Best vacation ever, or ideal vacation, not TOO crazy expensive?

We have traveled a lot, and really, every trip has been terrific in its own way. I think, though, that it really depends on what would define a great trip for the 2 of you at this point in your lives. Sounds obvious, but there’s a big difference between renting a villa or apartment and staying in a hotel. Or between staying put in one place and traveling around. Or an all-inclusive or tour and complete independence. Each has pros and cons, and we all weigh those differently and that may vary based on your time-frame and where you are.

A mix that could optimize these might be – hotel in Athens for a few days, one week mega-yacht cruise to islands, week or two rental in out of the way island/mountains.

It also depends on how active you want to be, if you want to see sights, experience the culture more like a local, etc. and whether you feel like figuring things out is part of the adventure or a stressor. Some of that depends on how much time you have too.

You have a big budget (imho). How long would you like to travel?

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We did the Ronda short break with Max’s adventures in Andalusia. April was a great time to go. Not too hot and lots of flowers in bloom. Take some time to wander around Ronda. Some nice art museums and other sites in town.

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Oh yes, “Is it a trip or a vacation?”

When in fact, both of those terms can mean very different things to different people :slight_smile:

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We have also found private guides to be a useful consideration. We hired one in Japan. She came and picked the 4 of us up in the morning and we could leave things in it and she drove us from place to place that my friend requested so we didn’t have to navigate the transit system in our jet-lagged state.

Anther time, we hired private guides from Yellowstone Forever and were again picked up in a van and taken to see the animals as I had requested. The guide communicated with other guides for best viewing and brought spotting scopes for better viewing. We hired the guide for 2 days. Dad was bored and slightly cranky but the rest of us loved it.

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Now, that is something I would like to do. See those Mediterranean places in the early/mid spring while the air is fresh and tourists are fewer.

I agree, when it’s affordable. In 2019 when planning for the trip to Scotland I hired a driver to take us from our hotel in Edinburgh to where we wanted to begin taking the train (near the west coast) because I wanted to do a little off-the beaten track wandering to places not on the train line or easily accessible by bus. I didn’t want to be packed and herded in a tour van either. I found the guy by digging deep in the TripAdvisor forum…he had so many glowing reviews. While not technically a guide, he was so wonderful and genuine…telling stories of Scotland, his life and all about his daughters (older middle aged guy retired from a military career, now a pacifist and gentle animal lover). He was happy to make little spontaneous detours on back roads and stop for photos. He said that every summer for years he has taken an elderly widowed American woman for a week or so around the backroads of Scotland. Same week every year. I think he treats her with kid gloves. Whenever she calls, he says “where are we going this time?”

Another planning challenge I faced….the Isle of Skye does not have a convenient bus system for tourists. I was advised I’d have to rent a car and I did NOT trust myself to drive on the left side of the road, especially on those blind curved, one-lane roads. Again, I had to dig and dig, but I found a fabulous walking guide (works independently) with hundreds of 5-star reviews. Turns out he had only a three-day window open for the entire summer…I changed ALL of my travel dates dates and itinerary to accommodate this guy and it was the best decision I made. He agreed to pick us up at the ferry on the late afternoon of arrival and take us to our accommodations at no (or little) extra cost. When he picked us up he asked “ Do you want to take the fast route or the scenic route? We took the scenic route, which probably took an extra hour and we had the most charming introduction to Skye. The guide and his wife were classically-trained concert musicians but had tired of that life and wife is now a community nurse and he starting his guiding business. He will tailor the walks to your fitness level (he once guided a physically challenged man who could not walk (involved crawling on hands and knees) to enable the man’s lifetime dream of scaling the spine of a particular mountain. Just a fine human being. We avoided the crazy tourist areas and he took us to alternative spots, often crossing under farmer’s fences on foot through fields and sheep meadows to get to them (totally fine for a local to do). He was an avid learner and teacher about the geology and history of the area. I can’t rave enough. I am a budget traveler and what he provided at an incredible price was priceless to me! I would rather stay sometimes in basic, bare-bones B&Bs and inns that are rated clean and friendly (more character that way) to be able to do these kind of experiences.

Even if I could afford luxury tours, I’m not sure I’d do things any differently until I’m too frail to do independent travel. (Though I MIGHT be lured by some of the social cross-country walking tours etc.). And I might enjoy group travel with the right kind of group or tour, so not out of the question) my trips take a LOT of planning and research to do the itineraries (I like to build in a lot of unscheduled time to be spontaneous too) but then, I love researching and dreaming about trips months in advance.

Scotland was so great I did the whole planning thing over again for the next summer for Italy, as I knew my daughter was growing up fast. I spent all winter obsessed with every detail. Got everything booked by late February. I was so pleased and proud. It was 2020 :frowning:. I still think about the trip that never happened but glad that D did a summer study in Florence two years later! Scotland was the last big trip we did together (my H didn’t feel a need to travel much so D and I had lots of adventures over the course of her childhood and I am every so grateful for the memories).

