@PlacidPenguin i grew up in south jersey, right next to camden. after i left, i realized how glad i was that i was out of jersey. now i am realizing that canton, oh is a lot like camden, nj. but i still miss being able to go down the shore and see the ocean
@nolrak@PlacidPenguin@Rockme513 Yeah I remember it was my first time driving through NJ and I got out on the Garden Parkway (I think was called?) and to start pumping before a guy ran over and hustled me back into my car.
@PlacidPenguin@rockme513 I used to live near I-95 in Maryland. Once or twice I assisted a puzzled traveler from New Jersey by showing them how to operate the gas pump.
I went to Australia and New Zealand as a Student Ambassador when I was 12. There were 20 of us from the Dallas area and 20 from California…turns out I went to elementary school here with one of the girls from California. Small world.
It was an amazing trip!! This was way before cell phones and email. My parents would send faxes to the hotels we would be staying at so they would be waiting for me when we arrived. We spent 2 weeks in Australia and 1 in New Zealand. We got to experience so many incredible things but it was too windy the day we were supposed to go to the Great Barrier Reef so that trip was cancelled. I’ve always vowed that someday I will make it back there.
The summer after graduating high school we took a trip to London, Paris and Rome with my Camp Fire group (think co-ed scouts) that had been together since 4th or 5th grade and this was our last hurrah. It was by far one of the best trips of my life! I’m sure it didn’t hurt that 18 year olds can drink legally over there.
My mom and I both fell in love with London so we went back with a some friends a couple of years later. My friend and I took a day trip over to Paris. This was January so it was super cold and snowy. We went up the Eiffel Tower and while we up there they closed both lifts for safety. We had to evacuate by climbing down the metal staircase that runs along the outside of the tower. Our legs were jelly by the time we got back to the ground and we were completely useless the next day.
I’ve also been to Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and Canada (very briefly) while on cruises.
I love to travel and wish I was able to do it more often.
@stardate820926 - Love that Paris story - we went with athletic friends a couple years ago and they INSISTED on walking up the first two etages of the Eiffel Tower (they won’t let you WALK up to the top - that’s elevator, i.e. extra money, only.) By the time I was half way up to the first level, I remember looking out the struts and thinking, “Remember the view, because this is something I will never do again.”
Of course, I saw it again on the way down.
The day after my wife and I spent almost the whole day recovering in the apartment.
@aetris I never need to go to Paris again in my life. The first time we went was in the summer and there was trash everywhere. I’ll never forgot the overflowing trash cans in the metro stations.
I would love to visit other places in France and to teleport directly inside the Louvre but Paris just wasn’t the romantic place I expected haha
@stardate820926 In the 80’s, the first time we went to Europe, we toured by rental car. We came over the hill in that lovely time when sunset is purpling into twilight. Just as we laid our eyes on Paris, they lit the Eiffel Tower, like it was just for us. It was pretty awesome. We decided to drive down and see it before looking for our hotel. When we got out of the car I realized that after driving all day I desperately needed a bathroom. They had these neat little one franc coin-operated public toilets on the Plaza, but we had driven in from Italy and I didn’t have any French money. I was standing there looking forlorn and some passing guy pressed a franc coin into my hand. So I have panhandled on the streets of Paris for toilet money.
@moondrake - So when you were in Italy, did you encounter an automated public toilet? I can’t remember specifically where it was but when we were there in '99, in some Tuscan hill town where it was completely out-of-place, I found this freestanding WC that did a complete self-wash after use. It was astounding and well worth whatever it cost at the time, but I remember wondering if they could possibly be worth the maintenance that had to be involved!
Born in Norway, so the US was foreign to me except for what my mom had taught me. Besides that, I had a few hours layover in Iceland. They are all cool.
Took a cruise to Mexico, Jamaica, and Cayman islands. That was fun.
Three years living in Belgium (Air Force). Should have traveled a lot more around Europe but was young, stupid, and partying most of the time. Netherlands, France, Germany, Mexico, Caribbean islands, Canada, and Texas.
