I’m excited to be traveling to Helsinki and Berlin, two cities that pull me for very different reasons. These are not first visits, far from it. In fact, I lived in Helsinki for four years in the 1990s, a fascinating time to be there not only because of the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), Finland joining the European Union (1994), its shimmering long nights in the summer or courageous ice swimming in the winter.
But I’ve been reflecting on where else I’d like to go if time, money or other obligations were not an issue. For me, I find myself returning to the idea of traveling to Kyoto in Japan. I’m drawn to the physical beauty of the gardens and the ancient temples. I’m intrigued by its bustling contemporary art scene. I long to jump on the bullet train from Tokyo and stroll through Kyoto’s bamboo forests. This city is one of a number of places in Asia I’m determined to visit. Maybe soon? Wanderlust beckons.
What about you? Forget chores on your agenda. Don’t worry about the cost of the ticket or the length of the flight. Imagine money and time are no object. Where in the world would you go?
As always, I look forward to reading your comments and the opportunity of this community to learn from each other.
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A curious phenomenon is the tendency to NOT "go" where we live. Then a visitor comes to see us after 5 or 10 years and we take them to see our state....that we rarely travel....and then say to ourselves: "Why haven't we done this before?"
So.... if my time and money were unlimited I would travel the back roads of the U.S. for months and learn about my own country.
I’ve always wanted to see Scotland’s Highlands. For their towering mountains, landscapes, lochs, beautiful beaches and sea views, and the Northern Lights.
I’ve read many books about Scotland (and other countries), and I love when I find myself reading the world atlas, exploring places through books before I visit.
More like where WOULDN’T I go! Actually have wanted to visit New Zealand since the 60’s. Oh, and the Greek islands after reading John Fowles ‘The Magus’. And……and….and…. Alas, not in the cards this lifetime, so it is lucky I live where folks from around the world come to visit (Pacific ocean, redwood forests, bay, lagoons, rivers & mountains)…so am a lucky duck even just staying put!
Curmudgeon warning: having heard this week that we've achieved the highest temperatures in many centuries, and that it will continue to get worse unless we make some drastic changes, I am opposed to unfettered air travel and the use of monster gas-eating motorhomes. Yes, visiting new places is wonderful, educational, and fun, but it is also becoming unsustainable.
Remember how quiet and clean it was during the Covid lockdown in 2020? Birds and other wildlife thrived. We are losing birds at an alarming rate now. The oceans have warmed so much we are losing sea life and coral reefs. The human impact is undeniable.
At the risk of being alarmist, I just need to add my two cents to the discussion. Air travel contributes a huge amount of carbon to the atmosphere. I would just like people to think about the impact before they book that flight to Italy or Iceland or travel cross-country in a gas guzzling motorhome.
On my bucket list is to attend a PM question time in London, tour Scotland and spend time in Stoke-in-Teignhead. Also visit Israel. Domestically: Niagara Falls, Los Angeles and New England. As much as I have wanted, ever since a little boy, to visit the Kennedy Space Center, I will not visit Florida, Texas or any state that routinely views my wife and daughter as 2nd class human beings.
On our travel Bucket List was Iceland ( went Dec 2019 right before lockdowns), Costa Rica ( this August) & Australia & NZ finally scheduled for Jan 2024
Our eldest grandson will do study abroad Spring 2024 so wherever he goes, we will visit ( please pick Florence-we so want to go back to Tuscany)
And if we do not go back to our Israeli family soon-they will disown us!
Kyoto has long been a place of great curiosity for me maybe since reading Memoirs of a Geisha. New Zealsnd for its beauty and the welcome sanity of its people. And London which I haven’t visited in many years in spite of much time in Europe.
We have had the great fortune of traveling over much of the world and all across this country - including two cross country driving trips. Travel is such a good thing in so many ways. As to your question, I would go for Antartica or the Arctic - while they still exist.
I've been fortunate with a lot of business travel and some good personal travel. I've driven thru every state except Alaska, and the Canadian provinces including the mining town Chibougamau (1973). I spoke a wee French then. Not just highways, but state and local roads. Looking for a little local eatery. I grew up in West Virginia, and we biked 150 miles in all compass directions. In an old Schwinn that had no fancy gears. Driven North South and East West of the US sans Interstate mostly. Much of Asia, all of Europe a bit of Africa, Oldavai Gorge, Ngorogoro caldera... Gibbs Farm, Mt Kenya Safari club.
My son and I have a hiking trip scheduled in August for the Canadian Rockies, starting at Banff and maybe heading down to Glacier. It's been a goal since January when I was diagnosed with breast cancer; I'm four weeks post surgery and building my stamina up again, so I am determined that even if we don't make it on the tougher trails, we'll definitely walk around Lake Louise.
Places I'd return: Wales, London, New Zealand, Australia. Still to go: Patagonia, Antarctica, Peru, the Galapagos, Japan, Nigeria, South Africa, Scandanavia, France, and Portugal.
Finland is calling to me right now ... perhaps I can start there and wend my way through other parts of Europe.
A trip to Nova Scotia, through Acadia National Forest, was aborted due to an unfaithful husband, but when I am settled anew as a single person, I will take that trip.
I think your Japan destination is right on. Besides Kyoto be sure to check out Myajima Island a short ferry ride from Hiroshima. Also Matsuyama with its castle and Dogo Onsen which features in the Japanese “growing up” classic novel Botchan and the more recent anime Spirited Away.
