Tell me about your best vacation ever, that wasn’t too crazy expensive, or where you’d really like to go. I’m not talking the Nat Geo 100 places for 100K trip (I made that up but it is 100K for some number of places), but someplace more than would be normal, and worth the extra cost.
Our trip to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park was one of our best trips. Staying in park lodges made it extra special.
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New York City during Christmas and ordering room service. Hotel prices were low.
Iceland when it was low cost to fly there.
Finland in the winter. No tourists and get a feel what the locals do.
Scotland and stayed in an ancient castle.
New Zealand and wandered all over the neighborhoods.
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Where are traveling from? If West Coast, maybe Fiji? If East Coast, maybe Bimini? But I love the ocean and snorkeling. If you want a lower coast, then Hawaii from the West Coast and Dominican Republic (specifically Samana peninsula, NOT Punta Cana) from the East Coast.
I’m gonna only think domestic. Because IMO most other vacations ARE expensive! - and just would have been out of reach for us as a family.
Oregon trip, three parts of the state. 2-3 days each in eastern Oregon for an amazing outdoor barn wedding, then west coast, beautiful Cannon Beach and finishing up in Portland for the urban experience. Three totally different totally fun settings.
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I love Hilton Head in late October. The weather is beautiful, and the crowds are gone.
We also really enjoyed our Inside Passage Alaska cruise.
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Land-based, not cruise:
Alaska. Just amazing. We went in midsummer so the sun never really set. Seeing bears in Denali at 10pm! Moose in the backyard of our Airbnb. Fabulous day boat trips (prince William sound and Kenai fjord) among the glaciers and marine wildlife. Beautiful drives all over (basically,the entire state is one long scenic drive). Hikes. Dog sledding. Lots more.
Galapagos. It’s a bit of a pain to get to albeit easier from the east coast. The cruises are expensive, but land based is significantly cheaper (and, in our opinion, better). Hotels are cheap in USD (but bear in mind where you are - you are not getting a 5* all inclusive resort experience). Private guides add to the expense but smooth a lot of things, including the inter-island transfers. You can however join tour groups from whatever base you’re at to see sights (you can’t enter national parks without a registered guide, but they don’t have I think more than 15-20 per group). Trip of a lifetime.
Both these are in our top few vacations ever.
For a complete change of scene, our 2 favorite local vacations were (1) driving across Utah with stops in a number of the national parks, all of them gorgeous and different from each other (2) Death Valley (but choose your time of year carefully).
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Coastal Maine (flying into Portland, renting a car at the airport, puttering slowly up the coastal highway #1, stopping and staying in little rocky beach towns along the way. CC folks helped me plan the entire itinerary a few years ago, and we liked it so much, DD and I repeated it in 2023. I may have picked up my terrible bout of Lyme disease while there though (sitting in the grassy overlook above Camden Bay is a good guess where that happened ), so if you go, caution!!!
Scotland! I can’t say enough about it (and to think I feared it might be more boring than other choices in Europe). Lots of small, economical B&Bs and charming off-the beaten track wandering to do, if you’re willing to ask a lot of questions on the Tripadisor forum. Flew into Edinburgh (enchanting!) and took trains, ferries, busses, taxies around the West Coast, Skye, the area around Inverness, the Cairngorms. Hired a fantastic walking guide to take us on trails around Skye (on a budget). Stayed on a rural pony farm and rode ponies around a loch. Watched border collies herding sheep (the skill of these dogs took my breath away). Flew out of Inverness. Would love to go back again and again….explore more of the far NW coastal area. The highlands of Scotland are more rugged than I imagined, the history fascinating.
I guess I have a thing for rocky coastlines. Would love to visit Norway! I imagine (for me, anyway) that would not be filed into the category of Not-Too-crazy-expensive but more of a dream trip I’d have to do a fair bit of budgeting to do.
I used to love the tropics, rainforests, deserts, anything from the Amazon to Timbuktu…quite literally. Now I just yearn for chilly weather, cool northern skies, sea birds and and lapping water that is great for wading, not so much for swimming,
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I feel that staying in the US (or at least North America) is a nice way to keep costs down. On our honeymoon, we had 5 weeks and started in NYC, then went to Ontario and Montreal, then Boston, DC and Williamsburg, finishing at my friends’ wedding in LA before returning home. It was a nice tour through cities I had never been to.
