Jenn’s Yukon Trip Report

Yukon Trip Report
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Meggan: [00:00:00] Hey everyone and welcome back to the Travel Mug podcast. We are so happy that you have joined us this week. Now we are here this week because one of us has traveled.

It wasn't me, sadly. , But Jenn is going to share with us all about her big adventure to somewhere that I personally really don't know anyone else who has traveled there. So exclusive. That is the Yukon in Canada's true north. So I am so excited to hear about this far away place and learn about all you were able to see and do there.

And as always, with a trip review, I'd love for you to sort of talk to us about one of the most important parts of your journey, and that is how you actually got there. So what was that like for you? Besides, of course, what I can imagine was a really long day.

Jenn: It was a very long day. , So I flew Halifax, uh, directly to Vancouver, which was about six hours. And then, , Vancouver to Whitehorse, [00:01:00] which is another like two and a half hours. I had like a two-ish hour, uh, layover in Vancouver. So it was a super long day and I think Halifax in Vancouver is the longest, or one of the longest flights that I've been on personally, so I made sure to get up and walk halfway through because we had just recorded travel tip Tuesday about blood clots

Meggan: Now, did you have to pee or were you doing it just for your own health and safety?

Jenn: was just doing it for my own health and safety. Yeah. I always booked the window seat as we've talked about. And um, my two people that were sitting beside me, my seatmates were a couple and they were getting up to go to the bathroom and I was like, I might as well just go right now too. 'cause like everybody's moving around so.

Meggan: So it wasn't too awkward then 'cause they were going anyway.

Jenn: Yeah,

Meggan: Nice. Nice.

Jenn: yeah, for sure. So like the flight was honestly pretty uneventful. I actually found that, uh, the Halifax to Vancouver flight, even though it was [00:02:00] six hours, I found that it went by pretty fast. I got a lot of work done on the flight. Um, the wifi was working really well on that flight.

It wasn't working so well on the Vancouver to Whitehorse portion, but that one was only two and a half hours, so not a huge deal.

Meggan: Well, really, when it comes to air travel, you are looking for uneventful.

Jenn: Yeah. Hundo. P. Yeah.

Meggan: Now, which airline did you travel with? And my second part of the question, which is honestly the one I'm most interested about, did you encounter any of the don'ts, quote unquote, that we had covered in our most recent episode about air travel?

Jenn: Yeah, so I flew with Air Canada, which my usual go-to airline these days. Um, I did notice I'm not so much on the first fight or the, the flight there, but actually on the way home I noticed that the person sitting with beside me was doing a lot of the pulling themselves up by grabbing the seat in front of them. Uh, so that was kind of funny 'cause I probably wouldn't have paid attention to that. This.[00:03:00]

Meggan: You shoulda said, use your core and your arm rests

Jenn: Yeah, it

Meggan: excellent.

Jenn: it was pretty funny. So as for getting there, like I was visiting friends, so like they picked me up at the airport, I would say, for getting around the city. If you're going yourself, you really do need a car. There is public transit. The downtowns like. area is pretty walkable and like pretty bike friendly.

There's a lot of people biking, but like the real magic is outside of the city. And so if you're going all the way to to Whitehorse, like you're gonna want a rental car in order to do some like day trips. So,

Meggan: I ask you about the airport? I, I meant to actually, uh, mention that. Is it close to the downtown core? Did your friends live in the downtown core? Like what did that look like?

Jenn: , So the airport is like, it's pretty, pretty close to downtown, like a couple minutes drive. Um, really, really close. [00:04:00] My friends live in a subdivision, like 15 to 20 minutes out of downtown and the airport. Um, so not too, too far, but far enough.

Meggan: Gotcha.

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. And I actually, uh, drove my friend's car on one of the days, which was like, pretty far outside of my comfort zone

Meggan: Yeah.

Jenn: to be completely honest. I like, I literally know that this sounds silly to some people, but like for me, driving an unfamiliar car in an unfamiliar city is like pretty scary. And I'm actually like pretty proud that I did it because I had to talk myself out of backing out of it.