Being french I am soon to return to france and its peaceful inhabitants, but then being a hiker too, I’ll tread towards the Onerland Bernois or more exactly Grindelwald, but not to climb the Eiger yet.
Although I do have a favorite city in the world where I have been, and that is Edinburgh Scotland, I would not choose to return there, but I do have a place in the US on my bucket list to visit, and that place is crater lake in Oregon.
My favorite place in the US is the area in South Dakota around Rapid City, which includes Mount Rushmore, Needles national Park, the badlands, and the wonderful Custer State Park
I love asking so-called world travelers if they have visited this part of our country, and I have to say the majority have said no although they have been to Gstatt, and Berlin and Tokyo, they have failed to discover the beauty of the United States
I travelled a lot in Europe, and would continue exploring/living there happily. However, new places? I’d love to see Africa, Egypt and ancient monuments in South America.
A couple of decades ago we made the decision to move everything we wanted to keep into storage and sell everything else including the house we had lived and raised our kids in. With them out an on their own by then, it had become more house than we wanted anyhow.
We bought a rather large RV, and set out to see our continent. We did that for 14 years. I could go on for days about our experiences and adventures. The places we thought would be interesting became even more interesting as we stayed longer. Some of the places we expected to be little more than stopovers turned out to be fascinating. We even managed a couple of trips to Europe when we had to take our coach in for repairs or updating. (Hey, we had to be somewhere, why not Florence, Inverness, Dublin,...)
A few years ago, as we looked toward our upper 70s, we decided to dust off the money we had put aside from the sale of our house and build a new house we could grow old and creaky In, and sell our RV. We still love to travel, but now our travels are trips, not our lifestyle.
I suppose I would like to see Russia, try to understand why she turned out so autocratic compared to all the other nations whose royals were related to Queen Victoria, the feel of the country that is twice the size of ours, occupies 11% of Earth's land, & has been the enemy of the US for so long.
Taking the subject into the vibrating universe where time, space & gravity are always changing, which, to use a comparison, why time moves so slowly when one is at work but is over in a flash when relaxing at home, I would like to hitch a ride on that worm hole that would take me back to my youth so I could start over. Since the light we see from the stars might be millions of years old, there must be a time when the earth is at the point of light in time when this could happen.
Knowing about the theory of relativity, its understanding of how space and time differ depending on where and when and the force of gravity on it, takes several rereadings to understand, but is most interesting and magnifies how tiny we are in the scheme of things.
I keep going back to Portugal, a relatively new democracy who threw off a fascist dictator without firing a bullet. The people are warm, inviting and have some of the best cuisine and wine of any Western European nation. They’re fairly humble people despite the history of discovery and conquest.
This is very easy for me. I just returned from my dream vacation, originally planned for 2020, cancelled because of the pandemic, and rescheduled for this year. I went to Paris and took a Seine River Cruise to the Heart of Normandy. It was so amazingly fantastic. It was more amazing than I had even dreamed it could be. First I spent 2 days in Paris. I went to L'Orangerie Museum and Marmottan Musee Monet. I love Impressionism; and Monet is my art idol. Those 2 museums were fantastic. L'Orangerie has 2 rooms of Water Lilies, brightly lit, even better than the Water Lilies room at MoMA where I like to spend my time. Then I got on the Viking River Cruise. Our first stop was Vernon; and our destination was Giverny. I had read so much about Monet and Giverny; and I had seen so many pictures. However, being there, really there, was a dream come true. It was larger than life. It was magical. I stood so close to the Water Lilies Pond, which was the inspiration for so many Monet paintings. I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I was at this incredible spot. Our tour also walked around all of the grounds. We saw the Japanese Bridge, which is also in many Monet paintings. We saw beautiful flower gardens everywhere. I walked through Monet's home. I took over 100 photos of Giverny, which I am editing; and I will be creating a digital album. Our next stop on the cruise was Rouen. We walked through the quaint town. The highlight for me was the Rouen Cathedral, and the studio across the street from which Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral. He worked on 3 canvases, using each canvas at a different time of day to reflect the look of the cathedral in the different lighting during the day. En plein air is what it is called. Totally amazing. Another stop on the cruise was Normandy. This day we spent at Normandy was very meaningful, very emotional. Somewhat overwhelming. We first visited the Museum and saw the exhibits of the Holocaust and the exhibits of D-Day, of the Allied forces landing on the beach, fighting against all odds to keep Europe and the rest of the world free from the Nazis. We lost so many brave military people that day (mostly men); and it was very touching to hear of how so many went into battle for such a great cause, and very sad to hear of how many lost their lives. then we went to the American cemetery and saw the rows after rows of gravestones of the Americans lost on D-Day. Our tour group laid a wreath at the status remembering the military who fought and died there. It was a very moving ceremony. Then we went down to Omaha Beach; and as our guide suggested, we stood there individually, in silence, looking at that beautiful beach, and trying to imagine what is was like for our military on June 6, 1944. I had a difficult time wrapping my head around that. It was surreal to imagine what our military endured that day and the following days. It was overwhelmingly sad. It also brought a great sense of pride in how Americans, along with the other Allied forces, fought to keep the world safe for Democracy. It was a physically and emotionally draining day. As difficult as it was, I am so glad I was there to experience it. We can't be isolated from the world's problems. Walking through the area where it all transpired is very important. We had a few other stops along the cruise, various smaller towns in France, along the Seine. Overall, it is clearly the most amazing trip I have ever taken. Besides all of the photos I took, I also kept a journal, not just of the places I went and the things I did, but also of all of my feelings as I experienced as I traveled in the Heart of Normandy along the Seine River. I highly recommend this trip to everyone.
