<p>England for me, for lots of reasons.</p>
<p>No: Italy (pickpockets, wear the money belt), Greece (rude people, horrible conference).</p>
<p>Lately I’m liking rural areas more than the big cities. The people are nicer even if communication can be more challenging, there are fewer pickpockets, the scenery is fantastic.</p>
<p>BunsenBurner, You could always fly into Las Vegas for a night or two, take in a Cirque show, drive to AZ, stopping at the Hoover Dam on the way to the Grand Canyon. Optional excursions would be Sedona or the Southern Utah parks. Flights into Las Vegas are plentiful from many destinations and very accessible to the areas discussed above.</p>
<p>Yes, we have not ruled out Vegas again if we care to use the airport and/or see shows. We just didn’t care for “Vegas” and the 3 nights we allowed there on our first visit because we “had to see it” were 1 or 2 too many. We’d have preferred shifting one or two of those nights to Death Valley - many neat hikes there!</p>
<p>As it was, we opted to take one of our Vegas days to fly to the west end of the GC and go down to the bottom, etc. That was worth it. We later drove to the south edge of the GC and enjoyed it tremendously.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t move to Death Valley or near the GC. They were just nice places to visit.</p>
<p>Vermont and Ireland. We’ve traveled a lot but I’ve never felt so happy and comfortable as I have in those two places. Not especially the city’s of Burlington or Dublin, but the small towns in both places. </p>
<p>Traveling: Padua (in Italy) and Santa Rosa, CA. </p>
<p>Places to live: Boston/Cambridge (MA) and Portland (OR). I’ve lived other places, but both Boston and Portland felt like “my kind of place” from day one.</p>
<p>One thing that greatly contributes to my comfort in popular destinations is going there off season. I find huge crowds anywhere antithetical to comfort and have had great luck with weather at off times also. I also found that there is a cumulative benefit of prior trips to a general region (Europe, for example), because although every place is different, you get more aware of the commonalities, familiar with what to research, best hotel locations, how to pack efficiently, your priorities, how transportation works, etc. This contributes a lot to making it all easier. We have not experienced petty crime beyond the efforts of cab drivers in Rome to turn off the meter and keep valuables so inaccessible that only a small amount of daily cash would be lost if my bag were grabbed. I also have mastered the ability to look like I know where I am going, even if I am not quite sure. </p>
<p>Places that were particularly comfortable: St Barths, Paris, French and Swiss Alp towns, Sicily, Florence, Barcelona, London and most of England. Stayed at B and Bs throughout Ireland and found the hospitality amazing. Super friendly and helpful, yet no pretense. </p>
<p>Last trip to St. Martin, was not so comfortable. Found it had changed- the hotel had upped perimeter security and beaches were not as well tended. Just might have been how it struck us as we stayed in the same place 15 years apart and it was very different. </p>
<p>In one trip I went to both France and Germany. Expected to love Germany (several years of the language and family background) and barely tolerate France. LOVED France, loved the flirty men, the food, everything. Germany? Everything ran perfectly, people were cold.</p>
<p>Loved Hong Kong hated Korea. </p>
<p>We got kicked out of a cafe in Martinique years ago. I don’t know why, because they didn’t speak English, or maybe I should say, didn’t bother to speak English. They just grabbed my hand and took me up to a calendar and pointed to the date. Other people were in there eating, so I didn’t think they were closed. Also, all the shop keepers just threw their garbage into the street. Someone must come along at some point to clean it up. We hated Martinique. </p>
<p>While we enjoyed our recent trip to Italy, “comfortable” is not a word I would use to describe it. If I want to be comfortable, I’d pick a more rural, low-key, type of place. </p>