Any Travel Plan for 2019?

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DW and I are Currently in Athens Greece on one way 30k FF points. Will visit some of the islands. Need to be back in time for thanksgiving dinner.
 
We finished our month in Italy. All by trains, buses, and taxis. A good mix of lake district, Dolomites, big cities (Venice,Florence, Rome) and hill towns (Sienna, Orvieto).

Did a few days in South Tahoe and a nice hike there too. I would highly recommend this Italian restaurant, Scusa.

Headed off to Yosemite Valley for a few days next week. Hopefully the crowds have dissipated. The weather reports look great.
 
audreyh1 said:
Did you enjoy Italy?
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If we count 1972 we have been there 3 times now. Yes, we really enjoyed our trip and I think the diverse environments helped a lot. Most stays were 3 to 4 days.

I've enjoyed reading up on ancient Roman history before our trip and then visiting a few museums and the Roman Forum (again). We used Rick Steves' audio tours a few times and that was great too. I found that the Rick Steves Kindle books are formatted to read easily on an iPhone XR so no need for lugging around the big tour books.
 
Just back from a 3 day in Vancouver Canada, so we could get on a 15 day HI cruise returning to Los Angeles.

Really enjoyed walking around Stanley Park, walked the entire sea wall. Also took local buses to Lynn Canyon Park to cross their suspension bridge and walk through the forest viewing waterfalls etc..

It was an easy way to glimpse 5 places in HI.
 
Going to FLL and West Palm Beach. And Miami Sadly > 2mi from Mar A Lago but like to be close to the water and palm trees. Any points of interest? Decent Local cuisine?
 
kgtest said:
Any points of interest? Decent Local cuisine?
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We are headed back to our condo in Downtown WPB in December for 2 months. Restaurants turn over a lot in WPB. All the large chain steak houses and other chain restaurants are there, but the trendy restaurants currently are: The Avocado Grill, Grato, and for more casual West Palm Brewery $ Wine Vault. Fort Lauderdale has a lot of placed to eat such as Dune (Ocean BLVD), Bo's Pub (Las Olas Blvd), and Casa Sensei (Las Olas). If you plan to go to Miami beach and want a unique lunch dining experience, go to Gianni's which was the former Versace Mansion. They have a $29 fixed menu that includes appetizer, entree, and desert. You need to book at least two weeks in advance for this lunch special. Dinner is about 3 to 4 times more per person. The place is amazing.
 
Freedom56 said:
We are headed back to our condo in Downtown WPB in December for 2 months. Restaurants turn over a lot in WPB. All the large chain steak houses and other chain restaurants are there, but the trendy restaurants currently are: The Avocado Grill, Grato, and for more casual West Palm Brewery $ Wine Vault. Fort Lauderdale has a lot of placed to eat such as Dune (Ocean BLVD), Bo's Pub (Las Olas Blvd), and Casa Sensei (Las Olas). If you plan to go to Miami beach and want a unique lunch dining experience, go to Gianni's which was the former Versace Mansion. They have a $29 fixed menu that includes appetizer, entree, and desert. You need to book at least two weeks in advance for this lunch special. Dinner is about 3 to 4 times more per person. The place is amazing.
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Thanks for the tips! We will be headed down to Miami tomorrow night for dinner.
 
Bordeaux is a very beautiful city. Apparently only renovated over the last decade or two. I'm so glad they made the commitment to rescue it from the dirty industrial downtown it had become. It is dominated by 18th architecture, most buildings of the same beautiful creamy limestone and quite marked design. All recently cleaned. Very elegant result. Attracts a lot of tourists now.

Good base for wine tourism as well. Plus yummy restaurants. We had some cooler drizzly weather, but it did not interfere with enjoying the city.
 
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Gorillas in our midst

Got home last month from trek in Rwanda to see the mountain gorillas. It was magnificent!
BF973C06-6531-487D-B9FE-DC20305B0B6B.jpg
 
I am going to Thailand in November to visit my son who is living on Koh Phangan. He rented a bungalow on the beach for me. First trip to Thailand and I am looking forward to everything but the 30 plus hours of travel to get there.
 
Traveling to Peru on Friday, 10/25/2019 for a 10 day trip. We will visit Lima, Cusco, See "Machu Pichhu" followed by three days in "Amazon Forest" at Puerto Maldonado. Looking forward to this Bucket List Trip!
 
We are going to Poland and Prague for a month. My DIL invited us to go with them to see her family. We will travel the country and see places we haven’t been to such as Warsaw and Prague. We will also go back to Kraków one of my favorite places. We got the tickets last night so will have to research what other close by places we want to visit. We got a great deal on a non stop flight on a new plane. Only paid 50 extra for extra leg room. We aren’t going until August. I am very excited!
 
Teacher Terry said:
We are going to Poland and Prague for a month. My DIL invited us to go with them to see her family. We will travel the country and see places we haven’t been to such as Warsaw and Prague. We will also go back to Kraków one of my favorite places. We got the tickets last night so will have to research what other close by places we want to visit. We got a great deal on a non stop flight on a new plane. Only paid 50 extra for extra leg room. We aren’t going until August. I am very excited!
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I'm currently deployed to Poland with the military. It's a beautiful country with a lot to see. One place I'd definitely recommend is Malbork castle. It's the largest castle in the world by land area. You can easily spend a full day there. And if you do decide to visit the castle, take a couple of days to visit Gdansk, which is less than an hour's drive from the Castle. It's a nice city with a lively old town. Not a huge city, but worth it if you're in the area. I actually enjoyed Gdansk more than the much larger Warsaw. And the solidarity museum there is excellent.

And Prague is my favorite city I've been to date. Just an absolutely beautiful city and a large old town with tons to see and do.