SW France; Scotland; Norway; New Zealand; Turkey; Morocco. Some I’ve been but must return and others are on a long-standing bucket list. Need to see the Sistine Ceiling and Chartres Cathedral at least once more. Also waiting for Notre-Dame in Paris to reopen.
Kyoto is definitely on my list. I just returned from 3 weeks at Palazzo Fiuggi, in Italy. My first big trip since 2019. Such a well needed and deserved treat. Enjoy your travels.
I've been to England and Wales, but missed Scotland. I'd like to go there, if I were traveling. I'd also like to go to Scandinavia, all of it, because I admire their way of taking care of their people. I'd also like to see France, especially some of the more rural areas and small towns. What interests me about going to other countries is how people live there, and the foods they eat. I like trying different kinds of food. I'm not a gourmet, I just enjoy eating new things.
I'd like to visit the 9 states I haven't been to ... love a leisurely road trip stopping whenever there's something I want to see or a restaurant/food I want to try. Just need the right traveling companion !
I’d do a train trip with sleeping car! I once went across country from Norfolk to Sam Francisco during the winter. It was sublime. I would like to take the train across Canada next or perhaps through Europe. What a way to see things!
Given the lovely replies, I think the Icelandophiles, if I may invent a word, could put together a group excursion. I do so hope to go for a week or so someday. Not sure where else someone could satisfy everything from Star Wars geekery (Rogue One) to Norse mythology to Viking history to vulcanology in one unique lovely place.
Have a wonderful time! I will be in Berlin in October and I hope you'll let us know what you do while you're there. My favorite place is the Egyptian Museum where Nefertiti lives because as a child it was my heartfelt plan to be an Etyptologist. I'm in northern Italy most of the time and have done a lot of traveling in my life so traveling per se isn't a priority any longer. These days, I'm content to be in Italy with my love, in Los Angeles and St Louis with my daughters and their very young children, and with my dear friends in Seattle where I lived for many years and began my clinical practice.
Scandinavians are such wonderful people. Transitioning back to America and the land of the Hatfields and McCoys will be difficult. Denmark has one of the best run gov'ts in the world. In Helsinki, when the police went on strike, the crime rate went down! I'd recommend that after Berlin, you hop a ferry and go right back to Scandinavia to visit Copenhagen and Stockholm. While America is searching for "answers" as to how societies should function, Scandinavian has the answers. IMHO.
I used travel for work and I’ve been to 90 countries - most numerous times. I was always able to make time to explore. I was lucky my customers took me to local places away from tourists. I love just getting off the beaten path. I enjoyed driving all around Iceland especially away from the major tourist areas. It’s stunningly beautiful. Patagonia in either Argentina or Chile. Incredible scenery and whales/penguins. Bahia Magdalena in Mexico and seeing the northern right whales up close. Cruise around the Galápagos Islands. Such a wonderful and unique place also with penguins. Driving through the Scottish highlands. The Philippines has many beautiful places like Cebu. I went on an African safari to Botswana/Zambia/Zimbabwe and that was amazing. I would love to go drive around Ireland, New Zealand, Prince Edward Island, Norway, the Azores. Anyway unfortunately I got very sick several years ago and I had to quit my job and I’ve been mainly at home. It’s a complete change sadly in my life. I do live in Utah though and there are many beautiful places to visit here. Anyway I wish you safe travels wherever you go. It’s a blessing to be able to see the world and meet new people.
Oh Goody!! Another weekend, another BAPE (Beschloss Audience Participation Event.) I love 'em.
Today's prompt: where would I travel if time and money were no obstacle?
For many years I had the good fortune to have a profession that allowed me to travel to far-flung destinations frequently, and to afford to travel wherever I liked on my own time, however limited it might have been. I've been in or through every US state, but my own home town, Santa Fe, is still my runaway favorite. I subsequently lived in Amarillo (yuchhh), Austin, San Francisco, NYC, LA, Minneapolis, San Diego, Notre Dame (Indiana), Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.
Postwar, my Dad was a photographer for the National Park Service. This happy fate gave me unfettered access to the Four Corners parks and wild lands. I lived for months at a time at Grand Canyon, weeks in residence at Cañon de Chelly, Mesa Verde, and later Arches, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce, ... you name it. I used to say that my childhood was like Huck Finn's, but without the water. I left at dawn every day, on my own, and the only rule was to be back by dark. Child raising was pretty laissez faire in them days. I grew up in wilderness. It was my church, my school, my playmate. I crave it even today, as it disappears relentlessly into the jaws of commercial exploitation and the ownership and management of powerful carbon interests.
I've traveled extensively in China, and visiting the Great Wall was a peak experience. Xi' an is an amazing city. I traveled the length of the Yangtze in a riverboat, just before most of the small, ancient riverside villages were flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. I walked for hours through the Forbidden City, the only Westerner in sight, before tourism to China became feasible for most travelers.
