[Monique]

Where did you spend or are you going to spend your vacations this summer?

Well I went to Russia and I love it. In fact I am still there and it is too hot in my room to spend time there so I will go out and go to the GUM, I spent a total of 4 days in Moscow and 10 days in St. Petersburg. When I left Moscow it was 30C and I arrived in St. Petersburg it was 20C; besides that it is a beautiful country and people are so nice. Last night, I went outside at 2:00 am because I could not breath in my room and outside it was so nice. Well I met those happy people and the lady had such a beautiful voice; I stayed there until 5:00 am and felt asleep after having a few beers; I probably do the same for the next 2 nights; detail there is not air conditionning in my room; I never bothered to check because for me it was a given there is heat so there is air conditionning. I went to see the most beautiful museum in the world, the Hermitage I was in heaven. Everything in St. Petersburg reminded me of home.

Along the way I met very kind people who helped me find my way, sheltered me from the rain, gave me advice. Except for the heat it was an excellent vacation.

[Thorzdad]

We haven't been able to afford an actual vacation since my wife and I took a trip for our 25th anniversary back in 2005.

[ghporter]

I would not call it a vacation - my wife, son and I went back to Southern Michigan in April and May. My dad became very ill and died. Between all the assorted costs involved in the trip, we're not going to be able to afford any vacation this year.

On the other hand, we have a long weekend trip scheduled in November (when the temperatures won't be as horribly hot), so we are going to "get away" for some fun.

corrected iOS autocorrect mistake

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

very I'll

iOS autocorrect? (My sympathies on the loss of your father)

Wife and I took a long weekend in San Antonio and used up some airline miles and hotel points. She wants to travel more but I'm reluctant to spend on travel until we get these student loans taken care of.

[imitchellg5]

No time/money for vacations.

[Kerrigan]

I'm thinking of going down to Costa Rica with my surfboard and a tent. Anyone done this before? I've been to the country several times, but always stayed in hostels.

[turtle777]

Got a conference in Las Vegas.
While in the area, I'm going for 10 days to Utah and Northern Arizona, touring the national parks.

-t

[sek929]

I've got a campsite reserved for 4 days in the beginning of August.

No electronics, making fires, cooking and eating food, drinking beer, and taking it easy. Nice and cheap too.

[Waragainstsleep]

No money and no-one to go with.

[andi*pandi]

"Camping" in August with the family in Maine. (In quotes because we won't be tenting, but cabin-ing.)

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

iOS autocorrect? (My sympathies on the loss of your father)

Wife and I took a long weekend in San Antonio and used up some airline miles and hotel points. She wants to travel more but I'm reluctant to spend on travel until we get these student loans taken care of.

Yes, my iPad decided I meant something other than what I typed. I've corrected the correction.

Student loans seem to hang over you for so long, but when you finally pay them off, you almost miss them. For as much as 5 minutes in some cases.

I hope you had fun visiting The Alamo City..

[driven]

For my wife's 17th anniversary I took her and the kids to Oahu. Thanks to hotel and airline points I was able to go for free. (had to buy food, which is quite expensive in Oahu). It was the vacation of a lifetime.

[Kerrigan]

Oahu

[Railroader]

We spent the last three weeks taking minor vacations. Hadn't done much since starting our ministry 4 yeas ago.

We spent 3 nights camping in Muskegon, Michigan at PJ Hoffmaster State Park. Beautiful beaches, great hiking trails. I grew up camping about 30% of the weekends of my life until I got married. My 5 and 7 year olds had never slept in a tent, cooked their food over a campfire, or marveled at the amazing amount of stars until then.

Then we spent a couple days doing local Indianapolis things such as horseback riding, visiting county fairs, and local hiking trails.

Spent a day in Cincinnati, Ohio at King's Island amusement park. My kids are finally old enough to ride some of the medium thrill rides.

We spent a couple days in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a cousin's wedding. We stayed at what my wife consider "camping", the JW Marriott on the river. Two nights and three days of gourmet dining and high society entertaining.

And with a couple days left we are relaxing around the house during this heat wave. We hit the local YMCA pool, but the water temp was like warm bath water.

[cjrivera]

Went to Maui a few weeks ago for a conference, so took the family along for a vacation.

... now I want to live there.

[gradient]

We're planning on going camping in August - something nice and relaxing but easy on the wallet. We pretty much blew out holiday "budget" living it up in Cabo over this past Christmas.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Student loans seem to hang over you for so long, but when you finally pay them off, you almost miss them. For as much as 5 minutes in some cases.