My wife and I just spent two weeks with friends in Sweden. It was pretty great. Before that, we visited Germany a few years back - our first big trip together.
My mom’s family loves to travel, and my grandma made it a project to take all of her grandkids abroad at least once. Because of her I got to see Iceland, Portugal, and just a little bit of Spain.
The summer after I graduated high school, I spent a couple weeks exploring London. And I drove up to Canada for a convention about ten years ago.
So that makes seven countries so far, not counting layovers in Paris and Amsterdam, and I’ve loved them all. Can’t wait for the next one - we plan to visit Italy in 2020.
Um. Yes. A few were voluntary/vacation, while others were (mostly) all-expense paid trips (1-3 years) by the Department of Defense, some not so voluntary. Some were a lot more “different” than others. The two strangest (more different) foreign countries were definitely New Jersey and Washington, D.C., for various reasons. In the others, like South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Britain, and a bunchload of Western European ones - normal logic generally prevails. (Except when driving in Italy, where no logic whatsoever is evident. A friend once said that traffic laws in Italy are more like suggestions, mostly ignored.)
I like wandering around exploring new places, so I spent as much spare time as I had doing just that. I tend to wander away from the pre-approved tourist routes and explore back alleys. I’ve never been mugged or threatened in any of the foreign countries. D.C. - yes - but you haven’t really seen D.C. until you have watched major drug deals going down in broad daylight while waiting at a bus stop, or had to park in a fenced lot with armed guards so your car doesn’t get stripped or stolen while you work.
Now I’m old and retired, and no longer take vacations. If you take a vacation from retirement, does that mean you take a temp job?
@rockblossom@stardate820926 Cambodia is rather, um, entertaining as well with respect to driving. The center line (and crosswalk lines) is mostly decoration. The most important safety devise on your car is your horn (forget having seat belts). He who makes eye contact first has to give way and that includes when walking across the street. If you want to walk across the road you walk slowly into traffic looking straight ahead and amazingly the traffic flows around you.
You share the road with elephants, mopeds and motor cycles, rickshaws, bikes… And all of them except the elephants may well be towing large trailers that may or may not be full of people. On the other hand it is chaos in slow motion so likely safer than most places.
If you get into an accident there are no ambulances and the unofficial role of the cop is to side with someone and expect the other person to make immediate restitution to both the cop and whomever they decide is the victim.
@moonhat@rockblossom@stardate820926 Yeah it took a while to get used to. You should try teaching a 10 year old who has limited English (the age of my kid when I adopted her from there) that you can’t cross a street like that in the USA. Fortunately I lived on a dead end street where kids played in the street ignoring cars (do the drivers were careful except one teen who tended to tear down the street) and I walked her the 4 blocks to school until I could count on her crossing the street safely.
@Kidsandliz I was last there in March of 2012 (the off season), but I took some pics.
This is looking north at Rondeau Bay from the little lighthouse-thing they have there:
Looks like someone was building a bonfire near the cottages west of the lighthouse in this one:
Another one looking north toward Rondeau Bay:
Here is a look south:
I thought I had some better pics, but I guess not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Kidsandliz Yes, but it was also a warm spring that year. The temperature was in the 80s a few days after those were taken.
/image early spring weather
Not counting the USA: Canada, Mexico, Scotland, England, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Cambodia, British (and USA) Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and Germany. Lived and worked in most of them.
And then there was the typhoon layover in Hong Kong trapped in the airport for a day (along with the Italian woman’s soccer team and a ton of students on their way to their semester at sea - so big soccer game in the international transit area at 5am local time) and the plane change in Iceland that had a 6 hour layover. Don’t think those count though.
USA, Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Dominican Republic
I would say there are positives and negatives to all of them. That said, travel opens your mind to other peoples and cultures, makes you grateful for what you have and helps you strive to replicate the best traits from the societies you visited. So even a bad trip has positive implications
Visited:
Canada
Mexico
Italy
Switzerland
France
Belgium
Netherlands
UK
Iceland (layover)
Guam (layover)
Lived in:
Phillipines
All of this when I was in kid/teenager or within young adult years, except for periodic short excursions to Juarez
My experience in all of these was excellent. I was, of course, as an American middle class kid or young adult, in at least a moderately privileged social position. I never experienced bad things.