I spent a few weeks in Japan in the early 90s, mostly in Tokyo on business, in connection with a theatre tour. I wanted to visit the site of the POW camp where my Dad was imprisoned during WWII - Fukuoka Camp #7 - but couldn't work it in. I regret that! The horror of it has lived in my imagination since I was old enough to conceive of such a thing. Seeing it - and the modern life of the innocent people going about their lives around it today, unaware of the horrors that preceded them - might have changed how I felt about it.
I've been all over Europe. Attended the Cannes Film Festival for years. Spent long, wine-soaked vacations in Provence (where one side of my family came from). Worked for a Dutch TV company for several years, and so got to enjoy many trips and long stays in this most civil of countries. I love the Dutch people. A colleague there once told me that a Dutch man, on his way home from work, is as likely to stop for flowers as for bread and milk. How can you not love them? Driving alone one day I crested a hill (one of about three in Holland, I think) and saw fields of tulips stretching to the horizon - I mean miles of color as far as I could see. It felt like the moment in Wizard of Oz when the world turns to color.
I ran through an Alpine meadow in France, singing a song from The Sound of Music, and promptly collapsed, gasping for air as the altitude caught up with my sea level lungs. It took a full minute before I had enough oxygen to laugh at myself, but once I could I laughed for longer than a minute, as I recall.
It's cliched to say that I love Paris in the springtime. I love Paris in the Fall. But I do. I lived in New York City for a decade, which entitles me to say that Paris is the World's Great City.
I traveled through Egypt, Israel, and Tunisia and - because I'd studied as a Classics and Ancient History scholar - stood in the ruins of Carthage and wept for its massacred armies, as if it were yesterday. I have a vivid imagination.
I floated over the Masai Mara in a hot air balloon at dawn, with thousand of animals below, blissfully unaware of my presence above them, going about their morning ablutions and having breakfast. The elegance of a giraffe's tongue prizing out a succulent leaf snuggled between the long barbs of a thorn acacia, seen up close, is another peak experience. I traveled in Tanzania within months after it opened to westerners. It was still unspoiled. There weren't jeep tracks and rich American tourists rutting out every waterhole ... yet. In retrospect, and in all honesty, one of the complicated aspects of travel is the degree to which we kill what we love. I was just early to the party in Africa, and while I get to embrace my own unsullied memory of the African Rift Valley and its rightful owners, I can't ignore the fact that I was the vanguard of an onslaught of destructive tourism that was lining up right behind me, even then. Guilty as charged. Like kids defacing a building with graffiti, it's not the first one who gets charged, it's the last. But now, in old age, I wouldn't trade my memories of Africa for anything. It's a complicated moral reckoning. Aren't they all?
Ah. But (having buried the lede this deep into my answer again) I come finally to your question: given no limitations on time and money, where would I go? I'm afraid that my answer will disappoint. I'm tempted to say points south. I've never been anywhere in South America, or Cuba, and far too few visits to Mexico, even. I'd love to visit Buenas Aires. I've been to China often enough to take it off their table, especially in view of the dystopian surveillance state it has since become. I love Italy and everything about Italy (FOOOD!!!), especially Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, and would go back at the drop of a toque. I've never been to Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Norway. I have been to both Ukraine and Russia (Slava Ukraini !!) but this isn't a good moment for a return visit to the former and never again to the latter.
So I'm going to the place that lifts my heart, renews my soul, reminds me who I am, and makes me happiest of any place on Planet Earth. (Sorry, Disney.).
I'm going home to Santa Fe in the fall, traveling alone. My wife has Parkinson's and can no longer travel. I NEED to do this. I'm going to eat Northern New Mexico cuisine morning, noon, and night. I'm going to live on Hatch red chile. I'll visit Maria's New Mexican Kitchen, with its famous menu of 100 different margaritas. (I'm only up to number 38 after all these years.). I'm going to early mass at my parish church, Cristo Rey. I'm a Guadlalupaño from way back. (Look it up.) I'm going to visit Santuario Chimayo and ask for Guadalupe's help for my wife. I'm going to drive the High Road to Taos and spend an afternoon at Taos Pueblo. I'm going to sit in the sun in Santa Fe Plaza and reflect gratefully on the years gone by, and how eventful and unexpected they have been, and how lucky I was, and how I have survived so many years of f#&king things up, only to have found a measure of grace at the end of things by being a care give to a woman I have loved for almost 50 years. I would like to think I'll be around long enough to come back again, but just in case, I'm playing this one as my farewell tour.
A curious phenomenon is the tendency to NOT "go" where we live. Then a visitor comes to see us after 5 or 10 years and we take them to see our state....that we rarely travel....and then say to ourselves: "Why haven't we done this before?"
So.... if my time and money were unlimited I would travel the back roads of the U.S. for months and learn about my own country.
I’ve always wanted to see Scotland’s Highlands. For their towering mountains, landscapes, lochs, beautiful beaches and sea views, and the Northern Lights.
I’ve read many books about Scotland (and other countries), and I love when I find myself reading the world atlas, exploring places through books before I visit.
More like where WOULDN’T I go! Actually have wanted to visit New Zealand since the 60’s. Oh, and the Greek islands after reading John Fowles ‘The Magus’. And……and….and…. Alas, not in the cards this lifetime, so it is lucky I live where folks from around the world come to visit (Pacific ocean, redwood forests, bay, lagoons, rivers & mountains)…so am a lucky duck even just staying put!
