How it Started: 

Some of you know me well enough to know that I'm the ultimate planner. Not only is it my full-time day job as a portfolio/program manager, but all of my travel plans, home renovations, to do lists, etc, are date or stack ranked on colour-coded spreadsheets. So when Blair randomly sent me a concert schedule in January 2023 for one of our favourite bands (The Midnight), I could not have shocked him more by booking tickets to see the band in Barcelona without any other plans in place. No flights, no hotels, no time off work, no plan for what to do with the kids that weren't going to come: literally nothing but tickets for March of the same year for the two of us. 

True to form, I immediately started working on a plan. Because it was January, I was craving warm weather and sunshine. Barcelona is decently sunny in March, but decidedly NOT warm enough to get rid of the winter blues. So I turned to google (now I'd probably rely on ChatGPT - oh how far the world has come in such a short time). “Where near Europe is warm in March?" and google spat back a few options including the Canary Islands. A few more google searches and some flight research and I'd landed on spending half of our trip in Gran Canaria.  Flights, accommodations booked and we were off to the races (ie. concert). 

How it Went: 

Gran Canaria: 

HIGHLY recommend spending some time on this island. It's right up there with our favourite places ever. It's super safe because you're in Spain and the weather is superb. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort because we wanted some time to be pampered prior to exploring the city but we spent a lot of our time just wandering the enormous sand dunes and checking out the markets and surfing nearby. We were able to order a giant frozen glass of beer, take it out to our beach blanket, and watch professional level surfers land 360s. Then we finished our days out with tapas and sangria overlooking the ocean. 

We referred to is as “Upside-down Mexico” and while it's more accurate to say the reverse is true, Gran Canaria felt familiar after having both been to Mexico many times. Except the nude beaches everywhere. Nothing familiar about that! 

As much of the world as I still have to explore, I would go back to the Canary Islands in a heartbeat. I'd even consider retiring there!

Barcelona: 

This really feels like a city that everyone should go to at least once. Between cathedrals built mind-blowingly long ago, Las Ramblas (pedestrian-only shopping street), Gaudi's architecture, and fantastic food and drink,  it really does have everything. We stayed right off Las Ramblas and were able to walk almost everywhere. We filled our days embracing even more of the tapas and sangria culture while admiring parks, public squares, impromptu performers and even a beach. One thing we initially found super confusing and briefly chalked up to too much wine: no signs or conversations in Barcelona made any sense to our high school-level Spanish. It turns out I wasn't going insane and the signs truly aren't in Spanish, but in Catalan. 

The concert was absolutely amazing. And we went to a beautiful craft cocktail bar that put on a show as they made beautiful and delicious drinks so the whole evening was fantastic.  

TL/DR:

Highly recommend booking a concert to your favourite band in a random city that you've always been wanting to go to and planning a trip around that. Also highly recommend the Canary Islands and Barcelona.