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We prefer different things - ideas please!
DH and I like to vacation differently. If it were up to me, I would be up at 6:00 and not back to the room until midnight seeing and exploring everything that an area has to offer. DH would prefer to just relax and lay by a pool or on the beach.
We typically do 1 "big" vacation each year, so we're trying to decide what we want to do for 2012. We've tried to compromise on some of our previous vacations and include a balance of relaxation and activities. Two of our vacations have been Las Vegas and a 7 night carribean cruise. Both were nice in the fact that it was easy to include at least a few hours of activities and a few hours of pool/beach everyday (or alternate beach and activity days).
We're far from well travelled so we would like to go someplace new. We're not shoppers or into the nightlife scene at all. We like our activities to be more along the lines of museums, tours, historical areas. I love cityscapes and architecture. Ideally, I think a big city with nice beaches would probably be best, right? Or perhaps renting a car and a few areas. A mini road trip would be fine with us. I'm open to any ideas.
We would be vacationing in August and like to travel for 6-9 days. Our budget isn't really strict, but I would like to keep it under $3500 for the two of us. Flights would be out of Detroit. Our style isn't extravagant- typically we stay at 2.5-3 star level hotels. If it's relevant, we do have passports.
Any ideas that you can offer would be awesome!
Re: We prefer different things - ideas please!
For what you're looking for, I would recommend Playa del Carmen, south of Cancun, Mexico.
During the day you can take a snorkeling trip, go ziplining, visit Tulum and/or Chichen Itza (or both on two separate days). At night, you could relax on the beach with some margaritas - we actually did a beachside massage offered by one of the local vendors.
The benefit of Playa del Carmen is that you're a little more immersed in the culture than you would be in a place like Cancun. Think of it as a developed beach town with really good seafood (one of the best fish tacos I've ever had in my life was off the main strip and in a vendor out of a garage!), but stuff to do for you, and time for him to relax.
We booked our tours through EdVenture tours - they were great and allowed us to do the snorkeling, ziplining, and trip to Tulum.
LOL I think she'd have to go to Chile is she wants to go skiing/boarding in August.
I could have written this entire post- I like to go, Go, GO and DH likes to relax. For trips that DH and I take together, I usually plan an active morning and a relaxing afternoon or plan for the beginning few days of our trip to be crazy busy and then relax the second half.
Have you considered Puerto Rico? There's just so much to do in terms of outdoor activities (land and water- hiking, biking, watersports, etc.), history, architecture, culture, music and good food. We spent 3 days exploring Old San Juan and then the last 7 relaxing in the Luquillo area snorkeling, hiking in El Yunque, etc.
Have you been to Hocking Hills? Everyone thinks it is just a lot of hiking and outdoor activities but we also enjoyed gallery hopping and exploring the history of the area.
Check out my blog (link in siggy)- not only do we have a similar travel styles but we're also both from Ohio- there might be some roadtrips that interest you, too.
An American Girl's Travels
OOPS!! LOL! Missed that part! Although, I believe there is a mountain in Oregon that offers year round skiing!
My fiance and I also struggle with this; go go go makes me happy but always ends up stressing him out. It's taken us a few trips to find a good balance. With that being said, I do think compromises can be made for any vacation destination you choose. While he prefers beach vacations, my favorite is traveling to cities and the countryside. When we visited Italy last September, we just had to make sure to have a good mix of museum time for me and relaxing at a cafe or park for him. We have tried doing one busy day of sightseeing followed by a day of just relaxing but it seems to be a better compromise for both of us to mix it up every day.
I would also recommend Playa del Carmen and Puerto Rico as the previous posters did. The only issue is that August is hurricane season so if you were to visit either place during that time make sure to purchase travel insurance. Outside of the hurricane zone with your budget I would also recommend Southern California (i.e. San Diego, LA, etc), Seattle/Vancouver/Portland/Oregon Coast road trip, San Francisco/Sonoma/Napa Valley, Boston/Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket, and Puerto Vallarta. I would also recommend Costa Rica and Panama as I believe they are less likely to be hit by a hurricane.
Seriously, I could have written this too. My husband and I are the exact same way. After a few "failed" vacations where one of us did not have a good time -- Jamaica AI and San Antonio, TX -- we learned that we need to compromise.
Our most successful vacations have been Hawaii (Oahu was our favorite and a perfect compromise), Arizona (Sedona, Grand Canyon, Page, Scottsdale), and Niagara Fall/Toronto.
