If you had three to four weeks off and could travel anywhere, where would you
choose to go, how would you choose to go there and why?

17 responses total.

I'd like to tour Europe. I have been to the UK, but never to the 
continent. All of our family roots go back to there. 
Edinburgh (Scotland), Shropshire (England), Budapest (Hungary), Haunas 
(Lithuania), Minsk (Belarus) in particular.

It would be hard to consider doing that without seeing some of the great 
capitals in between, like Paris, Rome, etc.

I would also want to spend time in Israel, because I have religious ties 
to that place. 

Fortunately , you gave me 4 weeks. I would probably fly a lot of short 
hops and spend a lot of time tooling around in a car. that would 
be the way to do it in America, but in Europe, maybe it makes 
more sense to use a railpass.

I actually spent 4 weeks traveling around Ireland.  (It's about the same size
as Michigan)  I used bus/train pass and hitch-hiked too.  I liked not having
a set of planes to catch, and constant time-pressure to move on to the next
city on my list.  I really got a chance to meet people, talk to them, and let
them suggest great adventures that I wouldnt have had just driving around in
a car.  

At this point in my life I'd actually confine myself to travelling within my
own country.  It seems odd that my friends who are international students have
seen more of this country than I have.  One month would barely be enough to
drive up and down the Eastern seaboard of the United States but it'd be a
start.  Eventually find time to see the rest of the country, and then think
about international pursuits, not only Europe but also the Far East.

That is if I could have 4 weeks every five to ten years or so.

Right. Good choice, Amy. I am a generation ahead of you, and so I have 
been to a lot of great destinations in the USA already. Even I have more 
of that to do, though, and so my international travel will wait a bit.

I am planning to visit the Southwest sometime this spring, expecting to 
visit the Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, Canyonlands, and whatever else I 
can fit into the time allotted. I will need my hiking boots.

Fit in Mesa Verde.

It's in the right part of Colorado. I'll give Mesa verde a look.

With four weeks, I'd probably either do that part of the Middle East that
would tolerate me -- Israel, Jordan and Turkey -- or I'd follow a long-held
silly dream and go on an animal-petting tour of Australia. :)

That sounds like fun. Naomi. Israel is on our list for a future 
vacation. This one is only two weeks, not four. 

Did you say animal-petting tour of Australia?

Hmm, where would I go on a 4-week vacation [re:0]. That's a good question.
I'd love to spend some time in Ireland as I hear its a beautiful place and
I still have some relatives there.  But I'd also like to spend some more time
seeing the states, too. In the 'ideal' world, I think it'd be cool to have
an RV, so we wouldn't have to rely on hotels and could come and go as we'd
like.  4 weeks isn't really much time to see the whole country, so it'd have
to be done in a region at a time. 20some years ago, I was on a trip where we
drove up to the UP, drove the northern part of the country [with a slight
southern detour to S.Dakota], to Seattle, south through Oregon and CA [as far
south as just below LA] and then back to MI through the middle of the country.
Though we 'saw' a lot while driving each day, my ex really didn't want to stop
and actually explore [with the exception of a few hours in SD, 2-3 days in
Seattle visiting a cousin, and several days in the LA area with more
relatives]. We did stop briefly at the Grand Canyon; I wanted to explore but
he didn't. Sigh.]

 It's very important, before setting out on a road trip someone,
 to figure out if you're compatible road trip companions.  For
 example I'm a "hey, that looks interesting, let's stop!" road
 tripper.  I cannot travel long distance in the same car as my
 father who is a stop-for-nothing point-to-pointer.

 If I'd been on the road trip above with Denise and her ex, 
 the ex *would* have seen more of the canyon -- because by that
 point in the trip I'd've pushed him off the edge.

 I'm not sure whether the "I just want to get there" road trippers
 find it as annoying to travel with me as I do with them, but it's
 a real advantage to travel with someone whose sightseeing impulses
 are in sync with your own.

