2025 Travel Plans

audreyh1

audreyh1

Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Joined
Jan 18, 2006
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Location
Rio Grande Valley
It’s that time again!

We’ve booked a couple of National Geographic trips for late Spring 2025. The first is a land based tour of Ancient Greece. DH always wanted to return to visit Athens with me. He visited almost 40 years ago. This trip covers way more than Athens.

The second is a National Geographic Lindblad Cruise of many of the big islands in the Mediterranean from Barcelona ending in Athens, plus a Crete post voyage extension. This will be our first Lindblad Nat Geo cruise.

There are 12 days between the two trips. We will spend them in Catalonia Spain, probably staying at 2 different locations. We’ve already visited most of the Barcelona main tourist sites (and they were all well worth it), but there is still tons to see and do in the region!
 
I booked our second Viking river cruise a while back, this one in May from Basel to Nuremberg. I'm thinking we'll spend a few days before and after in Zurich and Munich, though I've not bought the plane tickets yet.

Then late October next year, I've just booked a Viking ocean cruise from Athens to "Rome". Again, we'll likely spend a few days in Athens before but will take a train from Civitavecchia to Naples for a few days after.

What makes the October cruise interesting is that I'm also planning a three week RoadTrip to New Mexico for a particular gathering, leaving in late September and getting home in mid October, about four days before the flight to Greece.

I'm also thinking a RoadTrip to southwest Florida in March would be fun, about two weeks duration. We should really get to planning that one now, since March will be here soon...
 
I’ve been forced to plan early because these Nat Geo trips sell out, especially the small ship cruises which only have one per year for a given route. The land based cruises aren’t as difficult because they have several per season. But in this case I had to match two different expeditions and I really wanted to do the land based one before the cruise.

Seems like I’m having to commit earlier and earlier!

I might plan a late summer NY Finger Lakes + Niagara Falls and combine with a visit to Maine next year.
 
I don't have any plans right now but I'm sure I'll come up with something before too long!😆
 
I don't plan that far ahead. I am currently planning my October 16-day trip to Ireland and Turkey. This will be our 5th overseas trip this year. We might do another overseas trip before this year ends. Our future trips are likely to be focused on South America and Africa.
 
flyingaway said:
I don't plan that far ahead. I am currently planning my October 16-day trip to Ireland and Turkey. This will be our 5th overseas trip this year. We might do another overseas trip before this year ends. Our future trips are likely to be focused on South America and Africa.
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Almost all the cabins were sold out so I’m glad I looked at it now instead of waiting.
 
I travel solo and rarely plan far ahead but I think I want to spend a month (February, March?) on the beach in Mexico (I have a fav spot around Oaxaca) and then go back to Japan for a few months because of the art festival happening around Seto sea every 3 years. I went 6 years ago and loved it.

Before that I'm going to Italy (late October) with vague plans to stay in Europe until spring and maybe learn Spanish in Madrid.
 
Madeira and the Algarve for a week each in January. A month in Sri Lanka, Borneo, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore (edited) April/May. Four days in London followed by a tour and Wind Star cruise in Greece. Five nights in Oslo followed by a tour of Iceland during the last two weeks in July. The flight schedules for August are still opening up so I'm not yet sure where we'll go after Reykjavík or how we'll get home.

Long haul flights are all booked using points/miles and we'll fly on Turkish, TAP, Qatar, BA, China Airlines, AA, Turkish, and AA. The last flight I booked was for mid-July from our home airport in Washington through DFW and arriving in LHR was booked for 61k AA points plus $5.60 each in row 6.

I follow this forum closely for travel tips/ideas and am constantly looking for points/miles flights so that we can travel more than our pre-retirement budget allowed. We generally book a year out.
 
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audreyh1 said:
It’s that time again!

We’ve booked a couple of National Geographic trips for late Spring 2025. The first is a land based tour of Ancient Greece. DH always wanted to return to visit Athens with me. He visited almost 40 years ago. This trip covers way more than Athens.

The second is a National Geographic Lindblad Cruise of many of the big islands in the Mediterranean from Barcelona ending in Athens, plus a Crete post voyage extension. This will be our first Lindblad Nat Geo cruise.

