Money Matters
hoffse
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Not MM-related: travel buffs/dreamers
So yesterday H and I were talking about lifetime travel goals. We came up with the following goals, which we will revise as we see what life throws at us:
-Visit all 50 states
-Visit at least 25 countries
Rules: We will count the USA on our list of 25 countries. Cruise stops count, as do very small countries so long as they are legally independent (ie: Vatican City). However, airports don't count and you have to actually set foot on the ground - so if your cruise docks and you don't get off the boat, it doesn't count.
We're still debating whether we should count territories separately. For instance, if I visit Scotland, can I count that separately from England? I vote yes, H votes no.
My stats: by the end of 2015 I will have been to 24 states, 1 US territory, 8 countries, and 1 European territory (from a country that isn't one of my 8).
H's stats: by the end of 2015 he will have been to 27 states and 14 countries. No territories.
Neither of us have been to Canada! We're saving it for a year when our budget is tight.
We had better get cracking!
What are you goals & stats?
Re: Not MM-related: travel buffs/dreamers
Beyond that, we want to explore the National Parks out West, H wants to return to Hawaii some day (I'm on board with that
Hey I like that! Nice!
So far our plans include to go to the places that I've traveled with my family as a kid. Once we finish those we will start picking places on our own to visit. Most of them will be in the US, we really don't have any desire to travel outside the country except for the Caribbean
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We've prioritized international travel, so haven't been to as many domestic locations, but I have traveled both coasts and been to Hawaii.
We're now TTC so travel plans have slowed a bit, but I've still got my eye on Thailand, Dubai and Costa Rica for future trips.
We're also banking points to fly first class on our next big trip.
As far as I can remember right now I have been to:
9 countries (4 continents)
27 states plus DD and at least 5 more states that were drive throughs but not destinations
I have been to Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium. A lot of those were on band trips in college and beyond.
I would love to either do WA and OR or the northeast next summer for our ten year anniversary. The Grand Canyon is on the list to do with the kids.
I know DH wants to see England. I want to see Italy, Greece, and New Zealand.
International: Belgium/Netherlands, Spain, France, Slovenia/Croatia, Japan, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, Peru, Galapagos, New Zealand (again for me), Brazil/Ecuador (rainforest trip), diving trips mixed in sporadically.
US: National Parks primarily (Olympic, Rocky Mountain, Yosemite (I was there briefly), Yellowstone. We're saving these for kids too, @hoffse.
I'm interested that so many having long road trip goals! I get very bored on long car rides so that's never been a huge priority for me.
Our next big trip will probably be Amsterdam/Belgium, which I view as pretty compatible with our TTC plans (though no beer would be slightly sad). We'll see how things shake out with restructuring at my job...Thailand and Vietnam would be highest on my list but I just can't get H excited about it, so Japan or Hong Kong will hopefully be our first Asia trip. That's a bit of a ways off financially, though!
I'm thinking that I need to take lessons on working CC points for traveling from you guys to finance a trip next year
I have been to a lot of places (I don't count airports or driving through) but DH hasn't. We just did our first big International trip together to Morocco. It was great and now I can add a 5th continent to my stats.
Our goal is Hawaii for our 5th anniversary.
Poland is a lovely country to visit
Out of the two of us, I am definitely the more adventurous traveler. I think I got it from my dad--he used to travel internationally for work and would take me along with him, so as a kid I got to go to cool places like Belgium and Australia. Now I want to go back and visit those places as an adult!
DH's idea of a vacation is someplace tropical with a beach (we stayed at our first all-inclusive last month and he says he's spoiled now and only wants to do that from now on!). This year it was Jamaica, last year we just did Brazil (DH's 1st trip there), the year before that it was the Bahamas.
As a couple, we go back to visit his family in Colorado at least once a year, and we also try to visit Brazil once a year to visit my family. We have been trying to change that to every other year because it gets so expensive but that hasn't gone over very well with my family. On top of that we also try to do one non-obligatory (so not just visiting family) trip. I'm hoping for England or France, but DH has his heart set on St. Lucia so we'll see what happens next year.