-- 

  Here's a story about travelling with my father that he probably
  doesn't even remember.  First off, I have to explain that we
  didn't road-trip much in my family, at least not by the time I
  was born.  I'm the seventh of eight kids and you can imagine
  the logistics of organizing a road trip for a family of that
  size.  When I was born my family lived in Chicago and my parents
  used to take one vacation a year, to a lakeside resort camp in
  northern Wisconsin, which they would manage by wedging every
  child present into the family station wagon (my brother Kevin
  and I, as the youngest and therefore smallest, were seated in
  the space behind the station wagon's third row of seats, which
  I think may mean technically we rode in the spare tire well.)

  So anyways, road trips were rare when I was small.  But one year,
  when I was around 12 or 13 (which would make this the very early
  80s) my father had to travel to Florida to take a deposition in
  a case he was working on and decided to turn the occasion into a
  family vacation and a visit to my mother's sister Shirley, who
  lived with her husband and their family in Indian River, FL.
  Bob was retired from NASA, where he'd been a fixture since the
  early days of the space program.  He'd started with NASA before
  they'd moved to Florida, I believe in Huntsville, Alabama.

  We had a nice visit with Shirley and Bob, and as it turned out,
  on the day we were scheduled to leave Indian River there was a
  space shuttle launch scheduled for sometime late in the morning
  or early in the afternoon -- I can't remember which.  Our plans
  for the day were to drive across the Florida peninsula and south
  somewhat to head to Marco Island, FL, which was where Dad's
  deposition was to be taken, but the deposition was scheduled
  for later in the week, the only thing on our schedule was
  driving across the state and getting to Marco Island and checking
  into our hotel.  Bob offered to see whether he could get us 
  some sort of access to an observation place where there was a
  good view of the launch, but here's where Dad's "I've got a 
  schedule for this trip and I'm not gonna deviate from it"
  stubbornness came into play.  He'd planned on leaving at 8:00 AM
  sharp and by golly he was going to leave at 8:00 AM, space
  shuttle or no space shuttle.  The killer line from my standpoint
  as a bitterly disappointed science-loving teen came when he
  suggested, quite seriously, that we could watch out the rear
  window of the car at about the launch time and possibly see the
  space shuttle ascending into orbit.   

  So now that I'm old enough to have alternatives..  I simply won't
  travel with someone who won't stop or won't adjust the schedule
  to take advantage of newly discovered opportunities.  Life is too
  short to spend it rushing from place to place, especially if your
  goal is no more than to get where you're going as soon as you can.
  What kind of fun is that?

I'm in total agreement, Mike; travellers need to be compatible... And I wishe
I *had* pushed my ex into the canyon; it would've saved a lot of heartache.
As we were planning this trip [which was our honeymoon], he agreed to a number
of things that never panned out [for example, we had bought along a tent to
do some camping along the way, maybe at some state parks or something. But
did we ever actually camp? Of course not.]  We had some other issues on that
trip, too. It definitely was a sign that the marriage wouldn't last.

I'm from a big family, too; I'm 5th of 7 kids and we also had a cousin that
lived with us for a few years, too.  So our main summer vacations were to my
grandmother's cottage on Lake Huron, just north of Port Huron. And all of our
stuff, plus all of us and  the dog would be packed in like sardines.  My Dad,
too, was one of those get there without stopping, too. There was one trip he
and I went on--after I found out that I was going to go to NC to do my
internship at Duke, he actually offered to go down with me to find an
apartment ahead of when I would actually drive down there myself to live.
Though we took 2 days to get there [instead of doing the 12-14 hours in one
day], while we were actually there, he didn't want to do any sightseeing at
all. He didn't even want to check out the hospital where I'd be working. And
it took a lot of convincing to get him to go see some friends of mine from
MI that had moved down south about a year before I did [and then when we did
go, he wanted to leave almost right away].

