Travel
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
Dear Community,
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.
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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.
Poll: How's your summer vacation planning going?
We leave for Japan in 2 months and the only thing we have booked are the plane tickets, so this weekend is going to be some hardcore itinerary and hotel work for me (thanks again to everyone who shared advice and blogs a few weeks ago). I was just curious to see where everyone else is -- and hear about your great trips!
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
Re: Poll: How's your summer vacation planning going?
We leave for Mexico on May 18th. Everything is booked, I just need to shop, get my swimsuit bod back, and find someone to watch the pups while we're gone.
Costa Rica trip- Still up in the air based on flight prices.
Our wedding on Wilson Island!
We have a 5 day trip to NYC in May that is mostly done, then a 12 day cruisetour of Alaska in June that is also mostly done. Yay for summer vacation!
We are going to WA State wine country next month over Memorial Day Weekend (Walla Walla) and I have only reserved our accommodation so far. I need to start planning activities and restaurants soon!
The first week of September we are going to WA DC for 7 days. I have our apartment and airfare booked, and just put in a request a few weeks ago for the White House Tour (was told to do that 5-6 months in advance). I will probably wait and plan that trip after we get back from Walla Walla.
Not this summer, but we are going to PDC, Mexico for our destination wedding in November. I just booked our airfare and hotel for that and am in the midst of trying to plan activities/tours for our guests as most of our friends and family have never traveled and are looking at me to help them not only book the trip, but also recommend things to do. I am trying to get a group of at least 20-30 people to go to Chichen Itza on the same day, so that should be fun!
Glad to hear you say that, MDGirl. We leave for 2.5 weeks in Italy in just over 2 months and all I have are the hotels, plane tickets to/from, and a potential car reservation for the Tuscany portion. I still need to figure out train tickets (I definitely want to book ahead of time), what we need to book ahead of time (tours, galleries, etc.), what we want to see/do in each place, transport from Naples to Positano. I feel really behind!
We have a 3 day weekend to DC in May....itinerary is pretty much done, but we still need to book the hotel (hoping to do that tonight...).
I am hoping to go to Niagara on the Lake/Niagara Falls for 4 days in June as our babymoon, but DH has put that on hold until we figure out our budget (I'm taking off a year from work when the baby is born).
Otherwise, our trips will be on hold until summer 2013 when baby is a little older and our finances are a little better (hoping to do Outer Banks with the family).
We are going to Mexico on May 25th...airfare and resort have been booked since mid-February. I just need to book the excursion we want to do with EdVenture Tours.
I also need to figure out somewhere to go in July because I will not keep my sanity at work if I don't get away.
We try to go away each year for our anniversary, which is around Memorial Day weekend. I'm the trip planner in our family but this year DH put together our small trip to Provincetown for that weekend while I work on our big Tanzania trip for Oct./Nov.
We have the B&B set for P-town and DH is looking into restaurants and maybe an activity or two, but mostly it will just be a chill long weekend of hanging out in the area.
For Tanzania, I'm still gathering quotes and deciding which operator to go with but hope to have that settled very soon. I'm soooo glad we have the small trip to look forward to first though because I so cannot wait until the fall for a vacation!
When we went to Italy in September I reserved most of our tickets ahead of time on Rail Europe. It was probably just slightly more expensive than had we booked in person, but we didn't have to wait in any lines and many of the routes we traveled (i.e. Rome to Florence, Milan to Venice) were sold out by the time we boarded. We didn't book tickets for the less traveled routes (i.e. Florence to CT and CT to Milan).
If you are visiting Rome, I highly encourage you to purchase your tickets ahead of time for the Vatican here and the Colosseum here.
Thanks for the info! We're stopping in Venice, Florence, Montepulciano, Positano, and Rome. I will def be booking the Vatican and Colosseum ahead of time!
We leave for Paris May 26th for a week, the itinerary is all set. DH and I have been a couple times before, but this is Finley's first time, so it will be a very child friendly trip.
As long as my cousin's wedding is still on, we are going to take a road trip to Maryland (my home state) with a stop in Nashville on the way up and a TBD stop on the way back.
I am also trying to schedule a long weekend to Vail to visit my BFF.
We also have a weeklong trip to the Big Island of Hawaii booked for September. Nothing more is set other than flights, car and hotel. I know we will want to book a helicopter tour at some point.
So Tasty, So Yummy
Here's the rundown:
Charleston / Kiawah / Philadelphia (May) - The hotels and rental cars are all booked for this trip - I have a few ideas for restaurants but need to figure out what tours / places we want to hit up.
Europe (June/July) - this is a HUGE trip for us - 5 1/2 weeks - and it is partially booked. We have all our airfare and all but one night's hotels (still need a hotel in Monaco). I can't book train / bus tickets until those schedules open up. I did buy tickets to the Granada and to see the Last Supper mural in Milan when those went on sale. I've been working on getting reservations to Tickets in Barcelona and to Alain Ducasse's restaurant in Monaco, and trying to get DHa tuxedo for Monaco (he really wants one) but there's still a lot more to plan on that trip.
