What is the best vacation you have ever taken?

[babigyrl5]

Originally Posted by 20yrsinBranson

One year I went on a cruise to Curacao. I was the first time I had visited what could be considered a "third world" environment and I loved it so much. The other trip would have been to Florida in 1998, we had lots of time and drove all around the state. I had never been to the Gulf side of the state before and I really, really liked it. I'd love to back one day, especially Ft. Myers and Sanibel Island.

20yrsinBranson

i LOVE cruising and yours sounded amazing!

[jtur88]

I usually didnt work anywhere long enough to get a vacation. But when I was in eastern Canada, I had a 3-week vacation, and decided to go overland to Timbuctoo. Flying across the ocean, of course.

I flew to Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands, and got up thenext morning and went to get a visa for Mauritania, and then caught the short flight to Nouadhibou. The cheapest place to stay was across the border in what was then the Spanish Sahara, now Western Sahara. Back to Noudahibou, I caught a local flight to the capital, Nouakchott, because there is no road. From Nouakchott, there was a share-taxi to Dakar, Senegal, for which I could get a visa at the border. In Dakar, I arranged visas for Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Mali, spent a night in Gambia, then got on the train to Mali. This is a horribly uncomfortable 30-hour train through 115-degree clouds of dust on hard wooden seats. I spend the night part of the trip sitting in the doorway, "watching" the darkest of Africa go by. Occasinally, the train would pass an unlighted village, where everyone would come out to see the weekly train pass (it didn't stop) and gleefully shout Hellos at the train as it went by. A couple of times it would stop. and someone in the village would make strong coffee with sweetened milk, and the few tin cups would get passed around to the passengers and refilled. Only kerosene lanterns---I was told that in all of Mali, there were only 7 cities with electric lights. This was in 1971.

The train stopped in Bamako, where I spent a couple of nights resting from the train, and then caught a bush taxi heading up toward Timbuctoo, my goal. In one of the stops along the way, I took a side trop to Bobo Dioulasso, in Upper Volta, then back into Mali, and reached Mopti, which is a lovely place on the edge of the Sahara, where the Niger River passes. I got up in the morning, to head down to the river boat which would take me to Timbuctoo. But it did not steop. I learned that as I slept, a cholera quarantine had been imposed on Mopti, and nobody coulld leave the city. So I was stuck there for 3 days, until a health official verified that my cholera vaccination was up to date, and I was allowed to walk about five miles out of town, to the quarantine permiter, and catch a truck heading back toward Bamako. Nothing was going toward Timbuctoo.

By now I was running short on time, so I returend to Bamako, got back on the dreaded train to Dakar, and retraced my steps back home again. So on my 3-week vacation, I came one town short of my goal of making it overland to Timbuctoo.

[babigyrl5]

^ even though you didnt make it where you intended- what an adventure!!!

[Bydand]

I have two that stick out in my mind. One was when I was a kid and we took the family vacation out to Oregon to visit my Aunt and Uncle in March of 1973. Dad hated the interstate system and we took back roads from Mid-Michigan all the way to the coast of Oregon. Stopped at every tourist trap and natural wonder Mom and Dad had ever read or heard about along the way. We stopped and talked to the people who were manning the barricades at Wounded Knee during that stand-off and I got to hear first hand BOTH sides of the argument from those directly involved. Quite an impression I might add for a 9 year old kid to stand there and have a "real live Indian" talk to me about how life was on a reservation and how they felt they needed to stand up and fight again for their families and history. All said while holding a rifle and dressed in a mix of Native American and Western clothing.

Stood looking at Mount Rushmore with a snowfall in progress and hearing Dad tell of the Presidents who were on the monument, then a short time later standing looking at the monument that was slowly emerging from a mountain side for Sitting Bull, and hearing his story as well. Tracing the path of Lewis and Clark and going to different camps and forts they had left behind and were in the process of being built back up so that portion of the nations history wouldn't be lost to time. Dinosaurs in North Dakota and Montana was another highlight of the trip. It was this trip that just nailed it for me that traveling and taking the time to see things was SOOOOO cool. I still love to just wander around the Country. Don't get to do much of it anymore, but am reaching a place in my life I can continue the heritage of traveling and learning with my own kids now.


The other was a trip I took back in 94. Started out in Northern Maine and made a direct trip to Abilene, Texas to help move a brother and sister-in-law down to school there. After they were settled in, I took the next 5 weeks to get back to Maine again. No agenda, no plans, no timetable. Just wandered back and if something caught my eye, I stopped and checked it out. Spent a night on a cot in the back of a Voodoo shop in New Orleans because the owner offered me a place to crash "If you don't mind sleeping surrounded by shrunken heads." We had been out having a good time at a little dive a few streets over and when I mentioned I had to get going so I could find a motel room for the night, the offer was made for the cot. I took it in a heartbeat, I mean come on! How often does this come along in a lifetime? Spent time along the way visiting old friends and meeting some really nice people.

[stephenslave]

South Africa, Cairo-Egypt, Malasia, Turkey, Dubai, London. all are the nice place to enjoy vaction.

[babigyrl5]

I'd love to go to all these places...

[Scotslass]

My best vacation was to Mallorca. Palma Nova to be exact. I just fell in love with the place.

First went there 11 years ago and we've been going there twice a year ever since. We love it and could move there.

We've been all over the world but Mallorca is just special.

[babigyrl5]

Originally Posted by Scotslass

My best vacation was to Mallorca. Palma Nova to be exact. I just fell in love with the place.

First went there 11 years ago and we've been going there twice a year ever since. We love it and could move there.

We've been all over the world but Mallorca is just special.

why did you like it so much?