Meggan: Well, you, uh, there was a point since we've met that really driving a car was not comfortable for you, so this is a huge deal.

Jenn: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say like getting around downtown was like pretty easy. I did have one situation where my Google Maps was, uh, not up to [00:05:00] date on the actual road situation. It was like turn left, and I was like, I can't. I can, there's nothing to turn left into, so I had to figure that out.

But, um, the downtown area does have a lot of paid parking, so be prepared for that. And it's paid parking with a limit of like an hour or two hours. I don't know what's stopping you from, like going out and paying again. But anyway,

Meggan: And was it paid parking with money or with like one of those sort of central boxes you have to go to?

Jenn: yeah, it was, it was a meter, so you could put change in the meter or you could download an app and top it up that way. I just put change in 'cause I had it. Um, but yeah, either one of those option works.

Meggan: Excellent. So talk to us about what you did. What'd you get up to?

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. So the first day I arrived was a total write off, and I mean, I had like a 12 plus hour travel day, and the time change [00:06:00] was like kicking my butt a little bit. I got there at like 4:30 PM and I was like, oh, that's perfect. I'll just like. myself up and like, we'll go out for dinner.

It was a Friday night and I got to her house and I was like, I, I cannot,

Meggan: I simply mustn't.

Jenn: I, and I love going out for dinner, so that was, I could not rally. So we just ordered pizza and hung out, which was quite lovely. And I forced myself to stay awake until like 9:00 PM so I could go to bed at like a regular time and get myself kind of, you know, right.

Meggan: No, that makes a lot of sense. And what is the time difference between Halifax and Whitehorse?

Jenn: So right now the time difference is four hours. So the Yukon doesn't do time change. Uh, so from November to March, it's a three hour time difference with us, but right now it is four.

Meggan: Excellent. So you get a good night's sleep. I'm hoping What happens on day two?

Jenn: Yeah, so the next day was Saturday. My friends were off, um, work. So we got out to [00:07:00] explore. So my friend had booked us a glass blowing class at a local studio. It's called Lumel Studios, and we each got to make something. So they had a kind of, um, couple of different options of like super beginner stuff that you can do.

So my friend and I, each chose to make these jellyfish paper weights. I'll make sure to, uh, put a photo on our social media so people can see them. And uh, my friend's partner made a vase, which was super cool. The staff really guide you through the entire experience and it's really fun and it's. They, they do like a lot of it.

They're really heavily coaching you. It's not like they're leaving you alone with like molten glass and like no. They're, you're very heavily, uh, coached through it so that you get something that actually looks like, uh, what you want it to.

Meggan: Nice.

Jenn: really cool. It was actually, uh, snowing that morning, so that

Meggan: Oh.[00:08:00]

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. It didn't, it didn't stick around too much. We walked around downtown after we were done. The glass blowing took about 45 minutes, so it's not like a super long thing. You do have to leave it there for, uh, at least 24 hours to like cool down in there like special cool down chamber thing.

Meggan: molten and all.

Jenn: Yeah, yeah. So just so that it, you know, if you ever do that, like you need to do it on at a time that you can pick it up before you leave town, right? Like you can't do it on your last day in town or else the place is just gonna have your thing forever.

Meggan: Correct.

Jenn: So we, we went to downtown. After that, we walked around, uh, we got lunch at a local restaurant called La Cara. So that was Mexican, tacos were super delicious.

Meggan: Excellent. Now, I know this is just one restaurant. You may mention others, but did you notice at all that restaurant food prices were comparable to Halifax or Nova Scotia or like what were [00:09:00] the prices like?

Jenn: Yeah, I think they were comparable. Like I honestly didn't notice. Um, so I guess it wasn't crazy. We also didn't eat out that much. Um, we ended up cooking at home quite a bit, but yeah, I don't think it was wild or anything. Of course there's always, you know, like super expensive restaurants and then, right. , So after that, like it cleared off, it stopped snowing, so we went out to the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, which is like 30 minutes-ish outside of town. We stopped for coffee and treats. I have to mention this. Spot called Bean North. I loved it. It was super cute. It had one of those little free libraries out front too, so you can go and look for a little book.