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OP, do you like horses and rural culture and gorgeous mountains? Another “best” trip (my D was nine, so many years ago) was Ecuador. And among the best, yet most convenient things we did ( they will pick you up in Quito if you wish) was the Hacienda La Alegria. I just googled it to see it it’s still there and it is. And if it’s the same owner and his wife (the hacienda has been in the family for generations so I hope it is) they speak fluent English (the wife spent a year or two in Pittsburgh as a teenager). When we were there, all the other guests had left, and we were invited to have all meals with the family in the family dining room. Rather than in the guest wing dining room they had added. It was the first fully-certified organic dairy and vegetable farm in Ecuador. I have some food allergies and I was invited to cook some things for myself in the hacienda kitchen. We were treated as family guests and felt so at home. We were given riding lessons (have a photo of D standing on a horse’s back) and assigned our “own” horses to wander with a guide the cobblestone paths with majestic volcano backdrops. They will also lead overnight riding treks for those who are experience and rugged horse people (not us). D still talks fondly about her horse “Whiskey”. The place still has consistent five-star reviews and the reviews contain lots of photos.

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What I remember from our bike trip around the Finger Lakes of NY -
Walking through Watkins Glen state park was pretty cool.
Ithaca was hard for riding, and had a lot of traffic for such a small area, but downtown Ithaca was nice.
We stayed at the Mirabeau Inn in Skaneateles which was lovely.
We stayed at the Inns of Aurora which was also nice.
In Geneva we stayed at Geneva on the Lake resort. Part of the property outside is nice, but overall I would NOT recommend it. Plus we had dinner there and it took forever.

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Lounging on the beach at Poipu is not a hard tour of duty - what a lovely beach and the snorkeling is great too!

That sounds awesome. Just to mention that Ecuador & Galapagos can be one trip of course, as you’d need to fly via Quito anyway. We spent a few days there on the way.

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Thank you!

You bring up some great points, and I can only answer some.

ETA I am responding to both @inthegarden and @gardenstategal

I hope this thread is inspiring others with new ideas too.

We definitely want to be pretty active for at least part of the trip, thus we will likely do a guided bike or multi-sport “mostly all inclusive” trip for a week. It’s likely we will combine staying someplace near the group part of our trip before and/or after, on our own, but depending on where we go we could just do multiple trips too.
We like VRBO/condos/B&Bs better than hotels generally. We like at least a mini kitchen and a little more space, but we can do hotels for a couple of nights.
We like food, and usually eat one mid to nice meal out each day. We tend to spend a fair amount on meals and adult beverages to go with them, and we don’t cook much (we do tend to eat breakfast in and are happy with some meals being wine, cheese and fruit from Trader Joe’s, or bag salads from the grocery store).
We are more into nature than culture, so would pick a hike before a museum, but a combination is fine.
We like to “experience” a place (hike/bike/walk, whatever) and not just stop at the overlooks and claim to have been there. I especially am not good at just lounging on the beach for a week - I have to be somewhere I can walk around/do other things. We probably tend to like mountains more than beaches, but we do go to Hawaii and Grand Cayman fairly regularly.
We haven’t cruised at all, and we would only consider something like a bike and barge, or very small ship (200 ppl or less) for this trip. Viking kinds of cruises may be in our future, but probably not for 5 years-ish. At this point in life I don’t think staying on a ranch kind of place would be for me, but if/when we have grandkids :)…

For our 25th anniversary trip it is likely we will stay within the US, Canada and maybe Europe, mostly because of the current political situation.

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We define a trip as someplace we are bringing “the kids” or going to visit family.
A vacation is with friends or by ourselves. Sometimes with family, but depends on who :).

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Your trip sounds lovely!
In the US I’ve been pretty comfortable doing my own planning, linking multiple things together, but I admit for Europe it makes me a little nervous. When we did a month in New Zealand we paid a guy someone we know recommended to tell us what to do/where to go. He was totally worth it. We met with him via Zoom call for an hour or so, to give him an idea of what we were looking for, and he made it all happen, booked the places for us to stay, booked our rental cars, internal flights, etc. He suggested stops along the way and restaurants and activities in some areas.
I need to find out if there is someone like that in Italy!
I generally don’t need and don’t normally want to pay for “luxury,” but I do want “mid level” to “pretty nice.”
When we do bike trips, we are happy at least a step below the most luxurious or whatever. We do want our own bathroom, and want nice bikes and nice meals provided. We often pick the company based on the locations they have on their trip.

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Totally agree about Seville. I think Alhambra (in Granada) is magical!

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It’s my 25th wedding anniversary in July…my love is sending me on a boat/bike trip through the Netherlands - it’s a bucket list trip for me - I’ll be solo (save for the 33 other passengers).

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We visited last year and really enjoyed the area. We made a road trip out of it to see multiple towns and visit a variety of vineyards. We stayed at The Bond 1835 in Skaneateles (I believe they have kayaks you can use), a funky old Airbnb in Geneva and the Laurentide Inn in Penn Yan (with a fun brewery next door owned by the innkeepers). We heard Geneva on the Lake was “tired” but ate dinner there, which was very good) and thought it was pretty and the grounds were lovely. We didn’t see the rooms though. We visited Kemmeter and Three Brothers wineries (did NOT like the latter) and really wanted to go to Dr Konstantin Frank but they were sold out months in advance. It’s such a pretty area to drive around.

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Oh we also went to Watkins Glen. Whatever we hiked was insanely crowded. I guess it’s there must do recommendation so everyone does it. If I were to return I’d find another trail.

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Every time I talk to someone they tell me a new place we have to go! There’s so much to do in that area. Our trip is now about 3 weeks long. We do have 5 days in Seville so could do Cadiz as a day trip.

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My daughter studied a semester in Cadiz in 10th grade and she loved the city. :slight_smile: She won a 5k there (not saying a lot - the kids aren’t particularly interested in running, ha).

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