Side note, for Christmas DH got me a one of those big maps that you can scratch-off places as you visit them. I think it's so cool!
Forgot to include my stats!
USA--Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Washington DC, California, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, Kansas, Utah, Wyoming, California, Nevada, Ohio, Nebraska, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma.
Countries: Brazil, Jamaica, Bahamas, Belgium, Australia, Columbia, Mexico, India (had a blast studying abroad!), Argentina, South Africa, Portugal, Spain.
If you do climb Mt Hood, I definitely recommend a full moon climb if you can swing it. It is completely magical.
I've traveled pretty extensively through the U.S., though I don't have a goal or even a need to visit all 50 states. In fact, U.S.-wise, I feel like I've been pretty much everywhere I've wanted to go, except Alaska. I've even lived in three very different places...So. CA, NOLA, and Miami (though Miami was only for 3 months).
Internationally is where I am woefully lacking. I've been to Canada many years ago. I've been to two different parts of Mexico. And the Baja part, I've been to a bunch of times because I grew up only about 60 miles away from it.
Right now, I can only focus on Europe because that is where I have always wanted to go the most. I'm not even sure what parts, though I am more drawn to Italy and Germany.
My DH has traveled extensively through the U.S. also. He's lived in OR, AL, TX, and NOLA. He was in the Army in his younger days and lived in Panama and Germany for short periods of time. He's also been to Mexico a lot. But that was all a long time ago and long before I was in the picture.
Ohmigosh, this is by far my favorite thread ever! H and I love traveling (so far, just domestically). We have quite an extensive travel bucket list. We have a giant map of the US on our living room wall with all of the place we've visited pinned. We've never been east of the Mississippi River!
We want to visit all 50 states together. We have visited 17 so far. We each have a few other states we've been to individually, but we're only counting together. Also, we only count places if we have stopped there, either for a meal or a gas fill up or something like that.
We also want to see a baseball game at every MLB ball park. We've been to 7 so far and will hit two more when we go on vacation next week!
We love to visit National Parks and I've lost count of how many we've visited. We go to as many as possible if we are going to be close to one.
We are planning to go on a British Isles cruise for our 10th anniversary; we both really want to visit Ireland and Scotland. This will be our first international trip.
Other places on our list:
The Caribbean; France; Italy; NYC; Boston; Acadia National Park; New England (fall foliage); Philadelphia; Washington DC; New Orleans; the Florida Keys; Banff, Canada; the Mediterranean; Australia; Belize
@hoffse, thanks for the tips and great descriptions. Aaahhh...I literally closed my eyes and momentarily traveled there. I've also heard Spain is amazing. My cousin married a Spaniard and he's offered us a place to stay if we ever go there, so perhaps we could swing a trip out there for a few days also. It's always hard for me to envision countries that seem so different are actually very near to each other geographically.
I'll be interested to hear about your all's Germany trip and the Christmas markets when you get back. I have a coworker whose mother is German and he spent his childhood summers in Germany. He has been a plethora of information about the country, the people, and their customs.
Our goals are to:
-Visit all 50 states (off the top of my head I'm not sure how many I've been to)
-Travel as much as possible and to as many countries/places as possible
-Take a least 1 trip every year out of state (I say this because we usually vacation at a beach 3 hours away but still in MD every year)
-Go to all the major National Parks in America.
-Go to Hawaii for 2 weeks for our 5 year anniversary! So I'm starting to save now for that, so we have a decent budget for the trip in 4 years.
-There are a few cruises I have my sights on too Alaska and a 2 week mediterranean cruise.
-I'd also really love to go cage diving with great whites which will result in another trip (unless we do this in Hawaii)
I should also mention that H & I are not opposed to going to the same destination a few times. We absolutely love Punta Cana and have been back twice and would love to go again. And we don't count places we pass thru, we have a rule that we have to spend at least one night unless of course it's a neighboring state like DE.