The Travel Thread

[NSEP]

Do you guys and gals travel alot? Are you planning on going anywhere? Did you go anywhere recently?

Discuss it here! I know geography and stuff like that can lead to a discussion about politics, so try to avoid that from happending.

Edited April 10, 2018 by NSEP

[DeltaDizzy]

A few years ago I went to Montreal, and I lived in Georgia at the time, so that's quite a ways. Haven't been out of the US since.

[NSEP]

I have haven't been outside of Western Europe after i was 3 years old. I go to the UK every year to visit family, wich also means i have to travel through Belgium and France because i live in the Netherlands. I went to Paris once, and i am going to Berlin, or if Berlin is already full, Czechia, on a school trip this year.

I really want to visit Japan in my life, many people say its great. I also would like to go visit Kennedy Space Centre, and maybe, if im incredibly lucky, Baikunur Cosmodrome. Not many people go to Baikunur to see launches, so it must be really difficult to get there.

I am also planning to cycle to Amsterdam, since i can do that, right now, litterly, but im not prepared and i don't have much time 

[Mrcarrot]

Just now, NSEP said:

I also would like to go visit Kennedy Space Centre

I've been there. There was a downpour so bad, the water level on the ground was constantly ~1 cm. The weather did, however, clear up for part of the tour...

[XB-70A]

I tended to "travel" a lot in the past, at such a point than at 22 years old I discovered that I never stayed in the same domicile more than 6 months (averagely). At this time all my goods were holding in two luggage and a backpack. Now why travel in the quotation marks? Most of the time it only consisted in moves inside my birth country, so more inter-regional than international.

Anyway for western Europe, I visited Belgium a single time (for stupid reasons I had to stop and turn around just before reaching Ostend, alas), Germany three times (Berlin, Dusseldorf, and Hamburg) for five to twelve days, and Italy's northern regions pretty often when I was in Nice.

About Northern America, I stayed nearly a year in the Quebec province of Canada, passing some days in Ontario too (it made me discover the most welcoming and open-minded population ever, from my experience). At the same period I used to drive three times to New-York City and Newark, the perfect opportunity to discover the beautiful landscapes of the Northern States while driving on one of the Ike's Interstates, the best being that nearly nobody was driving here each time I used the road, really peaceful (some portions were even without any cellphone services). I also got the chance to stay two weeks in Newport, Rhodes Island, in 2007 and it was a pretty nice place. I will never forget this travel as it was in November 2007 and the Eagles have just released their latest album some days before. I ran everywhere across the town to find a store selling it 

I also keep some nice memories of the time I was flying in the Caribbeans, it gave me the luck to go to nearly all the island From Haiti at the North to Mustique at the South. Cuba doesn't really count as I only landed here for a transfer, many years ago, passing by Santiago de Cuba, then La Havana (obviously).

Now I'm trying to explore and discover Florida as much as possible when I'm free, there is so many places to look at, and my poor computer is slowly dying under the amount of pictures I'm taking! Alas, I never went northern than Middleburg (West-South-West of Jacksonville), but I hope to have enough time soon to go northern and western, there is the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola (obviously), and also the battleship USS Alabama really close from the interstate border (can't wait to go there!)

[Atlas2342]

I have travelled around my country but there are still a few places to go. I don’t really know but I’d prefer to go to other countries rather than travel around here. Here we just have beaches and forests  and there are basically only two seasons here: wet and dry so it’s not much fun. 

I have been to Hong Kong and Singapore on vacation with my family and I really enjoyed it. Basically going to every theme park and museum we could go to. Singapore is a really high tech city and it was only when I got there that I remembered some people drove on the left side of the road. We went to Sentosa and the Singapore Flyer. In our stay at Hong Kong we went to Disneyland (it was my first time since we don't have it here) and it was awesome. We really experienced the culture there and the food was amazing.

I really hope to visit other countries in the future. Possibly places with snow (yes I've never experienced snow) and just lie on it. I hear Japan is a really good place to travel to so thats where I would travel if I could. 

Edited April 11, 2018 by Atlas2342

[YNM]

I don't really travel somewhere just for the purpose of travelling to it. All despite my age.

Most of my travels are done with my family. It might even be as good as all of it. Almost every year, we "come back" to my parent's hometown. We sometimes would visit other towns during that. Rarely, my parents would go somewhere either work-related or with their friends or just because they want to and I would go along (mostly when I'm small though). Other times, I'm going somewhere on trips done by school. I've only went somewhere of my own will, with my friends, once; that wasn't even really for travelling there, it was for assisting in an event.

I do hope that one day I could travel somewhere. Perhaps on work or something. But I don't really like nor have the resources to travel about.

