Everything they say is possible in the Happiest Place on Earth and America‘s most cosmic state but Florida really does promise the Moon, particularly this weekend.
As the four Artemis II astronauts head home after travelling farther from Earth than anyone in history.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is inviting holidaymakers to enjoy a space adventure of their own – in Florida!
Where their mission started at the start of this month from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39B.
And where we’ve been seeing those out of this world pictures and feeds.
Now while the showcase transport at Kennedy is obviously the rocket it is reassuring to see that there will always be a need for the humble bus.
And your Kennedy Space Center Bus Tour will take guests behind the gates of America’s most storied spaceport.
And offer you an up‑close look at the restricted areas where space history has been – and continues to be – made.
Guests travel through NASA’s working launch facilities.
Passing the Vehicle Assembly Building and the Launch Complex 39 – the very site from which Artemis II astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen left Earth.
Then there is The Gantry at LC‑39, a reimagined observation gantry offering 360° views across active launch pads.
And NASA’s working spaceport, placing guests at the heart of the action.
Build your own rocket
To infinity and beyond: Buzz for kids & big kids
Visitors can design and virtually launch their own rocket at the Rocket Build Interactive, feel the intensity of a Test Fire Simulation.
For a glimpse what lies ahead, Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex showcases the spacecraft, missions and innovations defining the next era of exploration.
Guests can explore a range of modern spacecraft, interact with robotic explorers, peer into the James Webb Holotube, and board Spaceport KSC.
For one of four motion‑theatre ‘journeys’ to destinations such as Mars, Saturn and the Horsehead Nebula.
Thrillseekers can push the experience even further with the New Shepard Flight to Space simulator, the and Hyperdeck VR Mission Moon.
Which is a high‑intensity, multi‑sensory virtual reality adventure which sees four players compete with one another in a race across the lunar surface.
And all for very little of your Earth money
One giant leap: And this could be you
And new for 2026 is Fraggle Rock: A Space-y Adventure.
An original live show that brings the Fraggles face-to-face with NASA’s real-life space explorers.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex also offers the closest public viewing of live rocket launches.
Giving guests the chance to witness real spacecraft lift-off from just a few miles away.
And all of this without breaking your piggy bank of earth money, with single-day admission at $77 per adult, $67 per child.
And a two-day ticket available for $91 per adult and $81 per child.For more information on Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
And to mark the Irish national airline carrier’s opening of a new route to the capital of the Scottish Highlands we trust some will claim that they have seen the Loch Ness MonstAer.
Only there is no such creature, and there I’ve said it, although there are no shortage of fluffy merch toys.
As we found out on a visit to the Loch Ness Centre where the Son and Heir left the glove puppet soothing toy he carried everywhere.
Among all the other Nessies.
Of course, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was the fabled Loch Ness Monster which put Inverness and its environs on the tourist map.
When, in fact, word of the beauty of the Scottish Highlands had long been known.
From forays from friend and foe alike over the century.
With no less a chronicler than Samuel Johnson waxing lyrical about its beauties on his 1775 A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland.
Walking in Boswell and Johnson’s footsteps
Witchcraft: Macbeth country
Johnson commented on the diction of the Invernessians, to this day praised as close to ‘Queen’s English.’
Saying ‘The soldiers seem to have incorporated afterwards with the inhabitants.
‘And to have peopled the place with an English race.
‘For the language of this town has been long considered as peculiarly elegant.’
Johnson and Boswell were much taken by Inverness Castle, reputed home of Macbeth, and a particular fort nearby.
‘It was no very capacious edifice, but stands upon a rock so high and steep, that I think it was once not accessible.
‘But by the help of ladders, or a bridge.
‘Over against it, on another hill, was a fort built by Cromwell, now totally demolished.
‘For no faction of Scotland loved the name of Cromwell, or had any desire to continue his memory.’
All of which will be music to newbie Irish visitors to Inverness.
With the famously warty religious zealot no friend of our Celtic cousins either.
When we got our Erse kicked
Castle in the Aer: Inverness Castle down below
Today’s Inverness Castle may be different than the one B&J visited but you’ll still be able to take in the atmosphere on your visit.
Johnson goes somewhat off track though here.
With the kind of demeaning and belittling descriptions of the Invernessians which would have him cancelled today.
Although he helpfully reminds us that the Highlands and Islands is the home of the Gaelic or Erse language.
