As much as any father loves traveling and spending time with their family, once in a while every dad deserves to skip town for a little time alone or with just their friends. With Father’s Day on the horizon, now is the time to start dropping hints about what you would like for a gift. To make your choice a little easier, here are three of the manliest destinations in the country that most dads would love to be sent to.
Disclosure: This post includes sponsored links, but the opinions expressed are solely that of the author.
1. The Ultimate Man Cave
The Cloister – from now on to be referred to as the Man Cave — in Sea Island, Georgia, is probably the manliest place you can pay to spend a night. Not only is the Man Cave surrounded by three 18-hole golf courses (one of which is home to the PGA tour’s McGladrey Classic), it is also offers a shooting club with trap, skeet, and a clay sport-shooting field. If you do all of this and are still looking for more outdoor activities, there is also sea kayaking as well as on and off shore fishing for mackerel, cobia, barracuda, and sailfish. Can you feel your chest hair growing? Wait until you hear about what is inside.
In this hotel, the amenities go beyond your typical fitness club and cable TV. After you have finished gallivanting around the outdoors, you may want to check out the smoking lounge – don’t worry it isn’t one of the dingy ones you see in airports. In the Cloister’s smoking room you will find beautifully upholstered leather chairs and couches, knowledgeable cigar sommeliers, a vast assortment of cigars, and a plethora of fine cognacs, wines, single malt scotches, and other drinks. After a long day of fishing, golfing, and shooting, you and your friend can lounge around in men’s robes and enjoy the finer things in life. With all of these macho activities and amenities located only a short trip from Jacksonville and Savannah, you have no excuse not to grab a few buddies and head over to the Cloister for a weekend of dignified decadence.
2. The BIG Bar
If you come here, don’t even think about ordering a small. The BIG Bar at the Hyatt in Chicago is home to the longest freestanding bar in the world (160 feet) and it also has two of the largest suspended plasma TVs in the country. The bar’s drink menu is also oversized, with more than 1,400 options ranging from 32 oz. beers and 48 oz. cocktails, all the way to 106 ounce table top drinks for you to share with your buddies.
If you are feeling a bit woozy after conquering one of the giant drinks, you can chow down on an order of jumbo shrimp, BBQ chicken nachos, or you can order wings by the pound. For dessert, consider the huge chocolate lemon meringue tarts or an enormous slice of apple pie.
If you get tired of watching the game on the oversized TV’s, there are stunning views of downtown Chicago right out the window. With all of the enormous… well, everything, the BIG Bar is one of the ultimate manly getaways.
3. Beer Touring in Portland, Oregon
If you do a Google Maps search for micro-breweries in Portland, there will be so many red markers you will think the map has chicken pox. In fact, Portland has more brewers per capita than any other city. With companies like Gigantic, Coalition, Lompoc, Hopworks, Basecamp, and dozens of other breweries all offering tours, Portland is a wonderful place for beer lovers.
Spending a rainy day hopping from one brewery to another can be a great way to explore the city while sampling some of the finest suds. If you want to let someone else do the planning, consider signing up for an organized tour of the city’s brew houses. There are many options ranging from tours focused on the brewing process, to tours that are focused on the drinking process. If you are with a group of pals who already know what breweries they want to go to, you may want to rent out a limo or party van for an afternoon. This way, you can easily bounce from one tour to another, grabbing cold ones the whole way.
Even though you may end up squeezing into your daughter’s bunny slippers just to make her laugh, that doesn’t mean you can’t reclaim your manliness. Now that you know about these testosterone inducing destinations like The Cloister, BIG Bar, and a beer lover’s paradise, you can start planning your getaway.
