Yes, Portland is a great place for youngsters. And
oldsters, too. The folks who come to work in Seattle fall into 2 categories: the ones who hate it and leave right away and the ones who get so used to the grey that feels normal to them and they love it. The greenery definitely helps! 
I’ve been to Atlanta a few times and it has always struck me as a better place to live than visit. Traffic sucks, though.
@whatisyourquest, Croatia is lovely. The food is so-so except the octopus, which is the best I’ve had anyplace. Squid very good too. Otherwise, nothing to write home about, but I’d generally say the same thing for Greece. Not clear why the fish in Croatia isn’t fabulous as the whole country is coast – and very beautiful coast at that. To me, the cost seemed lower than Italy and the parts of Greece I’ve visited. But, my cost comparison is just recollection. Among the nice things about Croatia for Americans: people speak English. Not so much in Greece or Italy. Post the wars, they realized that they would need to rely on tourism and hence Germans and English-speakers.
I admit that food quality/cuisine ranks very highly when choosing my vacation destinations. Doesn’t need to be expensive just needs to be good. 
New York’s Finger Lakes. Tranquil and endlessly beautiful.
I have been dreaming of going to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico ever since. I find the place perfect for couples. I have been to Boracay too and it’s a cool getaway with friends. Loving the night life there. It’s in the Philippines, btw. I’ve been there just once and wanting to come back again soon.
We just got back from biking across Portugal. Fantastic country! Historic, scenic, friendly and great food and wine! It’s a country that had never been on my radar before. I hope we can go back sometime and check out the areas we missed.
Best places: Pagosa Springs, CO (beautiful, great hiking, relaxing), London (easy to navigate with the tube, lots to see in the immediate area and the pubs are fun) Germany and Austria (went to Hallstadt, Austria and the mountain comes out of the lake in this beautiful little town and it also has ice caves) we also went to the Eagle’s nest where Hitler visited with Eva Braun and it was interesting historically speaking. Italy (food, people, climate, leather…my favorite part is Tuscany where there are beautiful old churches and charming outdoor cafes)
Good places for kids: South Padre Island (pretty clean beaches and it is shallow a long way so all ages can boogie board, simple seafood restaurants) Hyatt Hill Country in San Antonio (lazy river, golf, lots of quaint sitting areas, games on the lawn like twister and croquet, s’mores at night and country music by a fire pit)
Great place with my husband: Napa (great wine, beautiful weather, awesome food although it was a little too sophisticated for my redneck pallet with rabbit, beet salads, lamb, etc. but I usually found something delicious to eat)
Bucket List : Australia, Prague, South America
@woodlandsmom I agree that Hallstatt is beautiful… I mentioned the Salzkammergut in the OP. There are many beautiful lakes and picturesque villages in that area (Wolfgangsee, Attersee, Traunsee, etc). On a calm day, the mountains reflect perfectly in the water. Like when Forrest Gump was on his cross-country run.
Waterton in Canada is gorgeous as is Yosemite, especially when you go off season, like now. Just saw both of these in July and October.
Maine. Anyplace in Maine.
As someone who traveled to Europe for the first time when our eldest graduated 4 yrs ago from high school, I am loving our trips there. We are fortunate that we have the time and means to vacation weeks at a time abroad.
Our most recent trip was to Amsterdam, Portugal and Paris. As our destination list grows, I find it more difficult to label favorites. Each place has very enjoyable aspects. We find so much of a destination’s offerings as ‘relative’…for example, the food in Paris was delicious, but it was much more expensive than the food in Portugal. We appreciated the beauty of the Amsterdam canals, as well as the natural beauty of the Portugal beaches. Sorry for rambling, but I guess I’m trying to justify my increasing list of favorite places.
Amsterdam was a wonderful surprise for me. It was a very walkable city (though it took several days to get used to all the bikes) and the trams were easy to use too. We stayed in the Jordaan district, which was a perfect fit for us. Also, I discovered I really like Indonesian food!