And it was a very cute little spot and the treats were quite delicious. Uh, so at the Yukon Wildlife Park, we saw bison like really quite close. Lots of mountain goats. There was like deer and caribou. It's really, really lovely spot to walk [00:10:00] through. Uh, my friends that live there actually have like a season pass and it's like a five kilometer, kind of like a figure eight shaped trail. Uh, we sadly didn't see any moose, so that was very sad. But, uh, yeah, they go like all the time just to like go for a walk and like see the animals

Meggan: So would I For sure.

Jenn: I can't remember how much it cost. I wanna say like less than $20 for me to visit. I'm pretty sure like, I think it was regularly 18, but because I was with them, um, I got like a discount 'cause I was with people who had a, a membership.

So that was very cool.

Meggan: Definitely. Now I love of course, animals. So what was your favorite animal that you saw?

Jenn: Okay. So I think like the bison was the first thing that we saw and they were super close, um, to where like we were. So that was really cool. I don't think I had ever seen a bison before. Uh, 'cause you know, we don't have [00:11:00] those, uh, the mountain goats were also very close to the fence. Um, and like looking at you. And then have ground squirrels. Um, so they're squirrels that like, they kind of look. similar to like a prairie dog

Meggan: Oh,

Jenn: And they like live in the ground and they're like, you know, not really part of the wildlife preserve, but they're all, they live there 'cause like there's food around, you know? Um, and super cute.

Meggan: adorable. I, I wanna see a ground squirrel now.

Jenn: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Meggan: Alright, continue on to the next day. Seems like, uh, so this would be Sunday, I guess.

Jenn: Yeah, so the next day is Sunday. We headed, headed out to Kluane National Park and Haines Junction. So our, first stop was the visitor center. It wasn't, I was there in early May. Things are not quite open for the season, yet they're just kind of [00:12:00] starting to open. Um, so not all of the visitor center stuff was open, but you can get a free sticker if you ask.

And that's one thing to know about all of the, like visitors centers, I think, is they each have their own like sticker, uh, and they're free. And I also got a luggage tag and a postcard, so like.

Meggan: We love. Okay. I love free stuff, but I love stickers. I, I was a kid with a sticker book. I loved stickers.

Jenn: Yeah, so that was very fun. So our next stop was a short walk. I'm not gonna call it a hike 'cause it was not a hike, but it was a walk in the Dezadeash river area. Um, we got some really great mountain views, although there's really great mountain views, like literally everywhere. , We drove then to Kathleen Lake where we had brought our picnic lunch because our friends knew that the restaurants were not gonna be open for the season yet. So that was very good to know. and [00:13:00] then we walked along the beach and found, of course the Parks Canada red chairs to take some photos and like, honestly, this was a really fun day trip to do. , It's about an hour and 40 minutes outside of town. It was a lot of driving. but really fun to see.

There's a ton of hikes in the area, like. Short ones really long, like full day and overnighter type ones that you can do. So it depends on what you wanna do. , But yeah, it was absolutely beautiful and probably one of the highlights of my trip.

Meggan: Yeah, like if you had thrown in the coffee shop at the cafe on this day, to me that would've been perfect. But this honestly sounds exactly like would be up my alley. And an hour and 40 minutes is far, but it's not like exhaustingly far either. So I think that, honestly, that sounds like it would've been a highlight for me too.

Jenn: Yeah, we did stop for ice cream on our way back to town, so you know, it's a pretty great,

Meggan: You [00:14:00] can't cope.

Jenn: day. the next day is Monday and I was working while I was there and I mean, so were my friends, they have, , jobs that they work, Monday to Friday. So I just brought some work stuff and worked from their house and, uh, that was the first time I was really doing that while I was traveling. And I think it like worked out pretty well overall.

