Can anyone tell me much about Greenville, SC? We have a wedding to go to in May, and are thinking it might be a nice place to stop for a couple of days of hiking. I know very little about it, but I’ve heard it compared to Asheville, which we liked a lot.
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You could drive from Greenville to Toccoa (beautiful with waterfalls) on to Helen, GA (the Alpine of the south - a German town, adorable) and end up in Blue Ridge, lovely mountain cabins with a mountain train ride (got to buy tickets early, they sell out fast, especially on weekends). That’s a nice trip and only about 2.5 hours from Greenville to Blue Ridge. A college ballgame at Clemson could be fun and typically inexpensive.
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I don’t know much about Greenville but it’s only an hour from DuPont Forest - I think they have the best “bang for the buck” waterfalls. 3 good ones along a gravel flat trail. It’s also an hour from Asheville.
What I mostly know about Greenville is that they reinvented themselves in the 90s or so, and that we tried to follow what they did. We are still working on it lol
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I recently just renewed my passport online. It was very easy. I was able to use one of my pictures as the passport picture and loaded it up.
Not sure if someone has mentioned it here, for some airlines they have touchless security option that you could opt in on their website. When you get your boarding pass, you can click on the “touchless,” and when you go through an airport (probably major airports) you can go through the line for touchless security. You would just stand in front of a screen and you are in - no ID, no ticket. The line is usually shorter than TSA precheck or Clear. It’s free.
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My main airport, Newark, has touchless . When it works right, it is great. Having said that, it is not always operational. It’s also so quick that the line for bag screening can back up (after ID presentation) to the point that they have to stop looking at IDs for a while.
I would highly recommend that you sign up for it but temper your expectations until all the glitches are worked out. You’ll be delighted when it works, then having seen how awesome it can be, doubly disappointed when it doesn’t!
When it is working well, everyone will probably be on it and then it will be a long line. 
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I actually learned about that last month when the first security rep looked at my boarding pass on cellphone and pointed me to a very short line saying “touchless”.
Well, we just booked a Scenic cruises trip to Antarctica next year. I’ve realized that I’m interested in more exotic travel than we’ve usually done. We’ve traveled many places, but I really want to do things that are more interesting. Just got back from a trip to Peru, which was nice (particularly the cruise of the upper Amazon part), but it wasn’t nearly as good as I thought it was going to be. I guess I’m getting picky in my old age.
It’s hard to compare any trip we’ve been on to our Scenic cruises trip to Vietnam and Cambodia last year, which was truly exceptional. I’m starting to look into things out of our norm, like trips to Africa and a National Geographic cruise to Costa Rica. I really like the small boat cruises, and doubt we’ll ever go on a large cruise boat again.
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Every time I fly there is some new rule about going thru security - show your passport but not boarding pass,show boarding pass and nothing else, shoes on but belts off, banana has to be inspected, water bottles okay if empty but you get stopped and have to be inspected…
The ‘don’t show passport, just stand in front of the camera’ when returning to the USA was new last year. Have no idea what it is now.
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We returned to the US on February 1. Just facial recognition at passport control. No one at JFK cared about our passports at all when we returned.
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We’re leaving to 2 weeks to fly to Auckland for 4 nights before boarding a Celebrity Edge cruise around NZ ending in Sydney. We were supposed to be traveling with my brother (age 73) and SIL. But last week, brother experienced a TIA – sudden but temporary loss of vision in one eye. Since that happened he’s had all sorts of testing and been referred to a neurologist and cardiologist (and checked by an ophthalmologist) and put on Plavix and Lipitor. Neurologist thinks this was a classic TIA and most likely cause is atrial fibrillation. So they want him to wear a Holter monitor for 14 days and then be evaluated for treatment of Afib. Neurologist urged him to cancel the NZ trip, which he did regretfully but willingly.
We totally understand, of course, but will miss having them on our trip. We haven’t been on Celebrity since 2013 and probably would’ve picked Viking if we had been picking this cruise on our own. But it will be fun (we hope) to experience a newer ship. SIL said to be sure to send them lots of photos. I’ll feel a little guilty doing that when they couldn’t come.
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Lots of wonderful waterfalls within an easy drive (amicalola falls, Ruby falls, etc) or drive to the trailhead of the Appalachian trail (that’s at amicalola falls)
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We considered going on a cruise to Antarctica this year. Friends were going, and my husband was interested. But really, he just wants to go through the Drake Passage - he can live without the rest of the trip. Another friend pointed out that you can go all the way down there, and then not even make it onto land. I hope you enjoy it. Sound’s like the Vietnam/Cambodia trip will be hard to beat.
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We have multiple trips planned this year and early next year, a couple repeats of where we’ve been before.
We have a wedding in Charleston in May. We decided to go to Hilton Head for 4 nights after the wedding, instead of Greenville. Son and DIL will be going with us. We found what I hope is a nice ocean front condo for the trip.
In June we are doing a cycling trip to Tuscany. We go to Orvieto (sp?) before the cycling part of the trip, and Rome after.
In July we go to the Canadian Rockies for 2 weeks. We will be splurging to stay at Moraine Lake Lodge for 4 nights while there.
We will likely plan one more trip this year, but not sure where.
We head to Maui and Kauai at the end of January next year. This was kind of a spur of the moment decision when we had the big snow/ice storm. We keep thinking we should go to the big island, but so far we haven’t made it.
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I would think the Vietnam/Cambodia trip would be hard to beat, but so many people that took both trips on Scenic cruise lines have assured us that the Antarctic one is exceptional and different.
I don’t know about not making it to land in Antarctica, maybe if you’re going on a large cruise ship? I think they’re only allowed to have 100 people on land at a time. Our ship is the Scenic Eclipse with about 200 passengers, and they take Zodiacs a couple of times a day to get you to shore or out whale watching. I can’t imagine a situation where you’d never get on land.
Funny, the Drake Passage seems like something to avoid, not look forward to! Apparently our ship is as sturdy as a Coast Guard icebreaker, but I plan on bringing patches for seasickness, for sure.
Dr. Google says 20-30% of people who head to Antarctica don’t make it to land. I HOPE you’re not in that group.
ETA I totally agree with you on the Drake Passage being something to avoid. My husband clearly does not get seasick.
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Does Dr. Google say why all those people aren’t making it to land? Is it that the weather can be too rough, or is it that big 2,000 passenger boats like Holland America’s Oosterdam cruise through Antarctica, but they don’t schedule any tour excursions to land and of course there aren’t cruise ports there. I think the Zodiacs just pull up to a chunk of stable ice and you don’t necessarily know where they’re going to stop.
I would certainly not be pleased if we couldn’t even walk on the continent, but barring some unusually awful weather, I don’t understand why you couldn’t. I do understand the passenger limitations, which is why you go on a smaller boat.
Could they be prohibited by ice flows? I saw that somewhere keeping a cruise ship from somewhere but it may have been north to the Arctic Circle.
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Maybe that’s an issue sometimes? My cruise has six days going through Antarctica, so I’d hope they’d be able to find somewhere to go ashore, even with obstacles. We gotta go before global warming melts all the ice. 
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I’m not sure what the deal is. I had a friend go there and he told me that (they were on a small boat). Just recently I looked it up, and AI or whatever said that’s the case. It does sound like smaller boats have a higher likelihood of landing (or whatever you call it).
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