[Geonovast]

Really my only travel is about 3 hours away to visit my wife's sister, or 9 hours away to visit home.  We don't even vacation, mainly because it's a waste of money I don't have.  I'm also very introverted and tend to panic in large crowds, so most touristy areas are out for me anyway.

Although I would kill to go see Endeavor in LA.  Unfortunately that means going to LA.

On the rare chance I'm in a strange city (usually for work), I camp out in the hotel every moment I'm not doing what I'm there to do.

[TheSaint]

When I left for the Navy I moved to Orlando for boot and school, lived there for a year and did all the Orlando stuff: Disney, KSC, etc. Then I went to prototype training for six months in Connecticut (S1C, Stuck 1n Connecticut!). After that I was stationed in the beautiful sub-tropical paradise of New London, Connecticut. Actually wound up being moved to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard for just over a year when we did an overhaul which was SuperFun!

When I was in the the Navy I did two Mediterranean deployments, visited all sorts of ports on those. And, unlike most of the guys on the boat, I did make it past the first bar past the end of the pier. I did tours of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, two trips to Paris, I did Christmas Eve mass at the Vatican with Pope John Paul II, I came this ->||<- close to getting on a tour to the Pyramids (still mad about that one). I also spent time in Morocco, Turkey, Greece, and La Maddalena, Italy. Lots of time in La Maddalena.

We spent a lot of time in the Caribbean as well, but not as many exotic liberty ports down there, mostly Ft. Lauderdale or Port Canaveral. We would very rarely pull in somewhere in the USVI or Puerto Rico, or get dropped off at AUTEC in the Bahamas for a day. I do remember the time that we pulled into Corpus Christi, Texas on 4th of July weekend. My ship was the U.S.S. City of Corpus Christi. It was Texas. It was pretty wild. When I say that you could get anything for a boat hat, I mean you could get anything for a boat hat.

After I got out I spent three years back in CA, then I left for South Africa, lived down there for two years. I travelled all over South Africa, I lived in Pretoria and Johannesburg, but I visited Cape Town, Knysna, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Bloemfontein, the Drakensburg, Pilanesburg, all sorts of places. I took a long weekend and visited Botswana with a friend of mine, spent the weekend camping in Khutse Game Reserve. Also took a long weekend and went diving at the very southern tip of Mozambique, which is about as far as you want to travel into Mozambique.

After I came back I traveled a little bit while I was single. Took a two-week cruise to the Caribbean, nice to be on a ship where I wasn't working. Then I met my wife and we started going everywhere together. We went to Alaska for two weeks to see one of her grad school friends get married. We went to Australia for two weeks, did a Coral Sea live-aboard dive trip. We went back and did Orlando together for a week. We were all over California, we did the Sierra Nevadas, Joshua Tree, dive trips off the coast. We had a great time.

And, then we had kids. Traveling with babies is an ordeal. We actually decided to take a road trip to Oregon the last two weeks of our family leave after Thing One was born. Our original goal was to make it all the way to Portland, but we wound up cutting it short at Crater Lake because traveling with an infant was just exhausting. So, we didn't travel a whole lot over the next five years or so. We got annual passes to Disneyland and called it good.

But now, they're grown enough that we can travel more. Although flying five of us anywhere is prohibitively expensive, we're driving all over Hell and half of Georgia, camping all over the West. Yellowstone, Zion, Bryce, Arches, Canyonlands, Death Valley, etc. We did a four-day cruise out of LA to Mexico last summer too, kids loved it. Going to take a road trip up to Idaho this summer, visit some friends up there.

We're thinking at some point we're going to do an East Coast trip, do DC, Civil War battlefields, KSC, etc. Thing Two is a budding spelunker, so he's dying to go see Mammoth Cave in Kentucky. I would love to do the USAF museum and Cedar Point. I'm thinking we could kill two, three weeks with a trip like that.

[TheSaint]

Well, "at some point" turned into "this summer".

Bit of background: My father was the youngest of six kids. His oldest brother had six sons. They all stayed put in the New England area for the most part. They're my cousins, but they're all 20-30 years older than I am. I kept in touch with the family while I was stationed out there with the Navy, but kinda lost touch with them when I moved back. So, one of the brothers got in touch with me on Facebook a month or so ago to let me know that the oldest of them had passed away. Which was sad, but not unexpected. But while we were catching up he told me that they all get together in Rhode Island every other year and that they were getting together this summer. And I looked at my wife and said, "I want to see these guys again. They're a great bunch of guys. I want you and the kids to meet them."