Meggan: Yeah, so I'd love to talk a little bit more about working on holiday. Obviously it's sort of work slash holiday. Did it feel like you expected, were you itching the whole time to like be outside since you were somewhere new? Like, walk us through how that overall experience felt.

Jenn: Yeah, like it was different, but it was good. Like it didn't bother me too much because my friends were also at work, I found I really missed my, like, home work setup. Um, I did buy like a travel second monitor that like plugs into my laptop so that I still [00:15:00] had two screens 'cause that's what I usually did.

Um, but like I would a hundred percent do this. Again, it still felt like a vacation, even though I really, I used one vacation day to fly up there on the Friday. So if you work from home or if you have like a remote work option, I think this could be like a good way to extend vacation time. I would definitely, I. Do it again and like I just went out for a walk at lunch, like in their neighborhood and you know, I'm still in like a new place. So I think that it worked really well and we were able to do some really fun things after work too, which was really nice.

Meggan: It's like a bit of a little travel hack right there.

Jenn: Yeah, I mean, it works

Meggan: If you can.

Jenn: if, if you can, it works really well.

So after work we, we did something e every day after work. So one of the days we went to Miles Canyon to go for a walk, it's about 10 to 15 minutes from town. Uh, the views are really great [00:16:00] and like the walk is pretty easy in terms of like, there's not a lot of like climbing, you know, mountain climbing that you're doing, but it's also like not super, super accessible.

Like we saw a couple trying to navigate it with a stroller, which I would definitely not recommend. Like you are on like a narrow ish path and there is a cliff, so eh, not ideal with a stroller. So you do need to be a little bit sure-footed,

Meggan: Right.

Jenn: but not like, you know, you don't have to be crazy in shape.

There are a lot of trails here. You could spend hours exploring them all. I think we were there like about an hour, and then there's also like a nearby look off point where you get good views. If the walk isn't feasible for you, you just drive up to it.

Meggan: Excellent. Now, was this free to go to, and obviously you're doing some driving while you're there, your friends are, what was the price of gas like? Did you notice?

Jenn: Yeah, miles Canyon [00:17:00] is free. gas was around a $1.69 per litre, which $4.66 per gallon for our American pals. So more expensive than here, Nova Scotia, but not like wild. My friend did say that it was hovering around a $1.89 per litre before the carbon tax came off. Of course,

Meggan: right, right. And ours was that with the carbon tax. So we were paying pretty much that until recently. So that's not, it's not great, but it's not crazy.

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. So another day after work, we drove about 30 minutes to the Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs, and it was the most relaxing day of the trip. It's a really nice, like hot springs, they have multiple outdoor pools including cold plunges, plenty of chairs outside to relax in if it's warm enough. It wasn't when we were there. Um, but they do have inside [00:18:00] relaxation spaces, which is really, uh, quite lovely. And then multiple, saunas and steam rooms. We all brought our little e-readers and, uh, we had met up with some of our friends, uh, friend, friends of our friends. So it was just like a really relaxing day thing I found really strange is the pools are only like two feet deep. So you really like, you like walk out and then like sit down in that.

Meggan: Okay. Okay.

Jenn: It was different than other Nordic spa type experiences.

Meggan: that would be like midcalf for me.

Jenn: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they sit down and, I mean, maybe they were deeper than two feet, but they're not very deep. Like it's, it was definitely like, I don't think it was over my knee.

Yeah. It wasn't that, uh, deep, but, uh, very relaxing. And like they're open right now, or when I was there, they're open until midnight. So we were there until I think 10 30. [00:19:00] And my friend was like, I think we should go home. Like we do all have to work tomorrow.

Meggan: Hate to break this up, but

Jenn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We, I think we all had the best night of sleep.

Um,

Meggan: Oh, I bet.

