We don’t want to hear your dark dirty secrets, only your travel confession!
Caroline and Josh from Traveling 9 to 5 recently started an entertaining chain for travel writers to participate in to share their quirky travel confessions with the rest of us: Whether it’s a routine that gets you through long travel days, a guilty pleasure destination or food, or a pair of stolen Westin slippers to warm your feet in cold hostels, Caroline and Josh want to know… And so do we!
Keep reading to read our big confession, but first, check out how this works:
How To Confess!
- Post a photo and description of your confession.
- Tweet your post with hashtag #travelconfession and follow/tweet @traveling9to5
- Tag 3 – 5 other travelers whom you would like to expose, and mention them on twitter.
*This has no prize or big cash win at the end, it is for pure enjoyment for all of us travelers who carry our sanity around with us!
Caroline and Josh recently asked us to share our goofy travel confession. All judging aside, here is our deepest and darkest travel confession:
Travel Confession: Our Obsession With McFlurries Abroad
Back in the states, Tony and I ate super healthy (most of the time!) and haven’t stepped foot in a McDonald’s in years. However, since our RTW trip started 7+ months ago, we have probably been to various McDonald’s around the world roughly 15 times.
Why?
Some countries know how to make a MEAN McFlurry… I am talking to you Peru!
We love the loaded and delicious Dairy Queen Blizzards back home and think U.S. McFlurries pale in comparison, with just vanilla soft serve and a single topping sprinkled in… Boring! But at many international McDonald’s, they do not skimp on the toppings (in fact, you often have multiple), they have chocolate soft serve you can add to the mix, and they go HEAVY on the hot fudge and caramel sauce… What’s not to love about that!?
While we would never eat any actual food in an international McDonald’s, nor visit one in Italy where you can get yummy Gelato at every twist and turn, the occasional McFlurry has been one of our favorite guilty pleasure treats on the road. We love them so much, we even wrote up a review of our favorite McDonald’s in Lima, Peru.
Don’t knock it till you rock it!
I want to hear your confessions:
- Megan from A Suitcase and Stilettos
- Dave and Vicky from A Couple Travelers
- Hannah and Chris from Love Play Work
- Jason and Aracely from 2 Backpackers
- Bethany and Ted from Two Oregonians
Your Turn: What’s your big travel secret? Confess in the comments and remember… it’s a judgment free zone!
Exhausted from traveling every week as a Business Management Consultant early in my career, I took a year off in 2012 to travel at my own pace. I am a high-energy girl that loves being active, eating food, drinking wine, and exploring the world with my partner-in-crime (and husband), Tony! I now reside in Portland, Oregon and continue to write about travel, food, wine, and the awesome adventures we have in the Pacific NW!
OMG We have the same thing with KFC ice cream cones! I wouldn’t set foot in a KFC in the states, but soft-serve keeps bringing me in abroad!
haha amazing! I don’t know what it is… I was never really a huge soft serve person back in the states, especially when ice cream was always around. But man, does it taste good on the road! In Santiago, they had soft serve cones at McDonald’s for $.40 cents… We were all over that!
thanks for the tag yall
and id be lying if i didnt admit i was obsessed with mcflurries too. this summer in the US we kept going to mcdonalds for ‘wifi’ but really i was just doing it because i became addicted to rolo mcflurries. talk about bringin back rolos and doing it big!
now im going to be curious when in other places of what their mcflurries taste like. too bad i cant afford one in norway or i could find that out this weekend.
hope yall have a great wkend!!!
I never had the rolo McFlurries… the M&M ones were my go-to when I was a kid. But they sound delish! Some countries have CRAZY expensive ones. In France, they were like $7 Euros so we never bought any. But in Peru, they were under $2 USD… Score!