I’d do an eating tour of Italy. I would have to bring a pair of pants a size bigger for the trip home.
Northern Canada in search of the aurora borealis.
Curmudgeon warning: having heard this week that we've achieved the highest temperatures in many centuries, and that it will continue to get worse unless we make some drastic changes, I am opposed to unfettered air travel and the use of monster gas-eating motorhomes. Yes, visiting new places is wonderful, educational, and fun, but it is also becoming unsustainable.
Remember how quiet and clean it was during the Covid lockdown in 2020? Birds and other wildlife thrived. We are losing birds at an alarming rate now. The oceans have warmed so much we are losing sea life and coral reefs. The human impact is undeniable.
At the risk of being alarmist, I just need to add my two cents to the discussion. Air travel contributes a huge amount of carbon to the atmosphere. I would just like people to think about the impact before they book that flight to Italy or Iceland or travel cross-country in a gas guzzling motorhome.
Thank you. I'll let myself out.
On my bucket list is to attend a PM question time in London, tour Scotland and spend time in Stoke-in-Teignhead. Also visit Israel. Domestically: Niagara Falls, Los Angeles and New England. As much as I have wanted, ever since a little boy, to visit the Kennedy Space Center, I will not visit Florida, Texas or any state that routinely views my wife and daughter as 2nd class human beings.
On our travel Bucket List was Iceland ( went Dec 2019 right before lockdowns), Costa Rica ( this August) & Australia & NZ finally scheduled for Jan 2024
Our eldest grandson will do study abroad Spring 2024 so wherever he goes, we will visit ( please pick Florence-we so want to go back to Tuscany)
And if we do not go back to our Israeli family soon-they will disown us!
Kyoto has long been a place of great curiosity for me maybe since reading Memoirs of a Geisha. New Zealsnd for its beauty and the welcome sanity of its people. And London which I haven’t visited in many years in spite of much time in Europe.
We have had the great fortune of traveling over much of the world and all across this country - including two cross country driving trips. Travel is such a good thing in so many ways. As to your question, I would go for Antartica or the Arctic - while they still exist.
I've been fortunate with a lot of business travel and some good personal travel. I've driven thru every state except Alaska, and the Canadian provinces including the mining town Chibougamau (1973). I spoke a wee French then. Not just highways, but state and local roads. Looking for a little local eatery. I grew up in West Virginia, and we biked 150 miles in all compass directions. In an old Schwinn that had no fancy gears. Driven North South and East West of the US sans Interstate mostly. Much of Asia, all of Europe a bit of Africa, Oldavai Gorge, Ngorogoro caldera... Gibbs Farm, Mt Kenya Safari club.
Our next trip - Egypt. A long desired trip.
My son and I have a hiking trip scheduled in August for the Canadian Rockies, starting at Banff and maybe heading down to Glacier. It's been a goal since January when I was diagnosed with breast cancer; I'm four weeks post surgery and building my stamina up again, so I am determined that even if we don't make it on the tougher trails, we'll definitely walk around Lake Louise.
Places I'd return: Wales, London, New Zealand, Australia. Still to go: Patagonia, Antarctica, Peru, the Galapagos, Japan, Nigeria, South Africa, Scandanavia, France, and Portugal.
Finland is calling to me right now ... perhaps I can start there and wend my way through other parts of Europe.
A trip to Nova Scotia, through Acadia National Forest, was aborted due to an unfaithful husband, but when I am settled anew as a single person, I will take that trip.
Fontvielle, in the south of France to visit my older brother who I haven't seen in 6 years. I miss him.
Kyoto definitely worth the visit. Was there 2010. For me Fiji.
Everywhere!
I think your Japan destination is right on. Besides Kyoto be sure to check out Myajima Island a short ferry ride from Hiroshima. Also Matsuyama with its castle and Dogo Onsen which features in the Japanese “growing up” classic novel Botchan and the more recent anime Spirited Away.
Being french I am soon to return to france and its peaceful inhabitants, but then being a hiker too, I’ll tread towards the Onerland Bernois or more exactly Grindelwald, but not to climb the Eiger yet.
Being too young at 76 to do that already. 😳🌿
Although I do have a favorite city in the world where I have been, and that is Edinburgh Scotland, I would not choose to return there, but I do have a place in the US on my bucket list to visit, and that place is crater lake in Oregon.
My favorite place in the US is the area in South Dakota around Rapid City, which includes Mount Rushmore, Needles national Park, the badlands, and the wonderful Custer State Park
I love asking so-called world travelers if they have visited this part of our country, and I have to say the majority have said no although they have been to Gstatt, and Berlin and Tokyo, they have failed to discover the beauty of the United States
Hoping to revisit London early this fall! New place: Iceland!
I travelled a lot in Europe, and would continue exploring/living there happily. However, new places? I’d love to see Africa, Egypt and ancient monuments in South America.
Or anywhere chance took me
A couple of decades ago we made the decision to move everything we wanted to keep into storage and sell everything else including the house we had lived and raised our kids in. With them out an on their own by then, it had become more house than we wanted anyhow.
