Stranded in Santorini, Soaked in NOLA: Making the Best of Bad Weather

And a giveaway to celebrate a major milestone. 🎉

Welcome back to Departure, the weekly newsletter focused on slow travel, quiet travel, and travel for women. I’m beaming today because we officially reach 4,000 subscribers, and that is no small feat.

To celebrate, I’m awarding one reader a $100 gift card to the vendor of their choice. To enter: Like this post and comment with a bucket list destination you hope to see in your lifetime. Winner to be announced next edition. And as always, thank you for your ongoing support. 💕

I originally hoped to do a feature this week on sleep and jet lag as I’ve tested out products for months, but the sources I heard from weren’t at the quality I wanted. So, I’ll be pushing that piece back until I can speak to more qualified experts. In the meantime…

How to Make the Best of Bad Weather

Last weekend, we made the seven hour drive to New Orleans, only to be hit with nonstop thunderstorms and flash flooding. The next three days were more of the same: Heavy rains, cancelled plans, and taking care of a pup deeply afraid of fireworks. The journey back home was similar to the drive there, wipers on full speed, hazard lights blinking, unable to see more than ten or twenty feet ahead of us.

It turns out, the weather was from a powerful El Niño forming, stretching hundreds of miles across the Eastern side of the United States. (This feels wildly underreported for how many people it’s affecting.) Causes aside—read: climate change—rainy weather can affect our travel plans, but it doesn’t have to make or break them.

Between this trip, the time we were hit by a Mediterranean hurricane in Santorini and stranded for several days, and a very wet few days in Miami on a friend’s milestone birthday trip, I am no stranger to shifting plans and finding new things to do. Keep these activities handy for the next time the weather isn’t going your way:

1. Live Like a Local

By this, I mean: Head to the nearest grocery store and peruse the aisles; grab new-to-you foods to try. Find a laundromat to throw in a load and chat with locals as you wait. Stop by a covered food hall and snack your way through the booths. Head to a nearby brewery and watch a sports game with the regulars.

(This could also be a good time to test drive the Google “Ask Maps” feature! Prompt it to create a rainy day itinerary across your destination.)

Ultimately, immerse yourself in their rhythms and ways of life: This is often one of the best practices of “slow travel” we try to do anyway.

2. Treat Your Time Like a Staycation

Because our most recent trip was our eighth (!) time in New Orleans, we didn’t feel too bad about staying in bed or taking luxuriously long afternoon naps as it stormed outside. If the hotel had had a spa, I probably would’ve booked a massage.

Maybe if you’re staying somewhere with a fireplace or a library, you can situate yourself in a cozy corner for the afternoon. Order room service, baby! Catch up on your sleep, your reading, your Netflix queue, your Nintendo Switch games.

Not all travel has to be exploratory; sometimes, it can simply offer a chance to breathe and step away from your day-to-day life.

3. Stop by Museums & Cultural Landmarks

This one seems the most obvious, I know, but my husband and I have really fallen in love with museums lately. We’ve visited six in the last few months, and every single one has been a worthwhile use of time—especially those that nod to a destination’s local culture or community.

Don’t sleep on niche museums either—we’ve stepped foot into one-room collections that we still talk about years later, like the Jazz Museum in Harlem or the Voodoo Museum in NOLA. You can find museums or landmarks near your location via the local tourism website, Atlas Obscura or the Niche Museums directory. (Just check their business hours before you head over.)

If you’re not a museum person, maybe you can find a local cinema that has subtitles, watch a live music set by a local band, or pop in and out of boutiques in a shopping district just to understand the arts and goods made in the area.

4. Book a Class or Learn a New Skill

In the pandemic, we became big fans of Airbnb’s online experiences. If you don’t feel like leaving your hotel room (fair), you can still learn something new via an online tour or on YouTube. If you’re with friends or family, try a PowerPoint party or skill-sharing together.

If you can brave the weather, consider a last-minute class that often have cancellations or allow drop-in attendance: Cooking classes, pottery workshops, spray paint tutorials. CourseHorse and Eventbrite are great for finding these, as well as the Events Calendar for most city websites. (Another tip: Find cool spaces or classes you want to check out on social media the weeks before you go, and they’ll often share last-minute openings or opportunities there.)

5. Give Into the Rain

Listen, I’m not above a moody moment, where you can lean into your feelings:

iykyk

Frankly, some destinations are more beautiful in hazy or rainy weather: Amsterdam, Thailand, Seattle. So if you’re willing to get a little wet, take a walk in the rain anyway and enjoy the moment.

Walk slowly and with intention: What might you notice about a city’s infrastructure? What food or drink is this city known for when craving warmth and coziness? Are you experiencing a unique micro-climate? How might rain affect tourism more broadly?

If ambling outside with an umbrella isn’t of interest, perhaps you can divert to a local onsen or bathhouse where the sound of rain lets you unwind and relax. See also: #2, staycation.

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I still get frustrated by plans thwarted by bad weather—I had a vision in mind, darn it! But I also appreciate that it gives us permission to slow down and simmer in the moment. And I hope that reframe is worth considering on your next trip, too.

PS: This is a good time to mention how invaluable travel insurance can be, especially if you have coverage for hurricane and weather conditions, or Cancel for Any Reason/Interruption for Any Reason policies. May you never have to use it, but better to be prepared.

• 🎧 During the drier hours of the road trip home, my husband and I listened to Who Blew Up the Guidestones? from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. If you’re looking for an intriguing mystery to uncover over the span of a few hours, this is it. It reminded me of S-Town, and you’ll hear about everything from the KKK to eugenics to QAnon in here. (And yes, the end is satisfying.)

• 🚗 Speaking of road trips: When I was eight years old, my family embarked on a three-week trip across the States. My parents removed the middle seat to give my brother and me some space to splay out and play on the long drives, and it became a core memory. This Texas Highway piece about a family traversing 3,000 miles all over Texas was deeply nostalgic and brought a smile to my face. Insert a corny ChatGPT line about how maybe the age-old question isn’t, “Are we there yet?” but that about the journey instead.

• ✈️ Still hoping to book a flight this year? Going shared the top cities where affordable flights have been most consistent over the last year. Some of my favorite trips were based on last-minute deals, so it’s never bad idea to scope out.

• 🪒 In an effort to stop buying laser hair removal sessions, I purchased this at-home device and have been pretty happy with the results! A year later, and my legs can go up to a week now without shaving. It’s not cheap, but it’s definitely cheaper than laser packages… and much less painful, private, and easy to use as we kick off summer.

• 🥲 An oldie but a goodie: “Travel isn’t always pretty.”

In the next week, I’ll be traveling to Florida, New York, and back to Europe—wish me luck, and I’ll see you then! x —Henah

you know what they say about april showers… // shanghai on film, spring 2026