Oct 15
Billie Eilish did 3 cities this week. Pah, I put two fingers up at that kind of sluggish convention. Me, mind you will have a week of a true rock ‘n roll tour.
Miami, Sarasota, Las Vegas, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Napa Valley. 7 cities, 7 days. The life of a rock star travelling salesman.
🔝5️⃣ They have been saying travel is back. I don’t think I ever got on a flight last year when there was an empty seat. Prices are high but people want their lives back.
I stayed at 19 hotels in 2022, as I had done in 2021. Last year that number increased to 32 due more than anything to work, meaning settings were function over thrills.
Please click for moreThe return of my annual 🔝5️⃣ list begins with Favourite Places 🌃. I did what seemed like endless travelling this year especially since we moved stateside, but only an overnight pitstop with my dog in Savannah, Georgia was uncharted territory for me, so 2023 was really about rediscovering places.
Please click for moreIf I only ever get to go to one Formula 1 race then at least I can say I bore witness to Max Verstappen, who will certainly go down as one of the sports’ greatest drivers. He drives on the edge, and he won the Las Vegas F1 on Sunday night driving on the edge..
The event itself was incredible, a memorable experience that I think over-shone the negativity that had gone before it. As for the race, well it had every possible thrill and spill and is widely acknowledged as the race of the season.
Please click for moreI am in Las Vegas for the inaugural Formula 1 race, which has garnered mixed reviews from locals and drivers alike, but it has consumed Vegas this weekend and is expected to bring in around $1.7 billion of additional revenues to the city that doesn’t sleep.
At last night’s qualifying there were some empty seats around us in the East Harmon Zone grandstand opposite the new permanent paddock, but the noise and octane levels were high.
Please click for moreFlying on the red eye tonight from Las Vegas. I had four days in this crazy place on the premise of a best mate’s 50th birthday that never got to happen during the pandemic, and was swiftly thrown together for this past weekend.
Las Vegas really is a nuclear attack on the senses. Some of the things you see, and some of things you can’t un-see are disturbingly funny.
Please click for more🔝5️⃣ In 2023 I stayed in the same amount of hotels than I did the year previous which was 19, although that year most of those came in the second part of the year.
Still, five was hard to narrow down last year, but led by our summer holiday location in Puerto Rico I have below selected My Top Five 2022 Favourite Hotels 🏨
Please click for moreI’m in Sarasota, Florida for a few days, the first time I have been inside our house since Hurricane Ian. Happy to report it is still standing!
On Saturday, not long after the end of the Addicks’ FA Cup game, I fly to Las Vegas for what my daughter charmingly calls a ‘work vacation.’
Please click for moreAt home in Sarasota, Florida this evening after a whirlwind and exhausting eleven day work trip, or as my daughter calls them work vacation’s.
A Five night kick-off in Las Vegas is not to be recommended, although the time there was more dominated (other than work) by sports more-so than gambling. I actually didn’t even get to sit at a table to lose any money. One reason I wasn’t that bothered was due to mandatory mask wearing at all times within the casinos.
Please click for moreUp until 2017 the city of Las Vegas (pop: 640,000) didn’t have a professional sports team. AEG and MGM put pay to that building a new sports arena just off the strip and opening it in 2017 making it home to a new NHL franchise called Vegas Golden Knights, owned by Bill Foley. T-Mobile have stadium naming rights.
Since their existence the Golden Knights have qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs in all four of their seasons and reached the Stanley Cup Finals in their first, losing to Washington Capitals.
Read moreWaking up very early in Las Vegas is more precise this morning. My body clock and my eyes are not in tally at all.
I was 14 hours late arriving into Las Vegas yesterday after the plane was hit by lightning on it’s journey into New York’s JFK, thus meaning an unexpected and irritating stopover at this funky hotel at the airport.
Please click for moreI woke up far too early in Las Vegas this morning (I did plan to be here) as body clock and eyes were completely out of sync. After a little bit of tossing and turning, my brain kept replaying Matt Smith’s goal, which wasn’t good for the soul, so I went for a walk. Las Vegas in the early hours is a sight to behold I can tell you. Give’s south Bermondsey a run for its money.
I’m out here on a work trip, today was a chill day, but from this evening onwards we have a very busy schedule as we venture all over south and north California. Sleep will be a distant ambition by the time I return home from San Francisco next Saturday.
