My First Vacation!

Parent Cafe
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<p>As some of you may know, I am a recent college graduate, and this is my first year living and working on my own. It has definitely been a year of firsts, and I appreciate all the advice I have gotten on this board.</p>

<p>This summer (somewhere in between last week of June and middle of July) I will be taking the very first vacation that I will be organizing and paying for on my own. I love to travel, in big part thanks to my parents, because they would always take me to really exciting new places when I was in high school and college, I have been to most places on the east coast, but I wouldn’t mind going to some of those places again.</p>

<p>I have been saving for this nine-day-long vacation the entire time that I have been working, and I really want to do something exciting that I haven’t done before. One of the ideas I had was to go scuba diving (just to give you an example).</p>

<p>Does anyone have any ideas? What are some of the most memorable vacations that you have had? The only criteria for me is that for this one I will stay within the U.S. (I would be OK going to Canada or Mexico).</p>

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<p>If you’ve never seen the Grand Canyon, please consider doing so. My postcards from it said only one thing: WOW!</p>

<p>It’s something you just have to see with your own eyes – pictures, films, descriptions… nothing else does it justice.</p>

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<p>Most memorable vacation–NYC, hands down. So much to do and see and eat–and public transportation to boot.</p>

<p>Hawaii is one of my favorite spots for ocean things. The water is warmer there. That would fit in with your scuba thoughts.</p>

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<p>There are so many opportunities and possibilities. You can’t see or do everything at once so maybe the best thing to do is to narrow it down geographically. You should also narrow it down depending on the things you like since everyone likes different things -

  • Nature (touring, hiking, biking, etc.)
  • Adventure (scuba diving, different hiking/biking, etc.)
  • Touring (cities, historical sites, etc.)
  • Relaxing (staying at a resort the whole time, etc.)
  • Visiting (friends, relatives, etc.)
  • Entertainment (stage shows, concerts, etc.)</p>

<p>Decide whether you want to drive quite a bit seeing things or if you prefer to fly/drive to a resort type of location and just park yourself for the entire time (I prefer the former since I don’t like to stay at one spot but plenty of people prefer the latter).</p>

<p>Whatever you do will need to fit into your budget and timeframe. Some possibilities -</p>

<ul>
<li>Scuba Diving and/or snorkeling</li>
<li><p>Head to the caribbean, Hawaii, or Mexico </p></li>
<li><p>National parks for touring, hiking, mtn biking, Consider - </p></li>
<li><p>Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Glacier, Waterton Lakes, possibly up into the Canadian Rockies (Banff, Jasper)</p></li>
<li><p>Utah/Az - Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef</p></li>
<li><p>California - Yosemite, Shasta</p></li>
<li><p>Resorts -</p></li>
<li><p>Beaches - Caribbean, Florida, NC, California, Mexico, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Mountain - Colorado, California, etc.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>It can be fun to sometimes mix it up and do combos of these things. For example, in California one can hit beaches and scuba in Southern California, scuba in Northern California around Monterey/Carmel (cold water though), head to Yosemite for the mountains, hiking, mtn. biking, etc. Ditto with other areas of the country.</p>

<p>You don’t need to do it all at once so you can always scope out areas you’d like to come back to.</p>

<p>It sounds like fun - good luck with it!</p>

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<p>Could you go to Bahamas? If you like scuba diving, you should go to Club Med Columbus Isle, [Club</a> Med: holiday resorts worldwide, clubmed gym, clubmed world and all other clubmed sites](<a href=“http://www.clubmed.com%5DClub”>http://www.clubmed.com). They are running huge discounts on all of their clubs now. Airfare is also very cheap. People from all over the world go there to dive. It is also best if you were certified before you go down there. Everything is inclusive, except for the scuba diving. Even if you don’t dive, it has the most beautiful beach.</p>

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<p>My favorite summer vacation spot is HI, closely followed by camping in Montana/Yellowstone. I would not recommend going to AZ in July. FL can be tricky due to the hurricanes. In Canada, we love Victoria (Butchart Gardens - the summer blooms are amazing!) and Vancouver. Of course, if you are thinking about Vancouver/Victoria, you can include our beautiful WA (we want your tourist $$ :))</p>