I loved it each time. So much to explore and learn.
Unfortunately, I never mastered any local language excepting the Texan version of American English.
Over the past 20 years I’ve vacationed in:
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Belgium
Belize
Canada
Cayman Islands
China
Costa Rica
Croatia
Denmark
England
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Honduras
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Luxembourg
Mexico
New Zealand
Norway
Panama
Puerto Rico (it’s on this list of countries…)
Russia
Saint Kitts
Scotland
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Virgin Islands
I tried to convince my travelling companion to add Iceland or Cuba to our list this month but he decided they are “boring”, so it’s a rerun of our favorite Caribbean destinations this year. Next year we are headed back to Dublin for Worldcon and further exploration and I hope to add at least Wales to the list.
@moonhat Before my best friend died, he and I were actually semi-seriously looking at moving to Roatan. It’s amazingly beautiful, laid back, English is the main language, and the cost of living is low. There’s a governmental department tasked with helping American retirees relocate there. Next is Belize, equally beautiful, but the poverty there can be daunting. I think I’d have to pick St. Thomas for #3. But they are all quite lovely. I don’t care too much for Grand Cayman as it’s heavily Americanized and commercialized, but it’s gorgeous.
As it happens were were on Roatan 7 years ago today, August 3, 2011. Here’s a couple of my photos from that day.
@moondrake that looks sooo wonderful. Gorgeous pics, that water!! My husband and I know for sure we won’t retire in the US, it’ll be somewhere sunny in the tropics and I love that Roatan helps you retire there! That’s great.
@moonhat Thank you. I still feel as if I’ve been cut in half. If you are looking for someplace tropical to retire, definitely look at Roatan, Belize and Costa Rica. Costa Rica would have been on our short list, except the 12hr days just didn’t work for me. Might not bother y’all.
I’ve been to Mexico several times, Canada a couple times, and have traveled extensively throughout the UK and western Europe. I met my fiancé in England and proposed to her on the Eurostar train from Paris to London (at the bottom of the channel).
@mehbee Now I wish I had… The real story was much less romantic than it maybe it should have been. We took a long weekend holiday and went to France. Everything about the weekend was perfect. We laughed, shopped, ate bad French food, walked in the rain, sang silly songs, slept late, had breakfast by the sea… it was like a montage stolen from a romcom.
On the train back to London I was overcome in the moment. I knelt down in front of her and blurted out probably the most inane proposal possible. Apparently the romcom screen writers stayed behind in Paris?
Her response was priceless. “Yes, of course I will silly boy. Now get up off that floor and kiss me.” The screen writers were back!
@ruouttaurmind Based on my 2 week visit to NW France in 2005 (Paris-LeMans-Nantes-Fougeres-Caen-Rouen-Paris), there is no such thing as bad French food.
@compunaut My simple Americanized palate has been numbed by years of processed mass market food. The French food was an adventure in taste and texture I didn’t find pleasurable.
She loved fancy cheese and was pleased with the variety and flavors. Most of the cheese repulsed me, with a cruel twist. The few which didn’t taste like zombie toe jam were either dry and hard as a rock, or soft and blubby, bordering on gelatinous.
I mostly stuck to the simple stuff. Beef Bourguignon, coq au vin, lots of salads and steak frites.
I’ll tell you one thing though. Those froggies can bake. I am a nut for pastries and baked goods. Give them some flour, butter and a mixer and the French could rule the world. Well, my world at least. I don’t think I passed up a single macaron in 4 days.
@ruouttaurmind Oh my goodness, now that is a story. The inane proposal(which I think you’re just being hard on yourself) was the catalyst for that great yes. I got some goosebumps reading that and since you’re still together, my belief in true rom com love is back.
