After a truly miserable trip to San Diego last year, I wasn’t exactly eager to roll the dice on another family adventure. Then Seattle happened.

Somewhere between downtown Seattle, a martial arts tournament, hotel breakfasts, elevator encounters, a sick kid, and possibly the most emotionally devastating Chinese food I’ve ever eaten, something changed. For the first time in a long time, I felt alive. Not productive. Not busy. Not getting things done. Just genuinely happy, present, laughing, exploring, eating ridiculous amounts of food and enjoying being exactly where I was.

And the strange thing was, the trip wasn’t perfect. My son got sick. There were complications. There were moments when the whole thing could have gone sideways. It just… didn’t. Something good kept happening.

This episode is the story of the trip that reminded me what it feels like to actually enjoy my life again. It’s about two very different experiences with Seattle, the Chinese food that nearly broke me emotionally, an unforgettable elevator ride, and why sometimes you don’t realize how badly you needed to get away until you come back feeling like yourself again.

Seattle healed me.

Also, stick around for the bonus story about Large Marge in the elevator. Because apparently emotional breakthroughs can’t happen without at least one completely ridiculous human being.

Ever come home from vacation needing a vacation? Welcome to my San Diego disaster!

This family road trip had everything...cockroach-infested hotels, overpriced California breakfast, Comic-Con traffic, raw sewage at the beach, impossible parking, overpriced tourist traps, and enough chaos to make me swear off road trips forever.

In this episode, I break down one of the worst vacations I've ever had. From bargain motels where the bugs apparently pay rent, to breakfast restaurants trying way too hard, to Southern California crowds that somehow made Disneyland seem relaxing.

We'll talk about:

• Why cheap hotels aren't actually cheap.
• The breakfast that offended both my wallet and my taste buds.
• Comic-Con turning San Diego into complete gridlock.
• Theme parks, lockers, sweaty strangers, and overpriced food.
• Why Panda Express ended up being one of the best meals of the trip.
• The beach... featuring sunburn and sewage.
• The moment we packed up at night after discovering more roaches in our room.
• And why the best part of the entire vacation was driving home at 3 AM.

If you've ever suffered through a family vacation that looked amazing in the brochure but turned into an expensive endurance test, this episode is for you.

Sometimes the destination isn't the problem...

Sometimes the destination is California.

00:00 Introduction
01:32 The Hotel
07:28 WTF is this Breakfast
15:40 Traveling Better in the Future
19:00 Legoland
20:02 Swimming in Raw Sewage
22:34 Mission Bay Bore-walk
24:05 The Trolley Tour
29:01 Comic-Con
31:04 The Long Drive Home
34:46 Closing Monologue

Topics: family vacation, San Diego, California travel, road trips, hotel horror stories, bad hotels, cockroaches, Comic-Con, Legoland California, Mission Bay, Coronado Island, Southern California, travel fails, tourist traps, breakfast restaurants, theme parks, beach vacations, comedy podcast, observational comedy, stand-up comedy, travel disasters, family travel, funny stories, road trip disasters, hotel reviews, California crowds, vacation gone wrong, travel rant, comedy storytelling, podcast, humor.

The World Cup in the USA was not want we wanted, but it turns out, it may be what we needed. I have been completely enamored not by the game, but by watching the fans, the visitors and all the countries involved having the time of their life. I have been scrolling so much fan and visitor content that it is starting to show up in my dreams. On this episode, I share why my heart is so full seeing everyone from around the world come together and just be ok with each other. It started as something of lukewarm interest to me, and have blown up into my entire daily obsession.