Puerto Rico is on our list, like others have mentioned. Also a California coast roadtrip and a San Diego vacation.
i would highly recommend rio de janeiro. we did 8 days there for like $3K in 2009 (we were flying from NYC and rented an apartment to save money on lodging because we prefer to splurge on food, shopping, and sightseeing).
one day, we hired a private tour guide and that was worth every penny because we learned a lot, went into places we might have missed, and it was more like a friend showing you around. i loved the mix of sightseeing and relaxing. even in august (their winter) we got in some beach days and went home tan.
i have a trip review so feel free to page me if you want more info.
Thanks for all of the suggestions so far! It's nice to know that we're not the only couple that doesn't agree on vacationing.
I'm not really worried, but one of DH's biggest worries about leaving the country is the language barrier. Our experiences out of the USA only include cruise ports and Ontario. There were a couple of suggestions for Playa del Carmen and Puerto Rico (which I know isn't REALLY out of the country); but what can we expect? I assume that most people will also speak English, but what about street signs, menus, etc.?
@My Valentine- I definitely will check out your blog. We've been looking for closer-to-home weekend trips to take too! As for Hocking Hills, I went with my family when I was 12ish. All we did was hike, picnic in the park, and back to the cabin and I didn't particularly enjoy it as a tween. I will definitely look into it again, especially since it is close to home.
I have this worry too, but if you worry about it all the time, you'll never go to another country! We're thinking of going to Europe this summer, and if I worried about knowing Dutch, Czech, or Hungarian, we'd never consider going. That's the beauty and adventure of it!
DH's Spanish is really horrendous and mine is super-duper basic. Playa was totally fine - so many Europeans and Americans travel there that English is spoken fairly widely and menus can be found in English.
I've never been, but I know tons of people who went and they were fine. (I've been to other parts of Mexico and was fine.)
But really, this is part of the fun of traveling to a new country - DH and I try to learn some phrases in the language of the country we are going to - it's a fun project. And if you cannot read the menu, be adventurous and point to something random or point to someone else's - something we've done plenty and gives us good memories!
Would you be willing to do separate activities? If you do a cruise, you can go off on excursions during the day, with a group if you want, and he can sit by a pool or go to a beach. Then you have from about 5pm on to be together.
One of the resorts in Mexico would offer that same opportunity.
Or you could tell him to suck it up and plan to go out of the country. Maybe he'll be fine with it once he realizes it's not as hard/scary as he imagined.
August is a perfect time to visit New England!
You could fly into Boston and spend a few days checking out the city--duck tour, visit the science or art museum, walk in the north end, newbury street, Harvard square,, the freedom trail, whale watching,etc..Then you could go to Martha's Vineyard or Maine or Cape Cod. There are lots of resorts you could check out in any of those places. You could relax on a beach for a few days.
You could also check out Newport, RI--great place to spend a night. Good restaurants and the mansions are fun to tour. The cliff walk is also really nice.
Honestly, all of the places that have been suggested here (Puerto Rico, Mexico, etc.) are so used to catering to tourists that you'll find English is pretty widely spoken, and definitely spoken at any hotels / resorts you go to.
Also, as PP's mentioned, that's one of the fun things about traveling internationally - DH and I travel internationally all the time and we love trying to learn the language beforehand, and then soaking up the culture and the different ways of life when visiting.
i'd second barcelona but in august you may not be able do it for $3500. we did it for around that in november and from DC.
don't let the language barrier stop you. i've been to czech republic, the netherlands, spain, and brazil without knowing czech, dutch, spanish/catalan, or portuguese. we always try to learn a few phrases because even the effort of asking "do you speak english?" in their language is usually appreciated. in prague, a postal worker and i filled out a customs packing slip without being able to speak the other's language. i actually found portuguese to be the most difficult because while words looked familiar (i've taken french and italian), they sounded completely different. it didn't hinder our enjoyment of rio at all.
HTH
DH and I did this in San Francisco (of all places) at this tiny dim sum shop in Chinatown. OMG the food was so good. I think if we knew what was in any of whatever we picked, we wouldn't have eaten it. Sometimes not knowing makes things more satisfying!
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Yes Martha's Vineyard & Cape Cod is best places to visit in August. You can go for the ferry ride to the island. Fenway Park is also one of the attractions from MA.