I was born in Panama (my dad was stationed there for the US Army). I spent one summer in Norway, Holland, and Denmark with my grandparents when I was in elementary school (they both emigrated to the US from Norway).
As an adult I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, England, France, Belize, Honduras, & British Virgin Islands. I’ve loved the scuba trips to the Caribbean, but my favorite was probably visiting Normandy.
Let’s see…Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Figi and Italy as layovers only. I spent the night in Italy but only saw the airport, interior of a hotel and dark ride on a shuttle.
I would return to all of them if given the chance. Most places I did not have enough time to see more than select highlights. A few favorites - Sydney zoo, Hobbiton, the Mine Wanda, Iguazu Falls, Stonehenge, Grand Square in Brussels, Louve although only outside so far, Cork guided tour and a lightshow set to music in Bulgaria that told the story of a battle. I have visited many gardens and love to get out of the city when I can. There is never enough time and money.
Albania, Austria, Bahamas, Belize, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cambodia, Canada, Chile (including Easter Island), China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos, Liechtenstein, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Peru, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey, and Vietnam. More than half of these were from an amazing one-year solo backpacking adventure, which I would repeat in a heartbeat.
@Trillian I don’t blame you, I would do it although I think I’ve gotten past the backpack age and sm into the 5 star hotels age…lol. However I would rough it in some 3stars to be able to go
I’ve been to Great Britain, St.Lucia, Jamaica, The Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Grand Cayman and am going to Iceland the end of this month. I may also get to go with my work in a humanitarian (?) trip to Haiti some time later this year
@targaryen. Excellent topic, thanks for posing the hard questions. I love reading where everyone else has been, thinking about my bucket list and remembering some of my trips
@speediedelivery that’s funny because I was thinking about a bucket list topic either just a bucket list topic or a bucket list travel topic, I guess great minds think alike!
Canada - Beautiful country, nice people. I’ve been mostly to Alberta; once to Quebec as a little kid. Would recommend it to anyone: Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, could go on and on. Still want to visit Montreal, Vancouver.
France - Been three times: Paris twice, Nice once. Loved it but would want to go someplace different next time - Paris a tad on the expensive side, and I just can’t walk it anymore. GREAT food but from what I hear just as good in the provinces and cheaper.
Great Britain - Did a tour of Roman Britain in '79 - things have probably changed but GREAT trip, nice people, don’t remember anything about the food…
Greece - went on a strange off-season tour in '80. Things may have changed but very weird vibe, no women on the streets after 3 pm, some REALLY rude (local) men.
Italy - Two trips, both mostly Tuscany, most recent '99. Would go again - beautiful country, great food, nice people. Really want to do Venice and Sicily though.
Mexico - Parents used to have a timeshare there - too touristy for my taste but that was the idea. Nice people but no real interest in returning.
St Lucia - Again, all-inclusive vacay, very nice if you like that kind of thing.
As a child I went to Barbados once but that was a LONG time ago. Visited Belgium one time, Bruges and Ghent, very pretty but don’t remember much beyond architecture. Not actually a foreign country but used to go down to St Croix a lot - very funky, a little scary at times, kind of an acquired taste. I preferred Hawaii, but that’s a LONG trip!
@aetris@mehbee Venice is lovely. I understand that since we went there they have banned wheeled luggage, which would make it a lot harder to get around. I had always heard that there was a bad smell there, but when we were there in August it didn’t smell any different than any other big city.
Bulgaria was an awesome experience, a hidden gem out in the world. Definitely worth a trip, especially if you know locals to help get around.
I go to Japan every 2 years or less (especially if I get a raise here…). We go and visit my wife’s family so that they get time with their grandkids. Fantastic country and culture. Tough language to pick up.
Prague was fantastic. Only visited Prague, but hope to go back to visit more. One of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. Knowing Bulgarian helped a lot here.
Only visited Paris in France, and it was nice, but would much rather visit other areas in the country if I ever get a chance to return.