And stop giggling there at the back.
‘There is I think a kirk, in which only the Erse language is used, he notes.
‘There is likewise an English chapel, but meanly built, where on Sunday we saw a very decent congregation.’
Go West
Spooky: Traitors Castle
B&J seemingly don’t linger in Inverness, preferring to get on their journey to the remote Hebrides.
Saying: ‘At Inverness we procured three horses for ourselves and a servant, and one more for our baggage, which was no very heavy load.
‘We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare.
‘For it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags, and treading bogs.
‘And winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burthen.’
Bonnie Prince Charlie’s last stand
Battle weary: Charlie at Culloden
Why B&J chose not to visit the site of the last battle on British soil, at nearby Culloden in 1746, we never learn.
Although it might still have been too raw.
But you can, and learn about the fate of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how he too fled to the Western Isles.
And you can put money on Jessie Buckley gushing about being a mum in her Oscars acceptance speech, and while Hamnet is a tour de force, here are our five fab films for Mother’s Day.
With a nod, of course, to the mumdoms where they ruled the roost.
Let’s start at the very beginning
The parent Von Trapp: In Austria
The Sound of Music: And if a mother’s love is unconditional then all the more credit for women who take on another man’s children.
From the Pueblos of New Mexico to the Hualapai Nation in Arizona and the 39 distinct Tribal Nations in Oklahoma.
The road is a gateway to a vibrant, modern Indigenous landscape.
With Sherry L. Rupert (Paiute/Washoe), CEO of the American Indigenous Tourism Association painting another picture.
‘For too long, our stories were treated as an afterthought or a marketing gimmick. The American Indigenous Tourism Association is proud to provide the tools for travelers to journey with intention.
‘Honouring the sovereignty and resilience of the Native Nations who remain the heartbeat of the Mother Road.’
And your Indian guides
Know your history: Stops along the way
With the centre of the initiative AIT’s guidebook, American Indians and Route 66 originally published for the 90th anniversary in 2016.
This comprehensive travel guide, created in partnership with the National Park Service is funded in part by the National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program.
It provides historical context on the road’s impact – both the economic opportunities and the challenges of land displacement – and offers travelers essential etiquette for visiting tribal lands.
Digital footpring
To support the centennial, AIT has launched dedicated digital resources to help travellers plan their Indigenous-focused road trip:
Dedicated Route 66 Portal:Visitors can access a wealth of historical materials, trip-planning guides, and educational resources.
Route 66 Events: Discover ways to celebrate this road-tripping milestone with Only in Your State, the official publishing partner of the Route 66 Centennial.
Of course, she will remain forever ageless but this year they’ll be lighting 100 candles for Marilyn in La-La Land.
Like Bertie Taupin, who wrote the immortal lines for Elton John, I never knew you at all but like the millions of other Marilyn fans.
But I have managed to get as close that anyone now can by visiting your last resting place in Los Angeles.
Marilyn is, of course, all around us but nowhere more so than in LA.
Where you’re always likely to bump into her around the Walk of Fame or anywhere around Hollywood.
But because you can never get too much of a good thing we’re taking you today on our Marilyn tour.
With these whistlestop locations where you can pay homage to the Great Woman.
S0mething new
Still blowing up a storm: Marilyn’s famous move
The Academy Museum’s Marilyn Monroe: Hollywood Icon is a new exhibition that will celebrate Marilyn Monroe as a visionary actor and image-maker, opening on May 31.
The exhibition will display hundreds of original objects, including posters, portraits, photographs, production documents, letters.
Where she put her signature, hand and shoe prints into cement at the famed Forecourt of the Stars.
While Marilyn’s Walk of Fame star is just a block away at 6774 Hollywood Blvd.
Marilyn’s maisons
Home run: For Joe
So, you want to channel Marilyn where she actually lived, then the landmark Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel was Marilyn Monroe’s home for two years.
Just as her modelling career began to take off.
Marilyn stayed in one of the vintage 1950s Cabanas at the time of her first professional magazine shoot, at the Tropicana Pool.
The 750sqft Marilyn Monroe Suite features a loft-like open floor plan, kitchenette, and a balcony that overlooks the pool.
While Marilyn lived at the Beverly Hills Hotel, or ‘Pink Palace, several times during her career.
Marinade with Marilyn
Norma Jean: The original
And where she wined and dined too.