We bought a rather large RV, and set out to see our continent. We did that for 14 years. I could go on for days about our experiences and adventures. The places we thought would be interesting became even more interesting as we stayed longer. Some of the places we expected to be little more than stopovers turned out to be fascinating. We even managed a couple of trips to Europe when we had to take our coach in for repairs or updating. (Hey, we had to be somewhere, why not Florence, Inverness, Dublin,...)
A few years ago, as we looked toward our upper 70s, we decided to dust off the money we had put aside from the sale of our house and build a new house we could grow old and creaky In, and sell our RV. We still love to travel, but now our travels are trips, not our lifestyle.
Where would I go? I'd do it all over again.
I suppose I would like to see Russia, try to understand why she turned out so autocratic compared to all the other nations whose royals were related to Queen Victoria, the feel of the country that is twice the size of ours, occupies 11% of Earth's land, & has been the enemy of the US for so long.
Taking the subject into the vibrating universe where time, space & gravity are always changing, which, to use a comparison, why time moves so slowly when one is at work but is over in a flash when relaxing at home, I would like to hitch a ride on that worm hole that would take me back to my youth so I could start over. Since the light we see from the stars might be millions of years old, there must be a time when the earth is at the point of light in time when this could happen.
Knowing about the theory of relativity, its understanding of how space and time differ depending on where and when and the force of gravity on it, takes several rereadings to understand, but is most interesting and magnifies how tiny we are in the scheme of things.
Greece because Greece is the birthplace of the first significant attempt at democracy as a viable way to govern a society.
I keep going back to Portugal, a relatively new democracy who threw off a fascist dictator without firing a bullet. The people are warm, inviting and have some of the best cuisine and wine of any Western European nation. They’re fairly humble people despite the history of discovery and conquest.
This is very easy for me. I just returned from my dream vacation, originally planned for 2020, cancelled because of the pandemic, and rescheduled for this year. I went to Paris and took a Seine River Cruise to the Heart of Normandy. It was so amazingly fantastic. It was more amazing than I had even dreamed it could be. First I spent 2 days in Paris. I went to L'Orangerie Museum and Marmottan Musee Monet. I love Impressionism; and Monet is my art idol. Those 2 museums were fantastic. L'Orangerie has 2 rooms of Water Lilies, brightly lit, even better than the Water Lilies room at MoMA where I like to spend my time. Then I got on the Viking River Cruise. Our first stop was Vernon; and our destination was Giverny. I had read so much about Monet and Giverny; and I had seen so many pictures. However, being there, really there, was a dream come true. It was larger than life. It was magical. I stood so close to the Water Lilies Pond, which was the inspiration for so many Monet paintings. I was overwhelmed with gratitude that I was at this incredible spot. Our tour also walked around all of the grounds. We saw the Japanese Bridge, which is also in many Monet paintings. We saw beautiful flower gardens everywhere. I walked through Monet's home. I took over 100 photos of Giverny, which I am editing; and I will be creating a digital album. Our next stop on the cruise was Rouen. We walked through the quaint town. The highlight for me was the Rouen Cathedral, and the studio across the street from which Monet painted the Rouen Cathedral. He worked on 3 canvases, using each canvas at a different time of day to reflect the look of the cathedral in the different lighting during the day. En plein air is what it is called. Totally amazing. Another stop on the cruise was Normandy. This day we spent at Normandy was very meaningful, very emotional. Somewhat overwhelming. We first visited the Museum and saw the exhibits of the Holocaust and the exhibits of D-Day, of the Allied forces landing on the beach, fighting against all odds to keep Europe and the rest of the world free from the Nazis. We lost so many brave military people that day (mostly men); and it was very touching to hear of how so many went into battle for such a great cause, and very sad to hear of how many lost their lives. then we went to the American cemetery and saw the rows after rows of gravestones of the Americans lost on D-Day. Our tour group laid a wreath at the status remembering the military who fought and died there. It was a very moving ceremony. Then we went down to Omaha Beach; and as our guide suggested, we stood there individually, in silence, looking at that beautiful beach, and trying to imagine what is was like for our military on June 6, 1944. I had a difficult time wrapping my head around that. It was surreal to imagine what our military endured that day and the following days. It was overwhelmingly sad. It also brought a great sense of pride in how Americans, along with the other Allied forces, fought to keep the world safe for Democracy. It was a physically and emotionally draining day. As difficult as it was, I am so glad I was there to experience it. We can't be isolated from the world's problems. Walking through the area where it all transpired is very important. We had a few other stops along the cruise, various smaller towns in France, along the Seine. Overall, it is clearly the most amazing trip I have ever taken. Besides all of the photos I took, I also kept a journal, not just of the places I went and the things I did, but also of all of my feelings as I experienced as I traveled in the Heart of Normandy along the Seine River. I highly recommend this trip to everyone.
Have a burning desire to see the Northern Lights, Antartica and Italy - it’s food and art! Wish me luck!
Where my wife and I are actually going in 2024. The Milford Track on the South Island of New Zealand. Yisss!
Croatia, missed our trip because of illness. But I never stopped us before..
Europe, Asia, South Africa, US, and of course our beloved Canada 🇨🇦
Love to mix with local custom, people, we always say to young parents, travel with your kids, it opens their minds…
A lasting memory of my father ❤️
Enjoy your Saturday 🇨🇦🇺🇦✌️
I would take a walking tour of Scotland.