@luvche21 Knowing Bulgarian would have made a huge difference when I visited there! We went to a conference in Sophia and then took a guided tour. I would love to go back and see more with the same tour guides.
We did the same in Japan. We were in Osaka for the conference and then took a tour to Kyoto. More people knew English and more signs were bilingual so I had an easier time exploring the city.
@speediedelivery that’s the hard part about Bulgaria right now, there isn’t much English yet (except in certain areas). But, that helps to keep the country more of a guarded secret. Was your conference in that massive center in Sofia? What is it, the NDK or something? Man, I miss that country.
I haven’t made it to Osaka yet, but Kyoto is really nice. Every time I go to Japan I make a point to get our to the countryside which tends to always be my favorite part.
Did you notice that they eat Bulgarian yogurt in Japan instead of Greek yogurt? I think I’m going to make Bulgarian food tomorrow too!
… What kind of work takes you around the world like that?
@speediedelivery p.s. If you ever get back to Bulgaria, definitely get as far away from Sofia as you can, it’s my least favorite part of the country (although it’s still a nice city).
@luvche21 We were in a hotel casino a few blocks from city center. Mom retired from working with kids and parents in foster care. She taught classes at the conferences and I went to explore. We had a nice walking tour in Sophia with students from the university. The tour afterwards we got out into the country. Definitely would like to get back and explore. We enjoyed the food and the history in the area.
In Osaka I did not explore as much as I would have liked. I met some interesting people at the conference. They were very curious about the US. A couple people kept telling me I would have a hard time getting around but I was fine when I did get out. We did not get out of the cities this trip so I need to get back and check it out.
I guess I don’t have to state that we love to travel
Antigua & Barbuda
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Canada (7 of 13 provinces/territories)
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Germany
Greece
Grenada
Honduras
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Mexico
Panama
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States of America (all 50 states)
Vatican City
@jksquared Ooh, Vatican City! I need to add that one. Our car was broken into and my passport and other items were stolen while we were hearing the Pope say Mass. I left my passport in the car as we’d been warned all the way across Europe about pickpockets in Rome, and I was indeed patted down by a throng of street children, but the only thing I had was my camera strapped to my wrist. That got an experimental tug but they let it go. We said I was fated to lose my passport that day one way or another.
Canada, Mexico, Belize, Grand Cayman, Aruba, St. Kitts and Nevis, Costa Rica, Turks & Caicos, England, France. They all have their charms and were fun, except some of our group were robbed in Aruba and someone stole a shopping bag my wife set down in Paris as she was checking out at a gift shop.
Bahamas (Paradise Island twice, Freeport once) Family trips where my parents gambled and I played in the arcade. The only exception was the second trip to Paradise Island which was on a cruise ship as a high school field trip.
Canada (Once. I don’t remember, but I was told I was as a baby).
@aetris It would take a novel to describe. Basically if you jutmst want to travel there, it would be great. If you want to live there, then a year is definitely enough.
@Targaryen No the people who posted, which is a small minority of people who post on the forums… We may all be exceptions to the “rule”… but visiting other countries is interesting and worth doing.
I visited the Philippines when I was in high school, but I haven’t been back since. I remember having a good time with family. I want to go back in 2020.
This June I just did my first major international trip as an adult - Switzerland, Italy (with more family), Germany, the Netherlands, and France, almost all big cities.
My time in Switzerland was just a day trip to two cities in the Italian part of the country - Lugano and Bellinzona. Very pretty, hard to find parking. Lugano’s right by a beautiful lake and Bellinzona has excellent castle ruins to explore. In Bellinzona I also had a delicious “piadina”, which is a hybrid between a crepe and a panini.
Most of my time in Italy was Milan, which was a big, old, and loud city (and thus, being a New Yorker, I felt right at home). The Duomo (the big cathedral) is immense and dizzying, and worth paying extra to not wait on the huge line to go on top of, as long as you’re not deathly afraid of heights. I also went to Florence (really gorgeous, lots of little stores and street performers) and Venice (really easy to get lost in but absolutely delightful to walk through and eat/drink in). If you’re in Venice, take at least half a day to go to Murano, where the famous glassworks are - the museum is lovely, and you can pay a small amount to watch glassmakers at work in one of the many small stores.
