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In winter, head to someplace near the equator or south of the equator where it will be summer. There are lots of good places to visit in South America. Try Montevideo in Uruguay.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Originally Posted by southkakkatlantan
Only thing stopping me from going to SE Asia is flying economy class there. Don't know if I can do it. Perhaps if I had an overnight layover somewhere half way in between en route.
Check for loading. We just returned to USA Thursday AM from SE Asia (16 hr direct flight). We each had a row to ourselves in Economy 3+ seats to stretch out. Only 2 rows ha more than 1 seat occupied. My friends have been flying midweek with similar success.
I departed on. Saturday evening to arrive Asia Monday AM. (Workweek) That was pretty full.
Btw, there is no ez stopover midway in the Pacific.
If you fly economy there get a sleeping pill from your doctor. Take it after dinner and wake up 8 hours later. Makes it much more tolerable. Also ask about compression hose or DVT prevention.
I'm the queen of sleeping pills practically...honestly it takes a lot to put me to sleep sitting in an economy seat on a long haul flight to Asia.
Um....so I still haven't decided on a place yet or booked a thing (been super busy at work)....
I'm going to narrow down my choices this weekend. Looking at flights (all over the place) as we speak.
About to check into the following places:
Bali
Portugal (Algarve/Lisbon/Porto)
Mexico (San Miguel de Allende, Tulum, Playa del Carmen)
Spain (Mallorca)
Cape Town
Barbados
I think I'm pretty sure at this point I don't want to focus my time in a spot like Amsterdam or Germany for the Christmas markets. Maybe another year for that. It's a small possibility if I go to Europe (i.e. Portugal or Spain) that I'll stop in London for a couple of days as I have a friend that lives there. But I was in London December last year so I already experienced Borough market/some of the Christmas market stuff already.
ETA: Sicili sounded like a good choice but the December temps there are in the 40s at night....
I feel like I've posted this before in a previous year...
But anyways, I was supposed to do an Ireland/Portugal trip this month and due to work commitments it ain't happening. Which kinda sucks because I did a 3 week trip to Europe last December so I know what it's like going there in a cooler month. It was a fun trip, I just really wanted to return to Portugal while it was still a little warm (to check out the Algarve region) and I feel that after this month it won't be.
Anywho, now my destination is totally up in the air. I should probably try to book something by early November though. I plan to be off from Dec6-Jan1 so I could travel that whole time or for any time in between. I will be using my Chase points to fund the flight and approximately half of the accommodations.
I am really totally open as to where to go so I don't mind any/all suggestions at this point. I just don't want to spend the 'entire' vacation somewhere it'll be very cold. I'd love to be somewhere where the temps get to at least 65ish F during the day, at least in one of the cities. Since I'll likely be gone for over 2 weeks I may do between 2-4 cities and am not opposed to these cities being in different countries.
I went to Kauai/Oahu a few months ago so not looking to return there FYI.
Just looking for any/all suggestions at this point and am really totally open right now...
Maybe Spain? Spain is Europe's jewel and it quickly escalated those past years to the 2nd most visited country in the world, probably soon the 1st and actually like 2 million Americans went to Spain in the last year. From November to March it's as well the best season to visit most of Spain. Unless the north of Spain, much of the rest, specially the south, has mild/warm weather and much less tourists.
I would recommend you southern Spain. Well, in a single travel you probably won't have enough time even to visit just Southern Spain: Seville, Malaga, Cordoba, Granada, Cadiz ... even lots of beautiful small towns full of history and things to see just as Carmona, Ubeda, Marbella, Ronda, Baeza, Andujar, Dos Hermanas... and it's close to Merida, Caceres and Badajoz, which are jewels of the ancient Roman Empire. Caceres is probably the most dense remnant of any Roman city and both Merida and Badajoz have lots of Roman structures, buildings, ponds, etc left.
During sunny days, in all of those inland places the high temps will remain about 15-16C (59-61F) with a warm sunshine. But in the southern coast of Spain (Cadiz, Malaga and the coastal towns) as well as in Seville, many December days have high temperatures of 20C or above (+68F) if they're clear, sunny days. The vast majority of December days are sunny and clear in those places, it has to be a real bad luck to see a cool, rainy month. It can happen like once every decade, but 90% of chances go for a sunny, warm weather.
There is also the possibility to visit the European Hawaii, which are the Canary Islands. From turqoise, golden sand beaches with coconuts on the background to a mixture of Saharan beaches (pure desert dunes) to black, Mars looking beaches and landscapes to tropical looking entourages and jungle looking cloud forests in Gran Canaria and Tenerife. The western islands have inland lots of greenery, as well as some out of this planet beaches with black sand, green hills and warm weather at the same time on the coast.
The western Canaries have 21-23C highs during December (70-73F) and 17-18C lows (63-64) meanwhile the eastern ones have 23-25C highs (73-77F) and 15-17C lows (59-63F). The Canaries are a well known beach destination during winter as well. The main islands, Gran Canaria and Tenerife experience some temps in the middle of those ones (22-24C / 72-75F highs and 16-18C / 61-64F lows) and have lots to see, as well as many natural things to see. Of course beach weather is possible, it's not rare to see temperatures above 26-26C in December in any of the islands (+77-79F) while the sea temps are still 21-22C (70-72F) while the sun is pretty strong, so it's possible to do cultural, natural travel as well as beach travel at the same time even in December.
Some pics of the Canaries. I don't want to make this a book of pictures, I tried to show as much variety as I can with few pics but I would need to show much more pics to show all of the variety!
If you have the time, go to SE Asia but break the trip at transit point for a couple of days so the journey won't be so bad.
Depending on what airlines you fly, your transit point might be in Europe (London is common transit point if you fly BA or its partners), or somewhere in Asia (Tokyo is highly likely if you fly United as they partner with ANA). Then you get to visit 2 countries and make the trip less arduous.
We were going to Sicily in Dec but decided on Malaysia via Dubai. Food will be way better in both places for sure!
Shanghai for 6 weeks. Hope it will be a warm winter. Can't believe a Lyon-Shanghai return ticket costs only 410 euros.
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Which kinda sucks because I did a 3 week trip to Europe last December so I know what it's like going there in a cooler month. It was a fun trip, I just really wanted to return to Portugal while it was still a little warm (to check out the Algarve region) and I feel that after this month it won't be.