Seattle (August) - We have a wedding but I'm from there so it isn't a big deal. We need to buy plane tickets but I think they'll go down from what they're at now, so I'm waiting.
Vail (August) - I have the hotel and flights booked; need to get a rental car and then figure out if we're going to do anything besides spa treatments, short hikes, and eating a lot of food. It's mainly just to relax since it's only a long weekend.
Carmel, CA (Sept) - our friend is getting married there. It's driving distance so I've got the hotel booked and am looking at restaurants to do a big group dinner at on the Friday before the wedding. This is an easy one.
Seattle (September) - another wedding. Waiting for plane ticket fares to drop. Probably won't get a hotel - just bunk at my parent's house. How romantic!
Australia / New Zealand (Sept/Oct) - this is causing me the most stress. It's another 5-week trip. I have right now got three hotels in Australia booked (Qualia, Lizard Island, Longitude 131) because they're all tiny properties that can fill up early. I've got one hotel in Port Douglas I think I'm going to book. I need hotels in Melbourne and Sydney (waiting on TA to get me a quote on the FS there), but my real sticking point is figuring out what I want to do in New Zealand. Plan to buckle down and work on that this weekend.
Hawaii (November) - The FS Maui is super cheap in November (compared to what it usually goes for), so I'm going to take DH to Maui for his birthday. I'm waiting for our annual companion certificate to be deposited into our FF accounts, and then once I have that I'll book plane tickets. I've got a room at the FS Maui on hold but am going to work with my TA as well to see if she can get a room block - a bunch of DH's friends have expressed interest in going over there so we might go as a group.
So, I basically spend my life planning vacations. One of these days, DH is going to definitely cut me off (or make me become a TA and make some $$$ off this), but until then...
We decided to forgo Berlin with an 8-week old baby - too much eating in restaurants, schedule mess up, etc. So instead we will just book a week at a cottage this summer with friends.
We will be doing a cruise or Hawaii in Nov/Dec and another trip in Jan/Feb to make up for it. I'm super bummed but the idea of travelling with an 8-week old was nauseating to me.
Italy and Greece with our family for 2 weeks in May/June is all booked - flights, hotels, and cruise have been booked for months. We have a semi-set itinerary of sightseeing in Milan and Venice, but we're still looking into things to do on some of the islands.
Long weekend in the Outer Banks in June for my husband's 30th is booked - still looking for restaurants.
Long weekend in Boston for Labor Day is half booked - flights booked and itinerary pretty planned out. I'm waiting until next month to book the lodging but I've narrowed it down to one of two b&bs.
This will probably be it for us, unless something last-minute comes up with friends or family. I'm itching to start planning our "big" 2013 trip, but I promised I'd wait until after we get back from Italy before I start getting too into it.
We leave in 2 months for a whirlwind European tour. We're going back to Belgium/Amsterdam, then London, Denmark and Stockholm. I have everything booked in terms of flights, hotels, etc. Just have NO idea what types of activities, tours, etc. we'll do.
We're taking my little brother for a grad gift, and will surprise him with the trip 3 days before we leave. I'm trying not to plan too much b/c I want him to have some sort of say in where we go/what we do for his trip but it's hard to resist the urge to have everything planned up front!
I'm going to Europe on May 1. Most of the big things are booked (hotels, plane tickets, and FCB tickets). I need to figure out the tickets for the places we want to go, metro stuff, and schedules. I also have some shopping to do.
I'm going to D.C. at the beginning of August and I have yet to even book my plane ticket. I'll probably do that this week.
*Live, Love, Laugh, Learn*
Travel Adventures.
We are headed to Northern Cali at the end of July for our first wedding anniversary. We're doing 4 days in San Fran with day trip to Napa, then renting a car and driving down to carmel, where we booked a B&B. We'll be there for three days. We also want to drive down and explore Big Sur.
So far, we have the SF and Carmel hotels booked, as well as plane tickets and our rental car. We also booked our Napa tour. As soon as we can (3 months prior) we're booking Alcatraz tickets because that sells out. Probably in May I'll start looking for restaurants we really want to eat at in case we need to reserve far in advance. I might also purchase tix to the Monterey Aquarium in advance, but could probably wait until July for that. The rest we're playing by ear once we get to California.
We're leaving in 2 weeks for our annual trip to St. John. Everything is booked except our transportation to/from the airport. We're trying to decide if we should drive and park in one of those long term parking lots for $100 or drive to the bus station, park for free and take the 45-minute ride for $86. Decisions, decisions!
We're planning another European trip over Thanksgiving, but haven't decided on France and Barcelona, Spain, or Rome/Naples/Sicily. We've been to France and Spain (but not Barcelona) and to Rome, but never Naples or Sicily. We've also been tossing around the idea of Greece. So....that trip is obviously not planned at all yet!