We've paid off ~$25-30,000 of debt in the last year or two. Wife's done and we're well into mine. We own both our cars and don't carry any credit card debt. Buying a house set us back a bit but I'm not worried. Once Wife gets a real job using her masters we'll it'll be a matter of a year or two.

I hope you had fun visiting The Alamo City..

Tons of great food, loved it. We really didn't even need the rental car we had, could have saved a few bucks that way.

[design219]

We took the kids to DC last week for their first visit. I enjoyed making a few Instagrams.

By the way, double your expected budget for a DC trip.

[RobOnTheCape]

I live in a tourist mecca(The Vineyard), but this being the busy season you really have to force yourself to stop and take a break, enjoy the beaches/forest/biking etc... Otherwise, as most people do, you realize the great weather has past, and then it's time to hunker down for winter snow. Great thread - I'm off to the beach in an hour. Thanks

[iM@k]

Up to Montreal (Camping in Ste. Philippe actually) x2. I leave for part one on Thursday then I'm going back up at the end of august.

[-Q-]

The wife and I will be heading to Cancun for a 4-day trip in August. It's a work conference for her so I decided to be a supportive spouse and tag along with her and hang out by the pool/ocean/bar to show my support.

In November, we'll be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary by spending a week at the Club Med in Turks and Caicos. We're in the middle of planning that now and I'm getting more and more excited thinking about it.

[SSharon]

How do you guys go about planning vacations? I enjoy getting away as much as the next guy, but I absolutely hate planning vacations.

I haven't done anything yet this summer, but I'm thinking about going to Cape Cod for a few days since my wife brought it up.

[driven]

I plan quite a bit. tourist books, google searches, twitter asking folks who live in the destination. I *try* to avoid non-compelling tourist traps, and see things that are genuinely interesting.

[Paco500]

Just spent a week with the family in Cornwall. Love it there. Taking the son fishing in Scotland next month. Combining business in Rome with a short break in November.

[Waragainstsleep]

People do all sorts of crazy things in Scotland, mostly involving the climbing of mountains. Can't see the point when theres Whisky to be drunk!

[Eug]

Just got back from France a week ago. We weren't going to go anywhere during our vacation, but then decided at the last minute to go to France. It actually worked in our favour to a certain extent. Got a super cheap flight, and at least one of the hotels had some low rates through lastminute.com. We stayed in Paris in the business district for 3 nights at a 5-star hotel for the price of a 3-star. I had never heard of lastminute.com before actually since it's a UK company, but came across it while in France, so I actually booked that part of the stay just days before we stayed in Paris. For the other hotels we paid the regular non-inflated rates, which were the same rates that we would have gotten if we had booked earlier. However, what we missed out on were the inexpensive apartment rentals. Nice 1 bedroom apt. for the price of 2-star hotel's tiny room.

We didn't want the stick-shift we got for the car rental, but it was either that or a tiny Smart car. If we had booked months in advance we would have had a better chance at a decent sized automatic. Then again, we did manage to get a very nice Renault with built-in GPS for no extra cost, because that's just what they happened to have for our last minute booking. Furthermore, apparently if you book in advance you're still more than likely not going to get that automatic anyway, if you're renting from a smaller city.

[Athens]

A few of my friends from the east are coming to Vancouver for a Vacation to escape the brutal heat lol. Ive done New York 3 times and San Francisco once. My goal for this year and next year is to vacation near home in BC and Washington State and do Europe in a few years.

[mduell]

Istanbul, the British Midlands, Austin TX, and Central California

[ort888]

My wife and I are taking our little 23 month old on our first "vacation" in a long time. I'm saying "vacation" because with the kid I doubt there will be much relaxation involved. We're going to the Maryland/DC area and staying with her brother. We both used to live there, so it's not a super exciting destination, but hey, it's not Missouri.

We never go on vacations because it's always been hard to justify the expense. Always much more important things to spend the money on. Now that we're 100% debt free (except for the mortgage) it's easier to make some room in the budget.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Istanbul, the British Midlands, Austin TX, and Central California

Oooh, Istanbul. I'm jealous. Though the Midlands set that jealousy off a bit.

[Waragainstsleep]

You mean Birmingham and Coventry don't excite you?

At least the weather should make a nice change from Texas.

[quesera]

A trip to Kansas City with a teacher group was wonderful, but my family did not come along. We haven't even made it to the (Gulf) Coast or Austin, although they are modest drives.

In a somewhat daunting and very exciting twist of events, we may soon embark on a big road trip.

[Shaddim]

Went to Italy and Bermuda this year, we'll probably hit up New Zealand in Nov.

[Waragainstsleep]

Couple of my friends left Goodwood on the british south coast on Saturday bound for Ulan Bataar. In a 10 year old Nissan Micra.