There are 12 days between the two trips. We will spend them in Catalonia Spain, probably staying at 2 different locations. We’ve already visited most of the Barcelona main tourist sites (and they were all well worth it), but there is still tons to see and do in the region!
Click to expand...
Wow, your trips look wonderful. I've been looking at National Geographic trips to Antarctica in 2026/2027. They're usually a bit pricey for us but may be a very worthwhile splurge for what for us will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

I used VacationsToGo to hunt for your cruise. Are you sailing on the Orion?
 
Nothing for sure yet. Possibilities include Washington DC or upper NE states Autumn leaves drive tour, then Niagra Falls with friends, maybe mid west family reunion in the summer with cousins.
DH would like to go back to Hawaii, one of our favorites.
Sometime we would like to do a Mediterranean cruise.
 
OldConch said:
Wow, your trips look wonderful. I've been looking at National Geographic trips to Antarctica in 2026/2027. They're usually a bit pricey for us but may be a very worthwhile splurge for what for us will be a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

I used VacationsToGo to hunt for your cruise. Are you sailing on the Orion?
Click to expand...
Right, it’s the Orion.
 
audreyh1 said:
Almost all the cabins were sold out so I’m glad I looked at it now instead of waiting.
Click to expand...
While we don't usually stay in cabins, I am interested in knowing what place you are talking about.
 
flyingaway said:
While we don't usually stay in cabins, I am interested in knowing what place you are talking about.
Click to expand...
Cabins on a small cruise ship. That particular National Geographic cruise itinerary is only available once per year.
 
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We sail on the Orion with Lindblad's Greek Islands trip Sept 2025. Friends we met on our Belize Lindblad trip, said they got one of the last cabins for that same sailing. We booked 3/2024. We are also on Windstar Spirit true sailing ship April 2025. Lisbon to Barcelona. We go to Croatia next month with Country Walkers on the Dalmatian Islands. Booking cruises for my 74th year moving to slow go.
 
grasshopper said:
We sail on the Orion with Lindblad's Greek Islands trip Sept 2025. Friends we met on our Belize Lindblad trip, said they got one of the last cabins for that same sailing. We booked 3/2024. We are also on Windstar Spirit true sailing ship April 2025. Lisbon to Barcelona. We go to Croatia next month with Country Walkers on the Dalmatian Islands. Booking cruises for my 74th year moving to slow go.
Click to expand...
Cool! I saw that the Orion had several Greek island cruises. Looks like you fly to Europe several times a year?
 
Planning on another Viking River Cruise for the summer --this one Amsterdam to Budapest with a side trip to Prague. Also thinking about Japan in the fall.

January I will be spending a few days in Jamaica -- a trip I planned last year but got put off.
 
3 weeks driving around southern Spain in march, then in May 3 weeks in Scotland with our 2 sons and one DIL. Next Sept/Oct either southern France or northern Spain depending on award seats on Air France or Iberia.
 
audreyh1 said:
Cool! I saw that the Orion had several Greek island cruises. Looks like you fly to Europe several times a year?
Click to expand...
To answer the question not really. We like the Mediterranean lifestyle and food. We also like central and South America. We still want to see the Amazon on a ship before to long. I think 2026 may be a Nordic theme cruise. We watched a Midsummer Night a while back a story of a Norwegian family celebrating duh midsummer. Well everyone looked like me, blond, blue eyes, high forehead with thinning hair. I am almost all swedish eat herring on flatbread, and never knew why I liked it. So I want to visit where my family came from.
 
braumeister said:
You'll be hooked, I guarantee it.
We've done four Lindblad/Nat Geo trips and have nothing but the highest praise for them.
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Really looking forward to it! I know our previous Nat Geo land tour was outstanding .
 
We've been neglecting our beach time this year so Mexico is going to be at least a month of next year. Likely taking a break from Europe after the past few years.

Probably a couple weeks with the GKs for spring break and maybe CO.
 
I am signed up for a birdwatching tour to Oaxaca next spring. There are some truly spectacular birds there, and I'm going with a group of my best birding buddies, so I'm really looking forward to it! But I'll also be moving, some time in the same period, so I've left any other trips TBD.
 
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