<p>Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska had excellent HI sales and might still have some incredible deals. A friend and her buddy just returend from Maui; for roughly $800 they got 2 RT ticket form Seattle, 3 nights in a small hotel in Kihei and a compact car rental for 4 days. Of course, the hotel was small, old although clean, but they could not care about hotel luxuries since they traveled around the island during the day and only used their room as a place to crash at night. The nice things about HI is that the islands are so close together yet so unique in their character, it is very easy to hop on a plane and travel to what looks like a totally different place. One morning you can be exploring the lunar landscapes and the lava tubes of the Big Island, the next day you can be hiking in the tropical forests of Kauai.</p>

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<p>Thank you for all your replies!</p>

<p>ellemenope, I actually live in NYC, and I agree, it’s a great place :)</p>

<p>I think ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad highlighted exactly the problem that I’ve been having. There are so many places AND types of vacations, and I don’t have a real preference. </p>

<p>Thank you for all the suggestions. Please keep them coming! I will look over all the ideas I get and come up with and pick one out.</p>

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<p>Have you been to Playa del Carmen and Cozumel? They are easy to get to, great snorkeling and scuba diving in or near Cozumel, and the ruins at Tulum are neat - or you could go to Chichen Itza. The young couple who run this web site (Anna and James - I think they are Canadians who have lived there for ten years) have a lot of great ideas for vacations here. zip line anyone?
[playa</a> del carmen trip planning menu](<a href=“http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-info-trip-planning-menu.html]playa”>http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-info-trip-planning-menu.html)
and I have used their advice on several trips to that general area.</p>

<p>And there is an on-line forum, like college confidential! if you are planning a vacation to that area, what could be better than a forum?!?!?
[Playa</a> del Carmen, Mexico forum](<a href=“http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-forum/]Playa”>http://www.playa.info/playa-del-carmen-forum/)</p>

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<p>Hawaii is awesome in the summer-- you don’t have to worry about hurricanes the same way that you do in the Caribbean and it’s a really great place to learn how to scuba, or even just snorkel, since most of the stuff is relatively shallow. I would recommend the big island (Kona area). You could include a couple of days in a west coast city to break up the trip if you wanted (ie SD, SF, or seattle).</p>

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<p>S1 just returned from a Spring Break trip to Key Largo…good snorkling and scuba diving.</p>

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<p>We love the beach - Hilton Head, Ocean City, Outer Banks - the best!!</p>

<p>For a more relaxing vacation, the west coast of Michigan is gorgeous - and a bargain this summer.</p>

<p>Toronto is a wonderful town, especially for young people. That would probably be my #1 pick for someone your age.</p>

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<p>Toronto? What’s a young person to do in Toronto, kelsmom?</p>

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<p>Save the tropical resorts for your winter getaways- heat and storms (think hurrricane season) are one reason the rates are lower in summer. Perhaps pick a place where summer is the best time to visit and save the “good weather” areas for winter. We did a trip to Seattle one summer- also saw Mt St Helens, Mt Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula, a whale watching cruise, didn’t make it to Vancouver, BC like others did with the rental car. We stayed in Berkeley and visited San Fransisco and points around there one summer- nice hotel on the water across from SF, with good public transportation. There are so many places to explore on a visit- places you would never consider living in, but seeing adds to your life experience. Consider the upper midwest- fly into Chicago, there are a lot of summer events on the lakeshore as well as museums and nighttime activities for a different big city experience. Michigan and Wisconsin both have many good get away from the city places.</p>

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<p>I’m biased–I live in HI & love it! As was said, there are currently some amazing deals to our state, including some great deals on airfares, hotel & cars if you shop around and aren’t too picky. Hawaii is amazing because it has so many microclimates–it has one of the wettest spots on earth as well as some of the driest! It has a mini-grand canyon, lava tubes, active volcanoes, sea turtles, dolphins, great fish you can see snorkeling or scuba diving, and amazing food! There are reasons they film LOST, South Pacific, Jurrasic Park, Water World and several other films on location here.</p>

<p>Since you live in NYC, it is a pretty long flight (or two) to get to & from HI, but really an amazing place and because of the troubled economy, some great vacation deals.</p>