They were in Poland last I checked. Kinda wish I'd gone now but it was too much money.

[Laminar]

I was in Tunisia two weeks ago and they're sending me to Aruba next week for work, do those count?

[Jens Peter]

One week in Hong Kong, 3 weeks in China:


Great trip!

[osiris]

Recently came back from Arizona - Flagstaff, Sedona, and Phoenix. I love the west and the wide open spaces.

Next month I'm off to Tokyo (Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Ginza), Niiza, and Asaya for a few weeks of R&R in somewhat more confined accommodations.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Oooh, Istanbul. I'm jealous. Though the Midlands set that jealousy off a bit.

Istanbul for the F1 race, the midlands for a wedding.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Jens Peter 

One week in Hong Kong, 3 weeks in China:


Great trip!

How did you make that map?

[mattyb]

Just had two weeks of mostly rain on the South Western French coast. Came back home to sign for the house that I bought then back to the coast for another week before the removal men arrive at stupid o'clock on the 5th of August to get us into the new house.

[BadKosh]

I'm staying HOME!!! No travel, not getting up early, not drinking too little....... I have a new roof, patio, and new landscaping. I just wanna sit and veg.

[Madison]

My family and I just got back from Oklahoma City. We drove from Massachusetts (1700 miles) and stayed in Bricktown, which is really nice. We took 4 days to drive out there so we could relax and enjoy the drive, but on the way home we had to do it in 2 days, so I drove 12 1/2 hours each day, needless to say, I'm bushed. We went for the World Cup of Softball (Go Team USA!!), and had a great time. We visited the Zoo while we were there, went to some great restaurants, and saw some fantastic softball games. All in all, while it was a LONG journey home, and EXTREMELY hot the entire time (never got below 100 in the day or below 85 at night), it was a great vacation.

[andi*pandi]

That is a long drive in two days!

[osiris]

Always wanted to drive cross country, there's a certain romance with a road trip.
Though that sentiment tends to wear down rather quickly, but even that can be fun.

[SSharon]

Originally Posted by osiris 

Always wanted to drive cross country, there's a certain romance with a road trip.
Though that sentiment tends to wear down rather quickly, but even that can be fun.

It wears off even faster if you get a speeding ticket along the way!

[Waragainstsleep]

Trying to drive across America while sticking to a 55 limit would drive me round the bend.

[exca1ibur]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep 

Trying to drive across America while sticking to a 55 limit would drive me round the bend.

I hear you on that one. I do an "average" of 85-90 just driving to LA from Oakland. That is the longest drive for me after that, it's time to get on a plane. I drove to Las Vegas once from here... NEVER again.

[ghporter]

Few places have a highway speed limit as slow as 55, at least outside major urban areas. It is 70 between San Antonio and the Houston area, which includes somewhere around 150 of the 190 or so miles I drive when visiting in-laws. On the other hand, driving "85-90" on that same stretch of road would be a combination of "daring the police" and "playing chicken" with the numerous slower-than-70MPH drivers on the road. I can stick to "around 70" the whole way and never worry about tickets because of the frequent, extremely obvious, and extremely reckless drivers (not all of whom are driving cars that seem to want to be driven fast-Neons and Cobalts are among the regular speeders I see) who weave thorugh traffic past me at 80+...and whom I see later on the side of the road being ticketed by local or state police.

[Cold Warrior]

Texas troopers seem aggressive about speeding -- I've been stopped repeatedly for 10% overage, which is just 77 in a 70. I think that's dumb, but I assume they do it just to have reasons to stop people, run their plates and license, smell your breath, and look around the visible areas of a vehicle.

[ghporter]

I see way more DPS cars on the road on long weekends, and since more people do dumb things in cars on these long weekends, especially in the summer, I believe this pattern is intentional. 77 may be "only 10% over," but it's noticeable in traffic (whether sparse or busy) going 74-75. And 77 is less than the speed the really egregious violators are going when I see them zip past me...

This fall I'm going to be driving up past the Metroplex. I haven't gone as far as Waco on I-35 in a number of years, so I'm going to be paying close attention to my speed pretty much the whole way. Fortunately I can use the toll way around Austin; the sad fact is that our state capital has some of the least effective major arteries in the state, and it's been that way for at least 30 years. But from Round Rock northward, there is a very long stretch of road with few "big" towns really close to the freeway, so that looks like prime speeding, and speeder-watching, territory to me. Unfortunately for me, this will be a professional trip and only for a weekend, so I'll be on the road a long time for what will wind up being a short stay. It doesn't count as a vacation, and my wife won't even be able to come along Bummer.