I rarely vacation. I just don’t go away, leaving my animals. I don’t really trust others to care for them like I do. But I’m retired, I have money, and I want to go somewhere. But where? I don’t like crowds. I don’t care about shopping. I like history, architecture, pretty gardens, animals. I’m almost 64, but in reasonably good shape. Any suggestions?
StG
Kinda need more to go on since most everywhere has lots of history (more than the US).
“I grew up in Europe, where the history comes from.” - Eddie Izzard
If you have not traveled much I would suggest almost anywhere in Western Europe. They are used to tourism and (mostly) welcome it.
Most people speak English and it is very easy to get around most parts if you only speak English.
They have history and gardens and museums galore.
Big cities with lots and lots of cuisine choices so you can (usually) find something you like to eat even if you are a picky eater.
Canada is closer and easier and cheaper to get to. A little less culture stuff (but still plenty) and loads of outdoor stuff and, truly, the most pleasant people I have ever met.
Mexico is also an easy trip but seems more about resorts. Mexico City is great but HUGE…I’d hire a guide to get you around on a first trip.
Just my $0.02. I love travel. No shortage of places worth visiting.
ETA: I’d suggest the big two…London and Paris. You can spend a week in either place but you can kinda do both in one week (kinda as in hitting the main spots). Fly to London, spend three days, take the Eurostar train to Paris and spend three days and fly home.
Busy but doable. Your feet will hate you though so get comfy shoes. Also, be sure to buy visitor passes for the museums. Lets you skip lines and see lots of things for one price. Most big cities have such things (even in the US). Details vary and there may be more than one so be sure to see what is all included and match it to a list of things you decided you want to see.
Mostly, I don’t like crowds. I’d love to visit Louvre, if they’d open it up just for me. When I go somewhere, I want to be able to take my time to really look at things, to think about what I’m seeing. I don’t want to be shuffled out because I only have 10 minutes in this room.
I have sort of thought about a train trip in Canada. Or somewhere else. I’d like to go to Istanbul with my sister, who used to live there and who speaks fluent Turkish, but she refuses to give any money to Turkey while Erdoğan is president.
StG
There’s also the question of season - even broadly of summer vs. winter. I’d consider my old stomping grounds in New Mexico. Taos and Ruidoso NM are lovely mountain towns, with a lot of natural outdoor wonder, and don’t require leaving the US. Central and South NM have a ton of opportunities to study early pre-Spanish history, such as the cliff dwellings and petroglyphs, or still extant buildings from the Spanish colonial era.
You can also be pretty central (say Albuquerque) and hit a wide variety of locations, from Santa Fe (less than an hour away), while still getting to their quite lovely botanical gardens in town, or do a day trip up to Los Alamos for some more modern history.
Big cities are crowded so hard to avoid unless you want to be in nature somewhere but the big museums are in the big cities.
Avoid high-seasons (you can Google it). For the Louvre get there early when it opens and bee-line to some few things you really want to see (like the Mona Lisa which is frankly overrated but you can say you saw it and then turn around in the same room to see Wedding at Cana which is really impressive). If you do that early you can avoid the crush in that room. Otherwise, the museum is freaking huge and doesn’t feel super crowded when meandering around (busy but easy to walk).
ETA: Again…the museum pass to skip lines is crucial I think. You pay a little more (only a little) and no lines (or short, fast ones). Worth it when you are only there for a few days. Who wants to spend their vacation in a line?
It just occurred to me that New Zealand might be perfect for the OP but that is an expensive trip (travel is very long).
I have not been yet (bucket list thing) but never met someone who didn’t absolutely love it. Maybe a bit short on the history stuff depending on how far back you want to go but I’ve never heard it described as crowded.
My in-laws have done extensive traveling in their years. When I asked them, of all the places you’ve visited which is the place you’d definitely return for another visit? Their answer was Egypt. I asked that same question some ten years later and it was still Egypt.
So, yeah, Egypt. I think that checks your boxes.
There’s a fundamental error here. It’s an understandable perception, but it’s just wrong to assert that you have to visit the major museums to see great art.
Yes, it’s true that those well-known museums — the Louvre, the Uffizi in Florence, the Vatican galleries in Rome — are very crowded. They’re stuffed with amazing things, but you do have to shoulder your way through lots of people.
But you don’t have to go to those museums in those cities. We’re absolutely swimming in great art here in Europe, and there are many, many other options besides the ones Americans think of as the Top Ten due to their heavy promotion. When we were in Lucerne, Switzerland, for example, we visited the Rosengart to see their Picassos. That’s what they’re famous for, but it turned out their collection is extensive beyond that — Klee, Mondrian, Bracque, Cezanne, and others, including a couple of Kandinskys I hadn’t previously seen (probably my favorite artist). And best of all, we had the place almost to ourselves. There were probably ten or fifteen people in the whole museum while we were there. And it’s hardly unique.
