u/thepokemomma

I’m a mom to a soon to be high schooler and their first band camp is coming up and I saw the schedule and it’s just 2hrs a day (5 days a week for 3 full weeks) that’s spent outside. I see lots of other states do sleep away band camps or 12hr day band camps with at least twice that amount of time spent actually marching.
I always heard Tx is the most intense when it comes to marching band (along w Indiana) but how can they be so much “better” than other places but with way less time they’re allowed to practice

Also, what is a normal amount for a flight like that on ZipAir? I’m not sure what is the average or what’s outside of the norm.
Would prefer the lay flat seats. Is that a thing out of Tx airports?

Or should I just cut my stay in town to just 1 night and stay 3 nights in Alexandria?

Never been to the VA area but I want to to take advantage of a few days on my first solo trip while I wait for my kid to complete 5 days of a summer camp before flying back to Tx.

It’s oppressively hot and humid in Tx in July so by then I likely will have not spent any time out in nature since May so I would ideally like to spend a few hours enjoying the outdoors. Are there any nice river trails one can rent and ride a bike or walk down or nice areas with walkable coffee shops and such? I’m fine if I need to drive within an hour. Any easy hikes with scenic views?

When we visit family in Puerto Rico my teen son lives off of pinchos and I didn’t know they were a thing in Costa Rica too so now I’m glad I can always find something my kid will reliably eat while there.

We’ve never been to Costa Rica and honestly hadn’t even considered going just yet but always wanted to at some point in the future. So zero prior research into the area (before yesterdays very small research right when I bought the plane tickets just to be sure I was comfortable with the airbb and food and rental car prices).

It’s last minute because originally I was going to take a last minute trip to Puerto Rico (have some family there and go there once a year or two). It was going to cost $8000 total to go but right before I pushed the button on the flight tickets I decided to try out Google flights Beta feature that I guess uses AI to search for flights if you put in your date range and finds deals for you. The cheapest tickets anywhere in the world for me for the dates (because my only days off are end of May and that’s super soon) were randomly for Liberia airport. 3 round trip tickets for $1050 when my PR flight was going to cost twice that. And then Airbnb’s were half as expensive in Costa Rica as well.

With a small window of time to find where are the ideal two places to split our stay between I’m wondering what all of you think? I keep reading that La Fortuna is a popular spot. Is there a beach town that would be a good fit?
We like to do little day trip excursions like snorkeling, waterfalls, horseback riding. Were more likely to want most of our days to include at least one activity and less of our days to include just lounging at airbb or beach though one maybe two days of that.