Lapland to visit the Saami.
SW France; Scotland; Norway; New Zealand; Turkey; Morocco. Some I’ve been but must return and others are on a long-standing bucket list. Need to see the Sistine Ceiling and Chartres Cathedral at least once more. Also waiting for Notre-Dame in Paris to reopen.
Kyoto is definitely on my list. I just returned from 3 weeks at Palazzo Fiuggi, in Italy. My first big trip since 2019. Such a well needed and deserved treat. Enjoy your travels.
Australia for sure
I moved to just north of Taos NM in 1999 and haven’t left since! I’m truly living in Paradise!
I've been to England and Wales, but missed Scotland. I'd like to go there, if I were traveling. I'd also like to go to Scandinavia, all of it, because I admire their way of taking care of their people. I'd also like to see France, especially some of the more rural areas and small towns. What interests me about going to other countries is how people live there, and the foods they eat. I like trying different kinds of food. I'm not a gourmet, I just enjoy eating new things.
I'd like to visit the 9 states I haven't been to ... love a leisurely road trip stopping whenever there's something I want to see or a restaurant/food I want to try. Just need the right traveling companion !
I’d do a train trip with sleeping car! I once went across country from Norfolk to Sam Francisco during the winter. It was sublime. I would like to take the train across Canada next or perhaps through Europe. What a way to see things!
Given the lovely replies, I think the Icelandophiles, if I may invent a word, could put together a group excursion. I do so hope to go for a week or so someday. Not sure where else someone could satisfy everything from Star Wars geekery (Rogue One) to Norse mythology to Viking history to vulcanology in one unique lovely place.
Have a wonderful time! I will be in Berlin in October and I hope you'll let us know what you do while you're there. My favorite place is the Egyptian Museum where Nefertiti lives because as a child it was my heartfelt plan to be an Etyptologist. I'm in northern Italy most of the time and have done a lot of traveling in my life so traveling per se isn't a priority any longer. These days, I'm content to be in Italy with my love, in Los Angeles and St Louis with my daughters and their very young children, and with my dear friends in Seattle where I lived for many years and began my clinical practice.
Scandinavians are such wonderful people. Transitioning back to America and the land of the Hatfields and McCoys will be difficult. Denmark has one of the best run gov'ts in the world. In Helsinki, when the police went on strike, the crime rate went down! I'd recommend that after Berlin, you hop a ferry and go right back to Scandinavia to visit Copenhagen and Stockholm. While America is searching for "answers" as to how societies should function, Scandinavian has the answers. IMHO.
I used travel for work and I’ve been to 90 countries - most numerous times. I was always able to make time to explore. I was lucky my customers took me to local places away from tourists. I love just getting off the beaten path. I enjoyed driving all around Iceland especially away from the major tourist areas. It’s stunningly beautiful. Patagonia in either Argentina or Chile. Incredible scenery and whales/penguins. Bahia Magdalena in Mexico and seeing the northern right whales up close. Cruise around the Galápagos Islands. Such a wonderful and unique place also with penguins. Driving through the Scottish highlands. The Philippines has many beautiful places like Cebu. I went on an African safari to Botswana/Zambia/Zimbabwe and that was amazing. I would love to go drive around Ireland, New Zealand, Prince Edward Island, Norway, the Azores. Anyway unfortunately I got very sick several years ago and I had to quit my job and I’ve been mainly at home. It’s a complete change sadly in my life. I do live in Utah though and there are many beautiful places to visit here. Anyway I wish you safe travels wherever you go. It’s a blessing to be able to see the world and meet new people.
Prague. It seems to me that it would be magic.
Thailand----/
Malta.
After seeing it in the movie Popeye. Or pretty much anywhere in the Mediterranean.
Back to Hawaii again.
I’m already there. Alaska cruise was at the top of my list.
You:"Journalists Need to Sound the Alarm
It’s high time for news media to confront the rise of ... panic responsibly"
Pick one:
1.
Panic, anxiety, etc
2.
Valium
3.
Placebo
Note: 30%-60% of anxious people were cured by placebo so they are in #3. and have picked one:
3.1
Innocuous placebo
3.2
Insidious placebo
Regarding 3.1:
Followers of the Prince of Peace consistenly voted for war. Thus an "Innocuous placebo"... "mutated" into an "Insidious placebo"
Note: If AI(fb, twitter, etc) can make 60% of the US addicted to an "Insidious placebo"....GAME OVER
New Zealand, I hear they are friendly people.
Oh Goody!! Another weekend, another BAPE (Beschloss Audience Participation Event.) I love 'em.
Today's prompt: where would I travel if time and money were no obstacle?
For many years I had the good fortune to have a profession that allowed me to travel to far-flung destinations frequently, and to afford to travel wherever I liked on my own time, however limited it might have been. I've been in or through every US state, but my own home town, Santa Fe, is still my runaway favorite. I subsequently lived in Amarillo (yuchhh), Austin, San Francisco, NYC, LA, Minneapolis, San Diego, Notre Dame (Indiana), Seattle, and Portland, Oregon.
