Cow Palace”, that can serve up to 45 guests. Alison plans to spend $2,000 here on food for her new friends!
After dinner the group is headed to catch the sunset at Beacon’s Beach, where Alison has a 1960s VW Bus-turned-photobooth waiting to capture the fun night they are sure to have.
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