Any Travel Plans for 2020?

[Gumby]

Starting a new thread for next year's plans, so it will load faster. I'll close the 2019 thread on December 31st. And just to start - yesterday I made all the reservations for a January trip to Islamorada in the Florida Keys. We used to go every year back in the 90s, but it will have been over 20 years since our last visit.

 

[wanaberetiree]

We want to finally go to Israel.
Any suggestions are welcome !
The plan as of now is for 2 weeks, direct flight from SFO.

 

[Nemo2]

On the presumption (hope) that I can get medical insurance ~ a year from now, we've placed non-refundable deposits on two back to back cruises.

Here is our preliminary workup:

1) Return Air, Toronto-Venice (2019 prices) Approx dates: October 22 to Nov 24
Flight cost estimate (2019 prices) $1,005 Cdn p.p. (A/C - Lufthansa)

1a) If want to incorporate Ukraine, arrive a couple weeks earlier, get a return ticket Venice-KBP (Kyiv), approx $250 p.p (2019 price)

2) Train: Bus from Venice Airport to Train Station: http://www.atvo.it/en-venice-airport.html

Venice to Trieste approx 1 hour 45 minutes - 53 trains daily from Centrale Approx $31 Cdn p.p.
https://www.italiarail.com/pages/routes/venice-to-trieste-centrale

3) Cruises:
1: Trieste to Athens: Depart Trieste October 25/2020 (08:00 p.m.) - arrive Athens Nov 01/2020 (08:00 a.m.)


a) Zadar, Croatia: Roman and Venitian ruins, (Old Town).


2: Athens to Athens: Depart Athens Nov 02/2020 (05:00 p.m.) - arrive Athens Nov 12/2020 (09:00 a.m.)

Bus/metro: https://www.davestravelpages.com/how-to-get-from-piraeus-to-athens

a) Haifa: Mount Carmel (views), and Bah'ai Gardens.

b) Marmaris, Turkey: 16th Century Castle.

c) Bodrum, Turkey: Castle.

4) Athens...stay a day....fly to Catania, Sicily approx $93 Cdn Aegean Air (evening of November 13 or day Nov 14)
(could even leave evening of Nov 12)

5) Catania: Mt. Etna train out & back - Catania to Giarre (31 minutes)..get return ticket.

Depending on arrival date in Catania, leave for Palermo via train (approx $52-$85 US p.p. - 2 1/2 hours) approx Nov 16/17

6) Stay in Palermo approx 4 days (Nov 21)

7) Fly Palermo to Venice approx $77 Cdn (Volotea Air)

 

[rodi]

Mod note: edited thread title to suggest multiple plans are ok.

 

[Dtail]

Another cruise to the Caribbean next June. DGF likes the cruises and not sure yet about her mobility after back fusion surgery before booking other trips.

 

[Ronstar]

Key West tentatively planned for 2019 may get pushed to Jan 2020. Looking at spending part of Feb/March in Arizona. 4 or 5 days in New York City in the spring. Alaska in the summer.

 

[Bamaman]

After traveling to Europe 49 years, I (we) have been to virtually every major city from St. Petersburg to Athens--except Berlin. We discovered a $437 round trip flight sale to Berlin the first of April, 2020. We'll take a train down to Dresden, and taking a rental car over to Krakow. We plan on flying to Budapest for a few days before returning home. It'll be my second European trip and my wife's third trip in a year.

 

[whitet]

Have booked flights and some AirBNB accommodations for our first post-retirement trip. My wife and I will be visiting Rome, the Umbria region, Bologna and Parma in May. Retirement planned for 3/31, if I make it that long. Not that Italy was necessarily at the top of our ‘desired’ list, but we have family living in Rome for a couple years and decided we better not miss the opportunity to take advantage of their experience (and living quarters).

We’d love to hear any advice about less well known things that should not be missed from people with experience in these areas.

 

[Souschef]

We are again cruising to Hawaii in March. We leave from and return to LA NO AIRPORTS
This time under Blow That Dough, we will be going in full suite.
Here are our plans:
Hawaii - Laupahoehoe train museum. made arrangements to drive their diesel switch engine
Maui - Excursion to Iao Valley
Oahu - Flight in a WW2 T-6 plane over Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, etc. I will be flying the plane
Kauai - Rent a red mustang convertible- drive north to Kilauea Lighthouse and points west from there

 

[Gumby]

Have booked flights and some AirBNB accommodations for our first post-retirement trip. My wife and I will be visiting Rome, the Umbria region, Bologna and Parma in May. Retirement planned for 3/31, if I make it that long. Not that Italy was necessarily at the top of our ‘desired’ list, but we have family living in Rome for a couple years and decided we better not miss the opportunity to take advantage of their experience (and living quarters).