Postwar, my Dad was a photographer for the National Park Service. This happy fate gave me unfettered access to the Four Corners parks and wild lands. I lived for months at a time at Grand Canyon, weeks in residence at Cañon de Chelly, Mesa Verde, and later Arches, Monument Valley, Zion, Bryce, ... you name it. I used to say that my childhood was like Huck Finn's, but without the water. I left at dawn every day, on my own, and the only rule was to be back by dark. Child raising was pretty laissez faire in them days. I grew up in wilderness. It was my church, my school, my playmate. I crave it even today, as it disappears relentlessly into the jaws of commercial exploitation and the ownership and management of powerful carbon interests.
I've traveled extensively in China, and visiting the Great Wall was a peak experience. Xi' an is an amazing city. I traveled the length of the Yangtze in a riverboat, just before most of the small, ancient riverside villages were flooded by the Three Gorges Dam. I walked for hours through the Forbidden City, the only Westerner in sight, before tourism to China became feasible for most travelers.
I spent a few weeks in Japan in the early 90s, mostly in Tokyo on business, in connection with a theatre tour. I wanted to visit the site of the POW camp where my Dad was imprisoned during WWII - Fukuoka Camp #7 - but couldn't work it in. I regret that! The horror of it has lived in my imagination since I was old enough to conceive of such a thing. Seeing it - and the modern life of the innocent people going about their lives around it today, unaware of the horrors that preceded them - might have changed how I felt about it.
I've been all over Europe. Attended the Cannes Film Festival for years. Spent long, wine-soaked vacations in Provence (where one side of my family came from). Worked for a Dutch TV company for several years, and so got to enjoy many trips and long stays in this most civil of countries. I love the Dutch people. A colleague there once told me that a Dutch man, on his way home from work, is as likely to stop for flowers as for bread and milk. How can you not love them? Driving alone one day I crested a hill (one of about three in Holland, I think) and saw fields of tulips stretching to the horizon - I mean miles of color as far as I could see. It felt like the moment in Wizard of Oz when the world turns to color.
I ran through an Alpine meadow in France, singing a song from The Sound of Music, and promptly collapsed, gasping for air as the altitude caught up with my sea level lungs. It took a full minute before I had enough oxygen to laugh at myself, but once I could I laughed for longer than a minute, as I recall.
It's cliched to say that I love Paris in the springtime. I love Paris in the Fall. But I do. I lived in New York City for a decade, which entitles me to say that Paris is the World's Great City.
I traveled through Egypt, Israel, and Tunisia and - because I'd studied as a Classics and Ancient History scholar - stood in the ruins of Carthage and wept for its massacred armies, as if it were yesterday. I have a vivid imagination.
I floated over the Masai Mara in a hot air balloon at dawn, with thousand of animals below, blissfully unaware of my presence above them, going about their morning ablutions and having breakfast. The elegance of a giraffe's tongue prizing out a succulent leaf snuggled between the long barbs of a thorn acacia, seen up close, is another peak experience. I traveled in Tanzania within months after it opened to westerners. It was still unspoiled. There weren't jeep tracks and rich American tourists rutting out every waterhole ... yet. In retrospect, and in all honesty, one of the complicated aspects of travel is the degree to which we kill what we love. I was just early to the party in Africa, and while I get to embrace my own unsullied memory of the African Rift Valley and its rightful owners, I can't ignore the fact that I was the vanguard of an onslaught of destructive tourism that was lining up right behind me, even then. Guilty as charged. Like kids defacing a building with graffiti, it's not the first one who gets charged, it's the last. But now, in old age, I wouldn't trade my memories of Africa for anything. It's a complicated moral reckoning. Aren't they all?
Ah. But (having buried the lede this deep into my answer again) I come finally to your question: given no limitations on time and money, where would I go? I'm afraid that my answer will disappoint. I'm tempted to say points south. I've never been anywhere in South America, or Cuba, and far too few visits to Mexico, even. I'd love to visit Buenas Aires. I've been to China often enough to take it off their table, especially in view of the dystopian surveillance state it has since become. I love Italy and everything about Italy (FOOOD!!!), especially Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna, and would go back at the drop of a toque. I've never been to Finland, Norway, Sweden, or Norway. I have been to both Ukraine and Russia (Slava Ukraini !!) but this isn't a good moment for a return visit to the former and never again to the latter.
So I'm going to the place that lifts my heart, renews my soul, reminds me who I am, and makes me happiest of any place on Planet Earth. (Sorry, Disney.).
I'm going home to Santa Fe in the fall, traveling alone. My wife has Parkinson's and can no longer travel. I NEED to do this. I'm going to eat Northern New Mexico cuisine morning, noon, and night. I'm going to live on Hatch red chile. I'll visit Maria's New Mexican Kitchen, with its famous menu of 100 different margaritas. (I'm only up to number 38 after all these years.). I'm going to early mass at my parish church, Cristo Rey. I'm a Guadlalupaño from way back. (Look it up.) I'm going to visit Santuario Chimayo and ask for Guadalupe's help for my wife. I'm going to drive the High Road to Taos and spend an afternoon at Taos Pueblo. I'm going to sit in the sun in Santa Fe Plaza and reflect gratefully on the years gone by, and how eventful and unexpected they have been, and how lucky I was, and how I have survived so many years of f#&king things up, only to have found a measure of grace at the end of things by being a care give to a woman I have loved for almost 50 years. I would like to think I'll be around long enough to come back again, but just in case, I'm playing this one as my farewell tour.
And I'll post from the road, trust me.