I know you have to generate fresh material for the blog, but this was the perfect opportunity to just reuse the rooster tail story. can’t be topped.
and in my case I would just reuse the bath tub story. however if I had to pick something else I guess I’d say 75% of the time I go on a work trip I pack workout clothes/shoes and of the times I do I think I actually work out maybe 25% of the time. I always have good intentions, but after a plane ride and further travel I just have to throw on the lounge shorts and t-shirt and relax in the hotel room for a while. after I’m done relaxing, it’s usually way too late for a workout. it’s science really.
Tony is forever scared from posting that rooster tail story and getting little to no comments back from people haha. But I agree, it can NEVER be topped (nor do I want it to be!).
I hear yah on not wanting to work out of travel days… In my opinion, traveling is a workout – so exhausting!
You confession reminds me though: I used to steal one of the bathroom towels from my hotel each morning to shower with at the local gym… And then I would just leave the used towel in the towel bin at the gym so I didn’t have to pack a wet towel in my gym bag after my workout. Long story short, I did this every work day for almost a year, so I probably stole like 200 towels from the hotel…. Whoops!
When visiting lovely Paris, we bypassed the quaint and charming local coffee shops for a good old Starbucks. So embarrassed and satisfied at the same time.
haha We did that a lot in Istanbul too… Frappuccino or Turkish coffee? Decisions!
Thanks for tagging us in the travel confessions series! So funny that yours is the McFlurry obsession — will have to try some when we start our travels in 3 weeks! I haven’t gotten a McFlurry or a Dairy Queen blizzard in years it feels!
Yeah we weren’t big fast food people back at home (with the occasional DQ Blizzard in Miami – They are everywhere down there!), but sometimes it is a nice treat on the road. Plus a lot of countries have awesome flavors – Berlin had a Magnum Bar with Brownie McFlurry and it was pretty bomb.
We have a jar of marmite with us! While we were in Oregon we tried to get various people to try it, a few did, they all hated it. But even though we are ridiculously short on space for this trip we couldn’t leave home without it. (In case anyone is unfamiliar with the delights of marmite, its a thick treacle-like salty spread for toast. This description doesn’t do it justice. The advertising slogan used for it is ‘you either love it or hate it!’)
Oh and while I’m baring all, you know what else is a terrible confession? Instead of reading books to nurture my soul and inform my mind as we travel, sometimes I download episodes of a crap Australian soap opera which I watch back to back!
Aah, that’s cathartic
I never tried Marmite! Is it the same as Vegemite? We have heard so many mixed reviews but we are headed to Australia in November and are excited to give it a try!
As far as watching crap shows, that’s all Tony and I do during our free time! We have downloaded so many horrible TV shows on the road. Our recent favorite: Vampire Diaries!
SO guilty of indulging in some McDonald’s frosty treats too – too hard to pass up, especially in the summer months.
Seriously… I am a foodie, but not a food snob. McDonald’s McFlurries are glorious!
Hey you guys! I’m so behind on posts and comments – we’re trying to emerge from behind the iron curtain of internet access in South Africa 😉
Thanks for tagging us! Great idea from @traveling9to5. I confessed on Twitter to our terrible travel downfall: CADBURY. Not the eggs, just the ridiculously terrible for you and oh-so-addicting Cadbury Chocolate Bars. They’re made with way different sugar than the purple-packaged bars in the U.S. They’re still absolute rubbish compared to real, high quality chocolate – but they’re also inexpensive and EVERYWHERE in South Africa. I ate so many in New Zealand when I was there studying during university, and they just never tasted the same at home. Now almost nine years later, Ted finally got the chance to taste what I’d been talking about – and he’s more hooked than I am. Two months of chocolate bars: we gotta get outta here fast. Temptation’s way too high…
Great confession! The slow food movement in Portland would be so disappointed in you both haha. But we TOTALLY understand. I actually have never had a Cadbury bar, but it sounds like I need to hold out for the ones in South Africa and NZ! I personally love dark chocolate, but sometimes a cheapo milk chocolate can be so addicting. Are these bars better than the King ice cream truffle bars in Croatia? I still dream of those
Comments on this entry are closed.