BlogHer - What's Your Dream Vacation? - Comments

Dream Vacation; I could go on and on

Nancy Brown WhataTrip — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 19:15:25 -0500

What's MY dream vacation look like? Yippee! What a great blog topic.

Let's see...get on a plane; make that a float plane, to Alaska and head to several of Kirsten Dixon's WithintheWild Adventure Lodges. Then I'd go to St. Barts and stay in one of those swanky villas with a private infinity pool and, oh yes, I'd have a private chef, too. You said bottomless credit card that someone else pays for...that sounds good. Will my husband be able to take off work and still get a paycheck and health care? Who will feed the dog and throw food at the kids? STOP! This is a dream; no stress allowed.

You said Dream vacation...a girl's gotta dream. Maybe you should check out Conde Nast's Dream Vacation contest. The fellow who won last year had an amazing vacation and blogged about it on Wendy's Perrin Post.

Great topic, Pam. Now back to reality, but I did have a nice day dream. Thanks.

Nancy Brown, What a Trip

http://blogs.bootsnall.com/What-A-Trip/

Going Away

Claudine — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 18:27:59 -0500

There are so many delicious places that I'd like to see. I'd look at the 1,000 places to go before you die list and start from there. I know that I'd like to spend lots of time near a beach. Something about the sound of the ocean crashing, that's so relaxing to me... With bottomless finances, it wouldn't be a vacation, though. That's just how I would spend my life. Where on earth is Claudine?

Claudine Williams

www.vacation-tip.com

www.theatlantatraveler.com

I was really fortunate to

Deaf Mom — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:18:16 -0500

I was really fortunate to help my Dad experience his dream of seeing Pearl Harbor so we headed over there in May. I would love to go back to Hawaii, but explore the rustic areas on other islands.

A dream vacation for me would be to stay at Canyon Ranch in AZ for a week with my best gal pals-- and still have some alone time to write.

Karen Putz

"Life is too short to pout all the time."

A Deaf Mom Shares Her World

Hands & Voices

Your Dream Vacation Is Mine As Well

Megan Smith — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:21:08 -0500

Hi Pam,

My dream vacation would include Hawaii, Hawaii, and more Hawaii. I've only seen three of the islands and I'm aching to see the rest.

Toss in Fiji and a hop to Australia for the Australian Open Tennis tournament---neither of which I've been to---and I'd be in heaven!

Megan
BlogHer Contributing Editor, TV/YouTube
Megan's Minute
Video Runway

That sounds AWESOME

Pam — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:35:08 -0500

I've not been to Japan and I can't really afford it, I think, but oh, how I'd love to go. And I think those temples must be real stunners... note to self: add Kyoto to imaginary dream itinerary.

Nerd's Eye View

Kyoto with the kids is my dream

debbiedubrow — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:32:21 -0500

My dream destination changes with the seasons (or perhaps the last set of vacation photos I looked at)

Lately I've been thinking a lot about taking the kids and heading to Kyoto, Japan. I'd love to show them all the temples. I know that both kids would love the gardens (and the rubber stamps at every tourist site). And I imagine that my blue eyed daughter would be fawned over at every turn. Conveyor belt sushi and the food halls at Takashimaya would be a dream with kids.

With the dollar so low, we'd have to do some serious economizing, but I know we would have a great time.

Living the good life with kids @ www.deliciousbaby.com

What's Your Dream Vacation?

Pam — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:11:46 -0500

I had a dream once, I remember it quite well. I was living on barge with my sweetheart. It’s what we did for a living - he was a river barge captain, we delivered freight via the canals of Europe. It's funny that my subconscious should settle me with so much contentment on a boat - after all, I get seasick and am a little claustrophobic. But on the barge of my dreams, I was supremely comfortable. It was roomy and conditions were seldom rough. We had a nice cabin and a good kitchen and there were lots of windows. The best part about it was that while we were always off to somewhere new, we were also always at home.

Peripherally related, I also remember a conversation with my stepmom after she'd returned from a retreat. I'd arrived to visit my Dad while she was gone, she arrived home a day or two later with that post vacation mixture of relaxed and excited. I made some remark about how retreats weren't for me. "Don't you ever want to get away from it all?" she asked. I thought about it for a while and decided that actually, no, I didn't. "Get away from what?" I said, thinking about our trans-Atlantic lives, my freelance job that lets me work at home, our unbelievable adventures...

It's difficult for me to think about vacation in that classic 10-day-junket-to-[pick one: exotic, sunny, beachy, cultured, your choice]-location sort of way because travel is such an integrated part of our lives. But if I do set my head to it, I know that yes, sometimes I do just want a break, a weekend in Vancouver, Canada, or a week in Kona on the Big Island with nothing to do but take pictures, play the ukulele, and eat mangoes. Sign me up.

But when I think "dream vacation," I think big. If I could have anything I imagine, anything at all, I would go for unlimited resources and a good chunk of time, say, three to six months, no, longer still, with no booked agenda and a bottomless credit card that someone else has to pay for.

I'd head to the airport with one small bag, [camera kit, lightweight laptop, swimsuit, change of clothes] my husband, and I'd book the first flight West to Hawaii. As soon as I felt fully stocked up on Aloha, I'd opt for Fiji, then New Zealand for a few weeks of vagabonding in a camper van, Indonesia to see the temples of Borobadur, back to Vietnam and Cambodia, Thailand to spend some time working with the elephant rescue foundation, and oh, my brain is already running off to China and Japan and maybe Korea because I know nothing about it and then, for the finish, India, traveling by first class rail, drinking hot chai from glasses while the country side rolls by. To go flashpacking with plenty of dosh and plenty of time, that's my dream vacation. Big deep sigh here.

That's not, I realize, everyone's idea of a vacation, and I'm all too aware of the intermittent fits of exhaustion, frustration,and utter over-stimulation to be experienced in the midst of all that. But to have the money to do that sort of adventure, the possibility to stay in nice places while still wandering the surface of the planet with not much more than a small backpack, that's my idea of the dream vacation. Don't get me wrong, when I see the ads that show happy, thin, attractive people in beach chairs, I think, yeah, I could do with some of that. But if I could truly have my dream? A beach chair isn't going to do it for me.

What about you? What if you could go anywhere, do anything? What's YOUR dream vacation look like?

Blah Blah Blog says Australia
Scrapper Days wants Vegas in Hawaii (that sound you hear is me screaming, but to each her own)
Carmen's Creative Chatter says Ireland, or maybe Costa Rica

Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View. Photo: the writer, hard at work on her Hawaii guidebook at Polihale Beach on Kauai.