Time then for my annual self indulgence. I’ve always been a list and top of this or worst of that sort of bloke. My daughter is the same. What’s your top five she will say after a day out or when staring at the Christmas tree baubles. Anyway I will try to plough through a few of these this month, so apologies in advance.
A couple of days in the crazy place that is Las Vegas. I was last here just 6 weeks ago, and other than the temperature literally being half of what it was in August, nothing much else has changed.
I’m up early mostly due to the time difference but also because of the throb of the bass outside my hotel window as the Sunday night revellers party until the time when most normal people are on their commute to work.
Which is what I’m doing today, but yesterday was the laziest of days, which was a rare weekend treat, although it took a fair while to shake a hangover collected after a larger than anticipated Saturday night.
After a few absorbing days with family in Cartagena, Colombia and after a one-night stopover in Miami, I’m now on a plane to Las Vegas. Probably to be absorbed. This is for a mate’s 50th and the squad assembled, which is bigger than Charlton’s match day one, looks a little ominous.
Three long nights, daytimes of pool parties and the gaps filled up with black jack. Just what this body of mine was built for. Once.
I stared at the Arrivals board at Miami airport today to see which carousel my bag was going to end up at and for the life of me I could not remember where I had just flown in from. It was San Francisco and last week was every part of fun and successful, but the time difference was a killer for me this time as well as carrying around a stinking cold.
Vegas was low key, we could feel the numbness and it was quieter than I remember it from other times. Los Angeles was hot, and hectic. Burbank we saw one of our largest clients and home to the ‘happiest place on earth.’ The San Francisco days were long and exhausting mostly stuck in a room, and when we went outside it was chilly.
I have had a tremendous summer of travel, but my head spins when I think about where I have been and some of the absolute sadness and tragedy that many of these places have had to deal with, and how lucky I’ve been to miss some of these awful events.
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas but I will let you in on a couple of snippets from our trip last week.
Last Tuesday night we saw Elton John at the Caesars Palace Colosseum. We were joined by OAP’s, couples, queen’s, teenagers, uncles out with their nieces and more OAP’s and Elton was in his element in his Las Vegas residency, just extended into next year. His sense of humour shone as bright as his sparkly pink coloured jacket as he rattled through 120 minutes of what must be hundreds of songs from his play list.
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Just as my body clock resets itself I am back on a plane and will be taking my heavy Charlton heart out west again later today.
Las Vegas is our destination and it is half-term, and my daughter’s 6th birthday so we thought why not. Not the usual holiday spot for a 6 year old but there is plenty to do in daylight hours for young kids and the week is all about her except for a small window on Tuesday night when the other half and I have got tickets to see Elton John and will grab a nice meal afterwards.
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Three prophesied days of fun and frolics in Las Vegas then. Eating, drinking, gambling, a Cirque du Soleil show, shopping and I even managed to throw in a work’s conference as well. The next stop is Chicago, a city that I hold very dear in my heart.
I do like Vegas and if you have never been, it really is somewhere that should appear on your bucket list. A few nights is enough though, for me anyway, because sleeping doesn’t appear high up on the list of things to do and my candle is severely charred at both ends!
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My body doesn’t like me too much at the moment. After a weekend on the toot in Magaluf pretending to be 25-years younger than I really am, I then flew myself 9 hours back in time to Sin City, Las Vegas which included a sprint through Heathrow’s new Terminal 5 to make my final connection.
When my alarm went off on Monday night when I was in a cab taking me from the airport in Las Vegas to the hotel, it signalled that I had been up for 24 hours.
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Well we made it through. The 25-year Magaluf reunion was a real laugh although it might take my sense of smell a while to lose the constant odour of puke, which Magaluf gratefully bestows!
There were two very late nights, each followed by an unfamiliar early afternoon wake up, sandwiched between two nights of two hours sleep each. Last night my room mate beating me to a deep sleep for the first time this weekend so I had to listen to his cacophonous snoring. Once I piece it all together I’ll write more on our weekend amongst the teenagers and geriatrics that mingle, mostly in a very northern accent, in this little corner of Majorca.
Because I try to make my life as complicated as possible, this trip doesn’t stop there. The Magaluf weekend had been in the diary for long time and so had a friends wedding in Chicago next Saturday. All fine so far. I had even pencilled in a little trip to Milton Keynes tomorrow night after the fixtures came out in the summer.
Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