Another trip that went somewhat astray: my sister and I were going to go out
to CA--to do some sightseeing and to see some relatives. However, she had
recently graduated from law school and had taken several trips out of state
for job interviews, so she backed out. I had been in touch with an old high
school friend through the mail [she had moved out to CO]; she said she wanted
to go with me. So the plan was for me to fly to Denver where she would pick
me up from the airport... And we'd drive the rest of the way to CA, stopping
at some of the state/national parks to and from CA.  Well, to start things
off, she crashed her car on the way to the airport. Though she totaled her
vehicle, she ended up being ok and she still wanted to go. So we got a flight
to LA and rented a car.  The first couple days we stayed with some relatives
[to whom she was very rude to].  And for the whole time we were there, she
wanted to use the rental car to go look for work and apartments [never did
she say ahead of time that she was even interested in looking for work and
moving to CA]. She said that I could have my relatives show me around. Wrong!
I insisted we do the things we had agreed upon ahead of time; I wasn't about
to just sit around while she looked for work [my relatives all worked during
the day so my friend and I were on our own for day-today entertainment]. So
the next day, we did go to the Santa Monica beach to hang out but she
disapperated for a long time, thinking she'd check out the area on foot.
However, she decided she had enough and decided to fly back to CO the next
day... We *were* going to travel around for 2 weeks, each paying a week's
worth of renting the car, but she ended up leaving after 2 days. Good
riddance!  I actually did enjoy doing some exploring on my own plus visiting
some a cousin and his wife south of LA, and an aunt and uncle a couple hours
north.  But do to not getting help on the rental car from my 'friend', I ended
up having to fly home after a week.  Back home to the reality of my bad
marriage [though right after that trip, we did separate for a bit and a couple
months later I had moved out completely and divorced him.

So yes, we need to make sure that we're compatible with our traveling
companions or go on our own. I've done that a couple times, too, and thorouly
[oops, thoroughly] enjoyed it both times.

re #0
We try to do that at least once a year.  This year, we're planning to hit
England, Italy, and Romania.  We've got friends/family in all 3 so it makes
sense and will help us curb the cost.  Next year, I'd like to see Ireland,
and then maybe go to Portugal and France.  It really depends on our schedule
and budget.  This year, I'm blessed with 10 additional executive vacation days
on top of my normal vacation days so it would be a waste not to use the
vacation days since the executive ones don't roll over.
We'll spend the bulk of our time in Romania so we can go to Carpinis to stay
on my wife's grandmother's farm which will be adventurous and memorable for
our sons.  I'm also hoping to see Palazzo Mercogliano (ex-monastery of
St.Maria del Plesco) in Marciano, Tuscana(aka central Italy/Tuscany.)

Tod, that sounds like it'll be a cool trip [#12]. Have you gone on it 
yet? If not, when do you plan on going?

We're leaving this Saturday.  Instead of England, our layover is in NYC.
(Our friends in England are now in NYC)

Wow, what a change [I think?] between England and NYC; how do they like the
big city life? Will you have a long enough layover in NY for a good visit?

Have fun on the trip and let us know how it goes!!


As usual, I won't be able to go on much of a vacation [due to finances]. But
I'll probably go up to Grand Rapids sometime this summer. One of my brothers
and his family [wife and 3 boys] live there. Their all into sailing so they
spend a fair amount of time at the local yacht club as well as various
regattas in that part of the state--so that's always fun.  And I plan on
taking a lot of day trips to the lake, too, so it'll at least feel like I'm
getting away.

re #15
 Wow, what a change [I think?] between England and NYC; how do they like the
 big city life?

Actually, NYC is a lil more tame than London both in price and pedestrian
traffic.  I think they are glad to be back where humor translates a lil
better, though.  Going we're not visiting long but coming back we'll spend
more time with them.

Oh, ok. I've never been to London; nor NYC for that matter but I do 
know more about NYC [as probably many other less-travelled Americans].

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