We have gone on several family trips through national parks. One was the SW national parks, Zion, Bryce, North Rim of Grand Canyon, Canyonlands, Petrified Forest, Mesa Verde, South Rim of Grand Canyon. It was a lot of driving but we stayed inside the parks. It was a lot of ground to cover.
We loved our 1 week in Grand Rapids, 1 week in Yellowstone and 1 week in Grand Tetons. Also our 3 week trip that started with overnight train ride LA to Seattle, toured Seattle, got a car and drove to Ranier, Crater Lake, fishing with aunt on OR river, dawn redwoods just south of OR border, SF, Sequoia National Park. We stayed in the parks as well and had a lovely time! Staying with loved ones/relatives allows for more together time (for better or worse and can reduce lodging costs).
These trips were fairly inexpensive, as we ate fairly simply and while lodging in rustic cabins in parks isn’t the cheapest, it saves driving back and forth from lodging to park. We loved these trips.
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Oh—we stayed in an castle (actually a youth hostel) in Amsterdam that was so much fun!
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I had an absolutely amazing time on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls last summer. Got recommendations from this group and it was sooo wonderful.
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Yes, we had a nice and pretty reasonably-priced vacation—started by flying HNL to Buffalo and rented a car there. Drove to Canadian side of Niagara Falls, Niagara on the Lake, winery Trios (with lovely little restaurant), and then returned car in Buffalo and flew to DC. Toured DC a bit and then back to HNL. Smithsonian was free. We wrote to our elected and got free tours of the Capitol and could have gotten free tour of Kennedy Center (we had done that on prior year). It was fun but we didn’t realize that you had to hand carry wine — wineries would NOT mail it to your home. That was a bit inconvenient.
Vietnam/Cambodia! Surprisingly inexpensive to do a private tour. Culture, nature and cuisine – oh my!
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Yes, my siblings have loved exploring Vietnam and how inexpensive everything there is.
My daughter recently returned from 3 weeks in SE Asia (Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Bali). Trip of a lifetime for her. Vietnam was her favorite and she says she is definitely going back to spend more time there. Her flight was not crazy expensive, and everything was relatively cheap when she was over there, especially if you go during the low season.
Another friend is on safari in Tanzania. Her pics are amazing!
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I want to hear about vacations where people didn’t try to keep the costs down, or did, whatever, but what the favorites have been, in or outside of the US/NA.
It’s partly just for fun - CCers like to talk about our vacations, but I’m also looking for inspiration for our 25th anniversary next year.
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Some of our guided bike trips have been the best vacations for us.
We did a Canadian Rockies hike, bike and helicopter trip.
We did a bike trip through the Dolomite Valleys in Italy, with a pre-ride stay in Venice and post-ride in Verona.
We did a bike trip around Bryce and Zion last October, and one of my most memorable rides ever is through Zion NP early in the morning, as the sun was rising, before it was open to cars.
This fall we are doing a bike trip in France and Switzerland, with pre and post trips stays in Chamonix and Lyon.
We would like to do another European bike trip next year, but we are also considering staying in NA/closer to home for the next couple of years. We’ve had this year’s European bike trip scheduled since last fall.
We had a wonderful time in Oregon too - we did a couple of days on the coast, then a bike trip from Portland through the Hood River Valley, and then we spent a couple of nights in Portland.
On our list is to do the Willamette Valley (wine area), Crater Lake, and Bend areas, plus maybe the coast again.
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It depends on what you like of course - city, nature, etc. I love Banff/Lake Louise - in the summer for nature, hiking - in the Winter for inexpensive ski vacations.
An incredible place is Victoria Canada - the Butchart Gardens - and then you can pair it with Olympic National Park in WA.
San Diego is always gorgeous - and Puerto Rico also has really nice spots and you can do something a bit off the beaten path there like going to the island of Vieques which my daughter discovered through Study Away and my wife and i visited and loved the nature and low scale stress of the island.
I’ve not been yet but I hear Montreal to Quebec City is a really nice, low key trip. And more and more seem to be going to iceland.
DC is incredible if the museum scene is of interest.
I’m not sure I have a favorite vacation spot per se - there’s so many interesting places for short and long term, upscale and downscale type things.
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We went on a 10 day cruise that had stops in Iceland (3), Norway (3) Amsterdam, Belgium, and London. We paid $999 each, but the last minute cost dropped to $799. Did not include air.
We used Kimkim to plan a Costa Rica trip for us and it was great. The hotels were off the beaten path and very nice.
Kenya was best vacation ever, but it was expensive.
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