Jenn: Yeah. Uh, so another thing I wanna mention is on Thursdays there is a large farmer's market called the Fireweed Community Market from 3:00 PM to 7:00 PM there's a ton of food trucks and vendors. So we went there and, , had supper. I had a super yummy veggie, crepe. There were so many food trucks. It was very hard to decide what to get to eat. Uh, but there's so many options and like local, , veggies and local crafts, if that's, , what you're looking for. And, uh, then because I am, you know, there with some, I. Locals of the insider scoop. We went to the local trivia night at the Yukon Inn, [00:20:00] which happens every Thursday from seven to 9:30 PM and it was, uh, really fun. It was, uh, harder than I expected. Uh.

Meggan: Did you win?

Jenn: We did not

Meggan: Oh,

Jenn: Um, but that's okay. Yeah, it's, my friends go like every week apparently, and they have a really fun time. So, yeah, I, uh, you know, not something you would usually do when you're on vacation somewhere, but

Meggan: why not?

Jenn: like, I mean, why not? Yeah,

Meggan: Exactly.

Jenn: bad.

Meggan: Now, did you, I know you did said you didn't eat out a lot, so this may not be the case, but we love to talk food on the podcast. Was there a favorite food item you had while you were there or just sort of It was regular, fare

Jenn: Yeah, I would say regular ish. fare. Um, yeah, I didn't have anything too crazy. I think that the two things that stand out were like earlier in the week was actually like the, the, , bean North Cafe, uh, that we went to by [00:21:00] the. Wildlife preserve, it's just like a little bit past the wildlife preserve. So drive there and then you can like take your drink and go walk around the wildlife preserve, which is lovely.

Meggan: Nice.

Jenn: Um, the coffee was, , really great and the baked goods are good. And I mean, the tacos that we had at La Cara were super delicious. Yeah, so Friday. Friday was the day I did more exploring by myself. So I actually worked from Baked Cafe, which is like right in downtown, which was um, really lovely. And then after work I went to the Bergingia Interpretive Centre where I learned about the Ice Age and First Nations culture. And I got to see some fossils. So do you, have you ever heard of Beringia Meggan? No, I

Meggan: No.

Jenn: Either, I had no idea. It is the landmass that used to connect Russia to Alaska and into the Yukon.

So when that was all there, so it talks about like the animals that were around, like kind of during the ice age. , It's, it's a really small [00:22:00] museum. It does have like, it's two rooms and uh, like 20, 15 to 20 minute movie that like talks to you about Beringia. Um, when I got there, I was the only person there. So I got like a private showing of the movie, which was, you know, very exciting. , And two of the people that were working there were from Nova Scotia. So.

Meggan: That is so random. No matter where you go. Here we are like.

Jenn: I like it was the most. So I, you know, I go and they asked where I'm from and I'm like, oh, I'm from Nova Scotia. And you just like, don't really expect people to know, um, like Nova Scotia and geography, I guess. So they're like, oh, what part? And I said, oh, like outside Halifax, because that's like, no one's gonna know where Liverpool is, you know? And what the guy that was working there, he's like, oh, I was born in Antigonish and lived there until I was in high school. And the woman that I talked to before I left was born in Meat Cove, which is like

Meggan: Wow. I know

Jenn: tippity top of Cape Breton. Like, [00:23:00] no, no one knows where Meat Cove is. You know, like it was just so wild.

So yeah, it's a truly a small world.

Meggan: it is indeed.

Jenn: Yeah, so after that I did some like shopping, um, alone. I walked along the Trans Canada Trail. It was a really nice day. That day. It was like 15 degrees and sunny, so that was lovely. If you like to read, I definitely recommend checking out the Yukon Literacy Coalition in shipyards park. Shipyards Park is also where the, um, market is, the, uh, farmer's market. Um, so the Literacy Coalition has like free books. It's just like a giant free library

Meggan: Nice.

Jenn: through the books, so that was quite lovely.

Meggan: Excellent. Now, I guess that was Friday, so Saturday, is this your travel day? Like what happened that day?

Jenn: Yeah, so my, my flight wasn't until 5:30 PM so we had like a [00:24:00] lot of time to explore. So we headed out of town to Carcross, which is about 45 minutes from Whitehorse. So on the way we stopped at a viewing point for Emerald Lake, which is a lake, as you can imagine, that the water is like this blue green color.