So, we're taking a two-week road trip to the East Coast this summer. We're stopping in Memphis to see Graceland, Thing Two will get his Mammoth Cave tour, and we're spending a couple of days in New York. Then we're spending three days in Rhode Island with family. After that we spend a couple of days in Boston, we get a day in Hershey, Pennsylvania (which Thing Three is somehow convinced is the entire purpose of the trip), and then we get to visit the Museum of the USAF in Dayton, Ohio (I will post photos). 5,500 miles of driving in 15 days. I think we've lost our minds.

[cubinator]

I live in the US, and I've been to Brazil and France so far. I like to visit geologically interesting places when I can. I'd like to get to all six continents eventually, plus at least one very productive interplanetary trip. 

[Dman979]

On 4/11/2018 at 1:05 PM, TheSaint said:

~snip~

 

[Guest]

On 4/10/2018 at 4:04 PM, NSEP said:

Do you guys and gals travel alot? Are you planning on going anywhere? Did you go anywhere recently?

Discuss it here! I know geography and stuff like that can lead to a discussion about politics, so try to avoid that from happending.

I'm surprised that your post only got one like.

[tater]

I've traveled quite a bit I guess, but not enough, lol. Most US States at this point I think, many of the more interesting ones a number of times. A few times to parts of Canada (Ontario , Quebec, etc), Mexico, UK, Amsterdam, Italy, Kenya, Hong Kong, Nepal a couple times, Macau, Taiwan, Korea, Thailand a couple times, Malaysia, Morocco...

The reason to work, etc, is to travel, frankly. Experiences are everything.

I like all kinds of places, from "outdoors" activities like hiking, to urban areas (ideally cities where I can walk/transit around a lot). I love trying new food, and just grokking the the place. For US cities more and more (and because I now have 2 kids), we do VRBO stuff sometimes (rent an apartment for a week). Beats a hotel, and makes you feel like you're actually living someplace, and much more bang for the buck. Sometimes the same price as a single hotel room, usually we aim for the price of 2 hotel rooms, but get 2-3 bedrooms, and a posh apartment in the middle of someplace interesting.

Plans for the near future? SFO (a couple days in 2 weeks), LA for maybe a week in June, the UK (kids really want to go there), and at some point I really want to take the kids to Asia as it's the place outside the US I've spent the most time (9 months or so of wandering about over a couple trips).

[benzman]

Being born in England, emigrating to Australia and having a couple of holidays in America means that I have circumnavigated the earth a couple of times.  I like to go somewhere I have not been  before and get there by a different route.  I find much of the joy of travel is to eat what the natives eat and see new sights. In general, to enjoy new, novel experiences.

 

 

 

[Dman979]

Oh, yeah, I need to do an on-topic post, too.

I love to hike, if that counts. Spent 10 days in the backcountry of New Mexico with a bunch of buddies and covered 117 miles, which was really fun.

Cycling is fun, when I get to spend time with my dad. Biked the Great Allegheny Passage with him. Great father-son trip.

Oh, yeah, and I'm planning on going overseas sometime this year. Not sure when, though.

[tater]

12 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

I love to hike, if that counts. Spent 10 days in the backcountry of New Mexico with a bunch of buddies and covered 117 miles, which was really fun.

I would suggest doing a trek in the Himalayas at some point for you. It's not back country hiking, it's walking from village to village. As a result, you need only carry a sleeping bag, and clothes, etc. You buy food along the way (little restaurants). That said, some high passes, etc are a pretty "backcountry" experience:

(my wife with the Thorong La (a 5400+m pass) in the background)

[TheSaint]

8 hours ago, benzman said:

Being born in England, emigrating to Australia and having a couple of holidays in America means that I have circumnavigated the earth a couple of times.  I like to go somewhere I have not been  before and get there by a different route.  I find much of the joy of travel is to eat what the natives eat and see new sights. In general, to enjoy new, novel experiences.

When I was in the Navy I used to joke that when we visited foreign ports all we really did, when you reduced it to its essentials, was eat exotic food and look at old rocks.

[Piatzin]

I lived in Brussels for 18 months.

Biking around the countryside (we once did 75 km in one day) was one of the highlights of being there, but that was pretty much about it. Overall a stressful experience And not because of the biking ;-;

Edited May 13, 2018 by Earthlinger

[NSEP]

I occasionally go to England (Swindon to be exact) to visit family during vacations. When we go to England we sometimes visit other cities. Last time we went to Bath in Somerset, which is a beautiful place. Next time we might go to Scotland, which im excited for. 

I also went to Paris once, i love the architecture, but other than that, im no big fan. Things that i dislike about cliche Western European cities (Paris, London, Amsterdam, stuff like that) is that they are overcrowded mazes, and usually have only a few interesting spots to look at, everything else is being blocked by human bodies, gets boring after a while, or has already been gazed at in photos. 