So please don’t tell people they’re out of luck for visiting excellent museums and seeing excellent art unless they’re willing to brave hordes of other tourists at the famous galleries in big cities. It simply isn’t true.
My suggestion to the OP, if you’re considering Europe — take a serious look at Slovenia.
It’s barely known in the US, and when we were there, we met only one other American couple. The tourists are mostly Italian, with some Germans and French and Hungarians, plus a few from the UK. It’s really under-visited by tourist destination standards.
But it’s gorgeous. The landscapes are astonishing; the country sits at the fringe of the larger Alpine range, and their mountains and rivers and valleys are largely unspoiled. My wife and I spent lots of time hiking different parts of the Triglav National Park during our holiday, including the trail that visits this heart-stoppingly beautiful waterfall.
Ljubljana (good luck pronouncing that without practice), the capital city, is small by metropolitan standards; you can thoroughly explore the whole thing on foot in two days, or three or four if you include a couple of the museums and other cultural sights. And it’s not crowded at all.
There’s also the fairy-tale postcard of Lake Bled, the wine country of Maribor, the beautiful beaches of the short southwest coast… it really does have everything. You can spend days alone in nature, and then easily dip back into city life for a bit, and then get back out of town. It’s not on the typical American’s travel radar, but I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Well…it is about concentration of great art.
Can you see one amazing piece in some remote village? Sure.
Is it worth the 4-hour round trip to see the one thing? Probably not.
Or go to the Louvre or Hermitage and see hundreds of great pieces in one place. (Granted the Hermitage is probably not accessible these days).
ETA: Hermitage is another bucket list item for me but not seeing a likely path to get there in my lifetime. Sucks.
Lucerne is not a remote village and several dozen masterpieces by modern-era geniuses are not one piece.
But you do you.
I’m missing your point.
Not a remote village.
You can find great art and artifacts many places but the biggest museums have most of it and they tend to be in the biggest cities.
If you want a one-stop shop for a once in a lifetime trip do you go to Lucerne or Paris or London or New York (to name a few)?
I think Lucerne is low on the list for a once in lifetime trip.
@StGermain . I’m the same way about my dogs. Hate leaving them in someone else’s care. But there are some nice boarding facilities these days. We take ours to https://dogcatranch.com/ They even have an in ground concrete pool for the dogs. They provide photos of the dogs day online and they have a very loving staff that plays with the dogs.
I do too. Or I did, before she went up to dog fetch heaven. I was very fortunate in that I had a neighbor across the street. They had a dog and our dogs liked to play together. They also had a teenage son. Now I was a teenaged boy once too and sometimes I pulled some not-smart stunts, but for this family the parents were mindful and attentive and they knew us well. I could trust them with a key to my house and I paid the kid a then-very-nice $10 a day (at a time when my vet was charging $17).
My dog, Dusty Rose (Chesapeake Bay Retriever), got to sleep at home instead of in a strange place or strange crate in a crowded room, and sometimes she’d sleep at the neighbor’s home, and she got daily loving care and attention.
That was the ideal setup!
Kyoto. Packed with historic buildings, many with exhibits detailing their history. Go by yourself, not on a tour, and you can spend exactly as much time looking at the woodwork as you like. Gardens galore, in a variety of styles. Most of the gardens have water features stocked with carp. (Does that count as animals?) Yes, there are crowds. I found it easy to ignore them, but perhaps you’d find it off-putting. I didn’t feel pressured to move along, though, except on one or two of the “top tourist attractions”.
I agree with @Cervaise about small museums in Europe. I spent a day at Montserrat near Barcelona. There was a line and crowds to see their Madonna. But the town also held a small museum which was nearly empty. And nestled in with dozens of paintings of the monastery and the surrounding mountains there were also a large number of paintings by excellent European painters, presumably gifts over time from the faithful. There was also a lot of schlock. I really enjoyed that museum. There was also excellent light hiking in the attractive mountains. And a nice presentation about the monastery. (Although not as much history as i would have liked.) You can find gems like that all over Europe.
A Greek cruise? Everyone that has been on one loved it (me included) and every island is different. Spend an extra couple of days in Athens.
We might be better able to help if the OP answered some fairly obvious questions:
Book a safari in Botswana, Tanzania or Namibia.
Consider
Browse the site thoroughly. (Don’t just automatically say “I don’t want to go on a group tour.” 
)
Small groups. Mostly {ahem} older folks (the group used to be called Elderhostel). Caters to ALL possible interests. Everything included.
I’ve known people who have taken many of these, and really enjoyed them.
ThelmaLou - That looks very interesting.
Saint Cad - I’ve always thought a cruise sounded boring. Open to finding out differently, though.
StG
This is not the ideal time of year for it, but Costa Rica is famous for eco tourism. Lots of opportunities to see exotic critters and scenery and very lightly populated land. And volcanos! All while being well away from crowds.
Adequate English is spoken wherever you want to spend money. Not so much in the general populace once you get out in the boonies and speaking with someone over WAG 40.