Enjoy!
 
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I just got back from Kiev, Ukraine and the Chernobyl/Pripyat tour. Kiev really surprised me. Although it's mostly thought of as an uninviting former Soviet city, it's actually quite opulent and lively. I'd describe it as a mix of Vienna and NYC with an old Soviet feel thrown in. And it's so affordable! I lived like a king on a beggar's budget there. The drivers there are insane though! I was glad I didn't have a rental car. Uber is the best way to get around the city (other than walking). Very easy, plentiful, and cheap. Learning just a few words/phrases goes a long way there (hello, thank you, do you speak english, etc.), as it does anywhere. However, of all the European cities and towns I've visited, Kiev had the largest language barrier. English is not as universal there as most large European cities, even in many of the touristy areas. Fortunately, the Ukrainian language seems very similar to Polish and Czech (despite different alphabets), so learning the key phrases was fairly easy for me, since I've already been using them in Poland and before in the Czech Republic.

The Chernobyl tour was amazing. And the radiation exposure is actually very low. The government mandates that all tourists and tour operators wear radiation meters to measure total radiation exposure during the entire stay. And a guy who was on the tour with me was a nuclear engineer and brought his own meter, which had the same readings as the ones provided. Our radiation exposure after 8 hours in the exclusion zone was equivalent to about 20 minutes of flying on a commercial airline.
 
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Plans for the next couple months are Krakow, Wroclaw, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. I hate that I'm deployed away from my family, but while here, I'm making the best of it and trying to get in as much traveling as I can. I do think my wife is a bit jealous though!
 
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Southern Europe

DW and I just returned from a month in the Mediterranean following my retirement this summer.

Our first trip to Europe, this exceeded expectations.

Lots of preplanning, Frommers and Rick Steve's eBooks helped greatly with Airlines, Eurail Passes, 4&5 star hotels with off season rates in the old cities, what to see and do, local customs.

Barcelona was a beautiful city, but the day we left the riots started. 11 day Princess cruise to Toloun France ( bleah), Pisa, Malta, Kotor (amazing), Corfu Greece, Palermo, Pompeii. Cruise was a good way for us to start and get first time jitters out before striking out on our own.

Spent 2-5 days in each of these cities: Rome, Florence, Venice (flooded week prior and after), and Milan. Our high speed train days were devoted to travel and a bit of rest while relocating. I walked 4-5 miles a day in the cities.

Amazing experience for us, and at 58 now is the time for international travel. We took a lightweight electric wheelchair and taxis for DW in the museums; fortunately she can walk because the old cities are not built for handicapped.

We anticipated spending $$ like drunken sailors on liberty and loved every minute, first class accommodations and travel . I'd go back to Italy in a heartbeat, but there are so many other places to visit! Planning our next vacation to the Baltic in the spring.

atom
 
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atmsmshr said:
DW and I just returned from a month in the Mediterranean following my retirement this summer.

Our first trip to Europe, this exceeded expectations.

Lots of preplanning, Frommers and Rick Steve's eBooks helped greatly with Airlines, Eurail Passes, 4&5 star hotels with off season rates in the old cities, what to see and do, local customs...
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I have never taken any tour, and always travel on my own. Making plan is part of the fun, for me anyway. My wife only "tags along". As the result, I remember more about our travel.
 
NW-Bound said:
I have never taken any tour, and always travel on my own. Making plan is part of the fun, for me anyway. ..... As the result, I remember more about our travel.
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Likewise for us.....no guidebooks, no "You must see this/that".......no hotels......just "Down & Dirty"......get a feel for the locale, delve into the alleys & back streets.....absorb the city/town...(try and) avoid as many other tourists as we can.

Serendipity rules!
 
Well, I do use guide books though. :) My method is to go to a popular spot first, because there's usually a good reason it's popular.
 
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Nemo2 said:
Likewise for us.....no guidebooks, no "You must see this/that".......no hotels......just "Down & Dirty"......get a feel for the locale, delve into the alleys & back streets.....absorb the city/town...(try and) avoid as many other tourists as we can.

Serendipity rules!
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I like to do a little of both. We will always hit the must-see tourist spots, museums, etc. But we also like to do some exploring on our own off the beaten path. And I'm always glad I did both. The big tourist spots are usually popular for a reason, because they're often incredible. But, getting away from the tourists and seeing parts of a location often not seen by mainstream tourists is very rewarding too.

EDIT: NW-Bound, it appears we have similar thoughts on the topic. Lol
 
dirtbiker said:
I like to do a little of both. We will always hit the must-see tourist spots, museums, etc. But we also like to do some exploring on our own off the beaten path. And I'm always glad I did both. The big tourist spots are usually popular for a reason, because they're often incredible. But, getting away from the tourists and seeing parts of a location often not seen by mainstream tourists is very rewarding too.
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Prague:...we got up at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday, (Airbnb apartment)......hit the Charles St Bridge at 05:00 a.m. (got there by streetcar)....last bar was emptying, so we let the stragglers cross. For about 2 1/2 hours we had the city to ourselves.

Rome: Pitch dark when we left our room near the Termini.....Colosseum not open, (we did have to return later), but lit by floodlights.

Romania: Walked to catch the 03:00 a.m. train from Sibiu to Timișoara.

And so on and so on......:dance:
 
Heading for Enchanted Isle in Hollywood, FL on Friday. A cozy mom and pop type (resort?) through DB timeshare on the boardwalk. We're having a Thanksgiving family get together of 16 people. 10 of us staying the EL. DB sure knows how to get the best of his points and exchanges with 3 timeshares. I'm glad he timeshares with us. Saving $$.

https://eiresort.com/
 
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