Meggan: Emerald.

Jenn: I almost like that. Yeah, so quite beautiful. Uh, and then we stopped at Carcross Desert, which was really cool. It is often called the world's smallest desert 'cause it is one square mile,

Meggan: Oh,

Jenn: it is not a real desert. Uh, 'cause it gets like too much moisture. So it can't technically be called a desert.

Meggan: so they just called it that for for fun or,

Jenn: I

Meggan: okay.

Jenn: sand. It's like all of a sudden it's this giant one square mile of sand.

Meggan: Adorable little desert

Jenn: Right. There's a sign that says like, Carcross Desert. Apparently people go sand boarding here on the dunes. Um, there are hikes [00:25:00] nearby that we did not do. and then the community of Carcross, which used to be called Caribou Crossing, and then they just like shorten that together.

Meggan: again. Adorable.

Jenn: Uh, so adorable has lots of little shops. Um, it's really, and it also has a, a different lake, really great place to explore. There's only about 300 people who live there, but like tour buses come, including cruise ship passengers, from nearby Skagway, Alaska. And then you can get a train from Skagway to Carcross, which looks really cool.

I'm sad that I didn't have time to do that.

Meggan: Or your passport maybe.

Jenn: Or I did have it,

Meggan: Oh you did?

Jenn: I always travel. Do you not

Meggan: No,

Jenn: with your passport even within can? Oh, I always travel with my passport.

Meggan: not losing that sucker if I don't need to. No way.

Jenn: I'm just like, but like, what if something happens and I want to, to do, I don't know. I just always have it. I don't wanna get [00:26:00] caught without

Meggan: I rarely fly in Canada though, so that's another I, we're always driving, so I haven't really thought of it, but I probably. I mean, I guess the last couple of times, no, I didn't. Look at you.

Jenn: That's so funny. Um, so then it was time to go home. So the, the airport in, in Whitehorse, as you can probably imagine, is quite small. So you do not need to show up too, too early to uh

Meggan: The rush isn't gonna happen.

Jenn: well, I know my friends, I was like. Oh, my flight was at 5:30. I was like, oh, well I think I should probably get there, um, by like 3:30.

And they were like, mm, no,

Meggan: Yeah.

Jenn: you could probably get there at 4:30 and be completely fine. And I was like, okay, I will compromise and get there at 4:00. Um, and it took me, I think, like two minutes to drop off. I did ha I did check a bag, so it took me two minutes to drop off the bag and like. 30, 45 [00:27:00] seconds to go through security and,

Meggan: They weren't lying.

Jenn: no, they literally weren't lying.

I was like, okay. They dropped me off and then I think I, I don't know what the timing was. I'd have to look at the text message just when I was like, oh, I'm already through. Okay. That wasn't very smart. Um, uh, but yeah, so I flew to Vancouver and then Vancouver to Halifax. So I left Saturday at. You know, 5:30, um, got home Sunday morning, exhausted.

I never sleep on planes. I slept for like an hour. And, um, we tried to land in Halifax. Um, we circled Halifax three times before we actually landed, and it was so foggy. That like you basically didn't see the ground until you were on it. And uh, so that was very stressful. I was, I was terrified they were gonna divert us, like to Moncton or

Meggan: Oh,

Jenn: was like, if I, if I don't get home today, I'm [00:28:00] going to have a mental breakdown.

Meggan: I know exactly what you mean. You've been on that plane overnight for so long and just like this cannot be happening.

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully we landed, everything was fine, but yeah, by the, the second, um, like abandoned landing attempt, I was like, oh my God, I'm never gonna get home.

Meggan: Aw. Well, I'm glad you did.

Jenn: I did, I did. Yeah. Yeah.

Meggan: overall thoughts about Whitehorse, the Yukon? Talk to us about that.

