Dream vacations....

On the heels of “where are you vacationing this year?”, what is on your dream vacation list?

A group of us recently exchanged lists: here’s ours:

Patagonia
Greece
New Orleans
Alaska
France
Ireland, England, Italy, Germany, Austria
Yukon
British Columbia (Victoria and the coast)
Newfoundland and PEI
Russia
China
Egypt
Caribbean cruise - Bahamas, Barbados, etc.
Galapagos

Hope to knock Alaska off the list in the fall. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get in one destination a year from here on in.

What’s on your list?

A Grand American Roadtrip (that one will happen sooner rather than later)
St. Lucia
A really tiny beautiful Pacific island

Plus a lot of cities that I want to see. But those three would be the dream-vacations.

  1. Antarctica
  2. Northern Italy - a backpack, a railpass, and a month to use them.

Its going to be years, if not decades, before I can pull either of these off. But when I dream, its about these two places.

A week long fly in fishing trip to a remote Canadian shield lake that’s brimming with smallmouth bass and walleye with a few good friends and a lot of old whiskey.

Bhutan
Afghanistan
Peru
Patagonia
Japan
St. Helena

Iran
Cambodia
India
I wanted to travel from Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires last summer but in the end I decided to save my money. But I still want to do this sometime.
Uzbekistan
That awesome archaeological site in Ethiopia.

Morocco
Pakistan
South Africa (Drakensburg Mts.)
Patagonia
Trans-Siberian Railway
Alaskan Highway
Poland

Vietnam
Laos
Thailand
Malaysia/Borneo
Hawaii
Brazil
Argentina
France
Italy
Turkey
Spain
Various locations in India

Rwanda, to see the gorillas. I WILL do it someday.

Greece
Turkey
Lebanon (read a lot about it & it sounded very nice, but this was before Israel went in and flattened the fuck out of it again)
Cyprus

Ireland and the UK, including the Scottish Highlands, Orkney Islands, etc

Alaska/Yukon (anywhere I can see the Northern Lights) - may actually be happening this year, though I’d be there in late-Aug or early Sept so the full effect may be lost on me

I’m not much for travel but I’d like to go to Barrow, Alaska twice. One week when it’s day all the time, the other when it’s night all the time. But not when there are vampires there.

More Scotland. One of the nice things about my current job is that I like the place.
Back to Greece - this time with money!
Back to Puebla.
Cartagena de Indias.
New Orleans.
Toronto.
Vancouver.
A long trip to Oz and “lands thereabouts,” and I mean long, if I’m going to go that far, I want to be able to take my time to look at everything I want to see!

Some day I’d like to have a project in Italy. It’s about the only way I can think of to have enough time…

I’d love to take a 3 month holiday in America and Canada. I’d start in the south in the early spring and work my way north.

Istanbul
St. Petersburg
Skiing in the Alps, probably Innsbruck
Bicycling across the U.S.

My wife’s dream vacation would be to go to Paris, and I’d like to take her before her illness makes it impossible, but:

  1. I’ve never been out of the USA (OK, I went to Toronto once in high school in the mid 80s…I don’t think that counts, does it? No offence, my Canadian friends!).
  2. Neither of us speaks French, and have heard the “stories.”
  3. I’m afraid of being seen as “the American tourist.” Well, at least now that I’ve lost a lot of weight, I won’t be the “FAT American tourist.”

She’s been to China, Taiwan, and Japan on business, so she’s a bit more accustomed to the international travel.

Me, I’d love to travel across the USA (particularly to the national parks and Alaska), or a cross-country roller coaster tour; across Europe, and also to go on a safari.

On my first trip overseas (to Germany), I realized I was a little scared. I didn’t know what was fifty feet outside the door of the airplane. Would I be able to find my way to the hotel, ask for help if I needed it, or even be able to feed myself? As an adult, it was hard to put myself in a position of such potential helplessness.

I got over it. A few years later, I had the chance to go for a full three months, and I was taking the night trains to Prague and Vienna.

You will too, and it is so worth it. Do a little research, learn how to point at something and say “two, please”, stitch a Canadian flag on your backpack and you’re all set.

ANY vacation would be a dream vacation at this point. two nights at a Super 8 on an exit off an interstate anywhere would be wonderful.

My last “vacation” was nearly two years ago and was just an overnight at a hotel here in town, and though we got the whole day “off” while my MIL watched our kids we ended up having to bring our then-1 year old to hotel with us.

Since then our pool of free babysitters has shrunk mostly due to aging, and our funds for paid babysitters has shrunk to nearly non-existent.

but enough whining,

DREAM vacation would be crossing the Atlantic via ocean liner to England and wandering around castles, stone circles, country rambles, and odd little sites like Pocahontas’ grave and the Prime Meridian at Greenwich.

I’m going next month! dies of excitement