Portugal was lovely. I can see why people retire there. It’s inexpensive (one dinner was all-you-can-eat 22 courses, followed by 6 desserts, for 19 euro per person!!) and the people were welcoming. We started in Porto and made our way south to Faro/Lagos. If you like tapas/seafood and don’t mind stairs and inclines (I live in the flat Chicago area) it’s a fun place to explore.
Paris is Paris. Lots of cultural sights to see and food to sample. Yes, it’s more expensive, but walking the neighborhoods and taking the metro is easy and enjoyable. I’ll just add that it’s been 4 years since our last trip. It felt a little different. There was a lot of visible security, which can either make you feel safer or more anxious. That said, we felt safe and had no issues during our stay. I don’t know if it was our imagination, but it seemed like the French people were warmer toward tourists.
So, what’s next on your list, @88jm19?
Right now we’re just catching up on family and household responsibilities. Then we have our annual 2 week trip to Hawaii in February for golf/tennis and relaxation away from the cold.
My husband is our travel agent so he’ll probably start planning the next Europe trip in a couple of weeks. He’s done an amazing job planning our trips. We’ve done the following trips: London-Barcelona-Paris-Munich. Stockholm-Berlin-Copenhagen. Rome-Zurich-Madrid-southern Spain. Milan-Florence-Munich. Amsterdam-Portugal-Paris.
We’ve talked about Prague, Vienna and Budapest or perhaps some islands of Greece (though I think I’d prefer to split up the water/beach vacations). Our preference is a 2.5 - 3 week trip with maybe 3 big stops. We define a big stop as 4-5 full days in one place. I’ll see what my husband suggests and we’ll go from there.
@88jm19 You’ve covered a lot! We tend to travel at a much slower pace, staying in one locale/area for a week or two but then I feel like we haven’t experienced as many places.
We went to Salzkammergut this summer and there was a 210 km mountain bike race (with 21,000 meters of vertical
incline) through the entire area. Got to Hallstatt and the bikers turned the curve to go up the same hill as the funicular. INSANELY steep. Made me think of MOWC’s son! Everywhere we drove that day, we were following racers. Hiked at Gosausee in the mountains and a bunch of the riders came barrelling down the mountain. Really cool, and Hallstatt and the area was gorgeous.
We plan two vacations a year - spring break and summer. DH and I take turns choosing destinations and planning. This year, its DH’s turn to plan the summer and he tends to choose more rural places while I like urban spots. D is a busy high schooler and we also have to plan around her schedule.
Its seems like I every place we visit but my favorite place is currently London. DH loves the pubs where he chats with people (and he is really an introvert) while D and I love the big city with the fun shops and museums. If and when you get tired of the city, its easy to book a trip to the country. London was also our springboard to Italy and France on our last two trips.
Guanajuato and San Miguel de Allende, Mexico and Antigua Guatemala were my favorite week-long trips. Great people, food and culture. We traveled to Antigua during World Cup soccer and it made it even more fun to cheer on our team in a bar with expats. For DH, the best part was staying in very nice hotels, eating/drinking well and still coming home with money!
DH has hinted that he’s looking at a trip to somewhere in Asia this summer. The trick is figuring out when the weather will be nice. I will be planning spring and Boston, Chicago or DC are on my list. D and I love museums and history.
Wow how do you get that? The highest mountain in Europe, Mont Blanc is a bit under 5,000 meters. Mt Everest is a bit under 9,000 meters.
Ooops – 7,119 meters of incline (~21,000 ft), spread over 210 km…
http://www.bikeandmore.it/en/mtb/salzkammergut-mtb-trophy (click on Images partway down the page for pics – gorgeous scenery and terrifying biking! These are from the 2015 race)
http://www.salzkammergut-trophy.at/news_2017-pid2065
The 210km winner won with a time of 10:24.32 – the runner-up was 2.5 seconds behind. Completely blows me away.
There were ~6 different routes, depending on the distance you were racing…
I’m assuming they went up and down lots of mountains as part of race.