I prefer the smaller cities and villages, the countryside, or just something unique that im not used to. I never really left Western Europe.

As for inland travel, i usually go to the Dutch coast. The Dutch coast is nice, even when overcrowded, there is still this stretch of coast that is almost completely empty. It might take a while to get there but it is there. The coast is also beautiful in winter, almost better than in summer. It got that Alien feel to it.

A picture i took at Castricum aan Zee.

[munlander1]

I'm part of a exchange program at my school and will be going to Germany this summer staying with the exchange student that was here in October. Staying south of cologne.

[KerbolExplorer]

I went 9 times to Buenos Aires,Aregentia.I asswel travel sometimes to Tenerife and i once traveld to San Sebastian in Spain

[Jeb1969]

Typically I travel around the United States, my most traveled to destination is Hutchinson, Kansas to visit my Grandmother, but I do sometimes make weekend escapes to cities such as Chicago, Kansas City, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Omaha, Des Moines, Milwaukee and sometimes St. Louis, However I have been to Canada, Great Britain and France, but like I said mostly when I travel I stay in the United States. (below I have provided a list of states I have traveled to)

1. Ohio
2. Missouri
3. Alabama
4. Georgia
5. New York
6. Minnesota
7. Illinois 
8. Indiana
9. Massachusetts 
10. South Dakota
11. North Dakota
12. Wyoming
13. Montana
14. Colorado
15. Utah
16. California
17. Pennsylvania
18. Nebraska
19. Kansas
20. Oklahoma
21. Texas
22. Louisiana
23. Florida
24. South Carolina
25. North Carolina
26. Virginia 
27. West Virginia
28. Kentucky
29. Tennessee
30. Arkansas
31. Arizona
32. New Mexico
33. Delaware
34. Wisconsin
35. Mississippi
36. Iowa
37. Michigan  

[KSK]

I live in Scotland, so most of my travelling has been in the UK and Europe with occasional forays across the pond and further afield.

Quite a few of our family holidays were abroad: France, Spain and Greece mainly. Beach holidays for the most part although we tended to go self-catering and a little off the beaten track. Mixing with the locals a little rather than spending the week shacked up in a hotel somewhere. As a student I spent one summer on a train tour of Europe, so saw bits of the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, and probably a couple of other countries in passing.

My wife and I are very fond of Scandinavia. Laid back, friendly and weather we can relate to, coming from Scotland.   Iceland was a blast - any holiday where you get to climb two volcanoes, one of them still hot enough to be smoking at the top - is a good holiday.

We've been to the US a few times. Visiting friends in DC, a week in New York and upstate New York, a couple of weeks driving around New England. Stayed at one bed and breakfast and found that, as European liberals, we were pretty much the most left-wing folks around the breakfast table. Went to the next place on the itinerary and we were clearly the right-wingers around that particular table. Mind you, this was an off-the-grid, built-by-the-proprietor, llamas-at-the-window kind of place, so no surprise it was a wee bit hippie. I only mention this because the politics were never overt and didn't actually matter one jot - the folks in both places were just as friendly as could be.

I've been to California and Texas on business. Didn't get to see much but did take some time out to visit the Alamo. Was fortunate enough to be there when Travis's Letter was on display, for those that are interested in such things. There's so much more of the US I'd like to see.

Further afield, we've been to Cairo. A holiday chiefly notable for seeing the  Pyramids, the Grand Mosque and my wife coming down with a bad case of dysentery. Luckily, the owner of the hostel we were staying at couldn't have been more helpful. I'll always remember the couple of evenings I spent with him, playing backgammon and putting the world to rights. Keeping my wife hydrated was obviously a thing, so we got free reign of the fridge, all drinks paid for on the honor system, since it wasn't a big enough place to have a permanent reception.

Then there was Thailand. A crazy, beautiful, out-of-this-world place. From sleeping on a raft on the Kwai, to posing for a selfie with a police officer who took a fancy to my friend's cheap-and-sparkly sunglasses, to bartering with street artists, to visiting temples, to riding on elephants, to the thrills (and thankfully not spills) of a taxi ride in downtown Bangkok, that was one heck of a trip!

[cubinator]

5 hours ago, KSK said:

Then there was Thailand. A crazy, beautiful, out-of-this-world place. From sleeping on a raft on the Kwai, to posing for a selfie with a police officer who took a fancy to my friend's cheap-and-sparkly sunglasses, to bartering with street artists, to visiting temples, to riding on elephants, to the thrills (and thankfully not spills) of a taxi ride in downtown Bangkok, that was one heck of a trip!

If I ever go to Thailand, it would probably have to be after I've been to another planet. A weird thought, but simply based on the paths I'm trying to take for the next ten years or so.