We’d love to hear any advice about less well known things that should not be missed from people with experience in these areas.

We spent a week in Umbria in 2016. We stayed in an agriturismo overlooking Lake Trasimeno and drove out each day to see something new. Here are some of the more fun things we did:

1. Go to Gubbio and look at the Iguvine Tablets.
2. Go to Perugia.
3. Go to Assisi and see the Basilica di San Francesco, the Bosco di San Francesco and the Rocca Magiore.
4. Go to Orvieto and tour the tunnels and caves.
5. Go to Narni/Terni and visit the Cascata delle Marmore.

 

[davebarnes]

Sicilia and Lyon. 3 weeks in late September.

 

[rodi]

We're doing our first cruise this January to celebrate 20 years of wedded bliss. (I was on a short cruise years ago, before I met DH). This is in/out of San Diego, down to Cabo and back. Testing to see if we like cruising... If we do then we'll be looking at repositioning cruises to get to/from other places. If we feel confined/bored... then we'll nix those plans.

No other travel plans yet. Kids (jr in HS and freshman in college) are pushing for a trip to Japan over the summer. But after this past summer's trip to Italy and their less than wonderful teen 'tudes... I'm not feeling exceptionally generous about paying to take them to Japan and have them ruin *my* good trip. Plus older son will need to work to refill his bank account since we aren't paying for his free/spending money in college.. (we pay books, tuition, dorm, meal plan, and laundry)

Younger son is being more and more autonomous... Gets himself off to school and work without our intervention... so we may do some local trips and have him stay at my sister's while we're gone.

 

[RobbieB]

My parents went to Hawaii twice, London once, Paris once, did the mediterranean tour and left me home to take care of grandma.

Stiff the kids!

 

[Doribe]

I am working on three trips for 2020.

1. Four to six-week RV trip to Arizona in January & February. We plan to visit a few friends and hike.

2. One week of diving in Bonaire in March. This will take some doing since we haven't been diving in several years. We need to get rectified and have our regulators checked out. We also need to work on improving our fitness.

3. Rough plans to visit a friend in Africa in the fall. We would like to fold a safari into this trip. I'm just starting to read up on Africa.

 

[PandaBear]

We have a couple of trips for 2020.

1. A trip to Vegas in February. Hoping to see a show or two and visit a state or national park.

2. A Disney cruise in April with our young adult children.

3. A few days in London and then a 12 day British Isle cruise.

4. I'm traveling with my mom and sister to Boston for a few days and a Boston to Montreal cruise.

Of course, a few long weekends, TBD.

 

[brett]

Looking at either Thailand/Vietnam or Pacific coast of Mexico/Costa Rica/Panama for the winter and a shorter trip to Morocco/Spain in late April.

 

[DrRoy]

Short Caribbean cruise and the Florida Keys, a couple weeks split between Page AZ and Moab UT, Danube river cruise and a week in the Dolomites, 2 weeks in NM.

 

[ckelly78z]

We have pre-booked our return trip (before we left the last time) to Sandals South Coast Jamaica all inclusive resort for either 2020, or 2021, depending on finances. We have been there in February, and December, so we might something in late Spring.

 

[donheff]

San Diego and Tucson coming up in a month. Key West and St Pete in late February, Grand Canyon rafting in early summer, and Croatia Biking in the fall.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Our HS senior has kept their grades up and done really well on the standardized tests, so we let them pick a destination next summer as a graduation present. They chose the UK, so we're looking at lodging now. I've been tracking the airfares on Google Flights for months, and it looks like the prices don't start to climb until about 60 days out, so we'll wait and see if Scott's Cheap Flights has any good deals in the next few months.

 

[Sunset]

(1) Edinburgh Scotland and London, then a 2 week Baltic cruise.

(2) Eastern Canada.

(still trying to squeeze in a Fall trip, so not really thinking about 2020 yet )

 

[tmm99]

Will be in Japan in January with DH.

 

[braumeister]

Italy in the Spring. First time for both of us, so it should be interesting. We decided to take a guided tour, which will only be two weeks, so we're trying to decide what else to do before coming home. Probably Germany, since we're both very comfortable there.

 

[PawPrint53]

So far just camping in the NW because we're not doing much traveling to save money for our travel extravaganza in 2021. I am, however, thinking of a trip with my DD to Chicago, where she wants to move in the next year or so. She really wants to work at Shedd Aquarium and continue doing stand up comedy in the evenings. I've only been to Chicago once, a decade ago, when she was graduating from Navy bootcamp, and we really didn't see much.

 

[check6]

Oahu - Flight in a WW2 T-6 plane over Pearl Harbor, Waikiki, etc. I will be flying the plane

Very cool! I soloed on Ford Island in Jan '72. Unfortunately that airport is closed.