In the Fifties, Marilyn and Joe and Elizabeth Taylor, and Steve McQueen were just a few of the Hollywood legends that enjoyed drinks and appetizers in the Back Room of Musso & Frank Grill.
For their classic steakhouse fare and famous Martinis.
While the Formosa Cafe was famously billed as the place where ‘the stars dine.’
Its interior was lined with hundreds of autographed photos of its famous patrons.
Including Marilyn, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, James Dean, Humphrey Bogart, Marlon Brando, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Most of Marilyn’s movies were created at the historic FOX Studio Lot located in Century City and while this isn’t open to the public, visitors can head to the nearby Paramount Studio Tour for a look behind the scenes.
When young Marilyn (then Norma Jeane Mortenson) lived in Los Angeles Orphans Home Society, it is said she would look out her window at the water tower of RKO Studios (now Paramount Studios) and dream of stardom.
And a Who’s Who of pop culture, including Marilyn, Truman Capote, Farrah Fawcett, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Dean Martin, Roy Orbison, Natalie Wood, Frank Zappa and many more.
Now we know that Marilyn, who is interred in a pink marble crypt (no. 24).
At the Corridor of Memories, has an unsavoury neighbour there in Hugh Hefner.
But we’d rather dwell on Joe DiMaggio’s enduring love, where he had a half-dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week for the next 20 years.
Why not do the same this year on her 100th birthday.
Major airlines fly out to LA and as we always recommend, flights out of Ireland come with pre-clearance and Aer Lingus will get you there direct.
Where you can take in views of the Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, and One World Trade Centre.
The two-and-a-half-hour cruise features a chef-prepared buffet, live DJ entertainment, a fully stocked bar, and open-air rooftop decks. Prices start from £63pp.
Out on the Great Lakes
Chicago-go-go: Taking in the Second City
If that whets your appetite, and you are in some of these other great American cities, be our guests and go cruising.
On Lake Michigan, with a chef-prepared buffet on a two-and-a-half-hour cruise taking in panoramic views.
Where your three-and-a-half to four-hour adventure will give you the chance to spot Grey, Blue, Minke, and Fin Whales, along with dolphins, sea lions, and marine birds.
Expert narrators from the San Diego Natural History Museum provide live commentary. Prices start from £50pp.
And again we say Washington deserves a guided tour and so do you, and particularly this America 250 year.
And continuing our mission to mark the centenary of the Great Old Road, d’oh, it has to be Springfield on Route 66.
The most famous of the 41 Springfields across the USA on account of it being the spiritual home and final resting place of Abraham Lincoln.
It is, of course, in Illinois, so you don’t even have to venture too far, 180 miles or three hours, from the Route 66 starting point in Chicago either.
And The Great Liberator will be waiting for you there too.
The best way to get around is with your free Explorer Passport and let your Abe’s Hat Hunt & Route 66 Living Legends of Springfield Adventure begin.
Kicks on Route 66
What a ride: The Illinois State Fairgrounds
Now Abe, of course, belongs to the ages and Oak Ridge Cemetery, where he is buried since 1965, and since with Mary and three of their four children.
Which means that he predated the Mother Road by 61 years, although as a great moderniser and lover of technology, we’d imagine he would have taken to the thoroughfare.
In prep for this big year twelve new Wayside Exhibits were installed in 2024.
With several boasting audio stories to allow travellers to hear from the legends of the road, or current proprietors and their story.
Mother Road in miniature
Food for thought: And Corn Dogs
We’ve picked out The Illinois State Fairgrounds Route 66 Experience.
The Route 66 Experience takes visitors on a walkthrough of the highlights of all 421 miles and 92 communities on Illinois Route 66.
This condensed version of The Mother Road starts at the Route 66 Begins sign in Chicago and ends at the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge in Madison, with photos, neon signs, informative displays, and replica roadside attractions in between.
Route 66 stops in Springfield include Cozy Dog Drive In (home of the corn dog), the Route 66 Drive In Theater, Mahan’s Filling Station, Lauterbach Giant.
Spell it out: Illinois joy
And the newly restored Sonrise Donuts Sign at Route 66 Motorheads & Ace Sign Co. Museum.
Of course, all the hard work traversing the Mother Road between Chicago and Santa Monica will be worth it with all these diversions en route.
And with Chicago and LA obviously major airline hubs we’ll leave you to do the homework to get the best air deals and accommodation along the way.