Jenn: Yeah, like overall, I loved it. I absolutely loved Whitehorse and the Yukon and it was really funny when I was, you know, meeting people there, my friend was like, yo, you know, this is my friend Jenn. She's visiting from Nova Scotia. And they, most of them would ask, oh, so when are you gonna move here? And I like, totally get that because so many people visit, um, you know, they go there for school or they go up there for work, which is what my friend did, and they fall in love and I completely see why like, it's a really special [00:29:00] place and there's a university there. So there's a lot of people from like all walks of life, all ages, um, around, and my friend said that it was actually like pretty easy for them to find their, you know, like community of, of people and friends there, which is really awesome and not always easy to do when you move somewhere new. Um, so I, I can't see myself ever moving there, especially my husband would never, um, and I would, I I would not enjoy it so much in the winter

Meggan: No.

Jenn: think. But, uh, it, it is a really special place.

Meggan: Wonderful. Now talk to us like you mentioned Snow briefly, and obviously it is, it was still early-ish, may, so what was that like in terms of temperatures? Good time for people to go? No. Yes,

Jenn: Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, it was early to mid May. I think it was a good time to go in terms of temperature. So most days it was like got up to like 10 or 15 Celsius, so like [00:30:00] 50 or 60 Fahrenheit, which is like completely tolerable, right? Um, yeah, it did snow of course that first day. But, um, it, it was getting close to the summer solstice, obviously.

So I did not see darkness almost the entire time I was there, except for one night I got up at 1:30, I woke up at 1:30 and I was like, I'm gonna look outside just to like. Look at the darkness 'cause I haven't seen it in a few days and it wasn't even all the way dark

Meggan: Yeah. Yeah,

Jenn: Right. So that was my first time experiencing that.

I know that you've been in Iceland around summer solstice and it, it is strange. Yeah. Yeah. The downside to that, of course, it, it is too light outside to see the northern light, so that's not something you can do. So if that is something that's important to you, you really need to visit between like late August and mid April. , I definitely wanna go back. I actually do want to go back more in the [00:31:00] winter to A, see the Northern lights and b do like more of like the dog sledding type of thing. Looks really cool. Um, but then on the other hand, like there's so many hikes that I want, like spots that I wanna explore too. I hope that my husband will get to come with me someday. yeah, it really highlighted for me, I think, how amazing. It can be to get away from like typical Canadian destinations.

Meggan: I get that for sure. And honestly, to me it sounds amazing. Obviously very nature oriented, which I love. So can you tell me, if you can narrow it down, what did you love most about your trip Is something that you saw or did or learned that was completely unexpected?

Jenn: I think that it was really nice to like dip my toe in, like working from other places and having it go well and being like, okay, that is an option of something that I can do in the future., I think that I was really like, [00:32:00] It was like a, also a dipping my toe in like solo traveling a little bit.

You know, my one day that I took the car and like did things by myself. 'cause that's not something that I normally do at all. I mean, I, you know, in my own town I'll go out by myself, but like in general, I don't travel alone. So that was really interesting. Um, and yeah, the mountains there. This landscape is so, so beautiful. Um, I, I texted my friend at one point and was like, I don't know how anybody here gets any work done. 'cause I just wanna stare at the mountains all day.

Meggan: Right. I can see that.

Jenn: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, overall just like super beautiful, super lovely, and I hope that I get to go back someday soon.

Meggan: No. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for sharing your trip with us. I am sure that you've inspired people to consider the Yukon, maybe even if they've never thought of it before. 'cause it does sound wonderful. For our listeners, stay tuned to our social media. You [00:33:00] could probably tune in right now as you're listening to this first episode and check out some of Jenn's pictures.

She'll be sharing with us for a few weeks on our socials, and I can't personally wait to see them as well. Um, as always, you can find us at our website, travel mug podcast.com, on social media at Travel Mug Podcast, and support the show if you would like by buying us a coffee with the link in our show notes.

Or leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. That helps us as well, if you like what we are doing here. Uh, until next time, save travels and bye.

Jenn: Bye.