Munich was very pretty, very much a big village yet a modern city. If you like sports stadiums the Allianz Arena is easy to get to, has daily tours in English and is really well organized. The food courts are also open even in the off season for perfectly solid beer and Bavarian food, and the “fan experience” club history museum is surprisingly detailed. (As an FC Bayern fan for over a decade I’m clearly biased here, but yeah - I’m so happy I finally checked that off the bucket list!) Most of Munich’s stores are closed on Sundays which made it hard, but still very lovely to just walk along the river and take in the architecture. Berlin is marvelous - so many museums and sights and so much to see, and if you like art/alternative culture it’s a DELIGHT. It’s easy to barhop and go thrift shopping and find weird artist enclaves, just great. (If you want to do one Serious Historical Thing, go to the Bebelplatz. I don’t want to spoil why the Bebelplatz is so impactful, but whisper me if you want to know.)
I only went to Amsterdam, which was indeed pretty, but I was stuck in the tourist/bachelor-party-heavy district so it wasn’t as great a time. Good Indonesian food and Belgian frites and lovely architecture, though.
Paris is great, but you really should be ready to walk. The food is as good as you think it is, and not just the French food, Moroccan and Senegalese and Vietnamese too. Most of the souvenir shops along the Seine are also used booksellers, some of which could be compelling if your French isn’t great (I got a complete works of Blaise Pascal, leather-bound in perfect condition, for less than 40 Euro!) Paris also has a really solid geek scene, mostly along Rue Dante - comics (bandes desinees for French/Belgian, but also American and Japanese), tabletop games, and other stores of that kind are really common.
@Kawa I lived, at one point in my life, about an hour south of Munich. They had (at the time) a fantastic outdoor store with a climbing wall (I was taking people camping for a living in the German and Austrian alps - saw the sound of music “house”, hiked the mountains behind that, saw the field that movie starts on). The clock tower (show) (on the square) was pretty cool when it went off on the hour. Very fancy. I’d take the train to town (or hitchhike) and stay in the big circus tent (no idea if they still do that) although on my way home (to the USA) the youth hostel was full so I stayed in a nunnery (where the included breakfast as at 6am) close to the train station. I liked Munich.
I’ve been to the mysterious northern land of Canada . Toronto a few times for Red Sox games mostly. Niagara Falls, which is a cool nature thing but mostly tourist trap and casino. Hamilton, ON to visit a friend, and I actually really liked it there. Did a train trip from Portland to Seattle to Vancouver. Vancouver was okay but our least favorite of the 3. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ The people were surprisingly unfriendly. Went to Nova Scotia for our honeymoon last year, that was lovely in the fall - awesome foliage, deserted seaside villages, people with the best accents, and Halifax was a way more legit city than we expected, with really good craft beer.
I went to NJ this week.
It felt like a different country.
@PlacidPenguin I drove through it once, stopped for gas. It smelled odd there and I’m not sure why.
@PlacidPenguin @Targaryen stopped for gas, but couldn’t pump your own gas
@PlacidPenguin Aww, c’mon! It’s really not THAT bad.
@PlacidPenguin, Hey now watch it… Some of us call it home! Lol
@Targaryen North or South Jersey.
@PlacidPenguin I lived on a “tall ship” in Atlantic City’s harbor one summer. Smelled like ocean to me.
@beachbum @reg036
I know it’s not THAT bad; I spent 3 years there a long time ago.
@PlacidPenguin i grew up in south jersey, right next to camden. after i left, i realized how glad i was that i was out of jersey. now i am realizing that canton, oh is a lot like camden, nj. but i still miss being able to go down the shore and see the ocean
@PlacidPenguin and i was 35 years old before i ever pumped my own gas (not allowed to pump it yourself in jersey)
@rockme513
That’s one thing I liked about NJ, they foster laziness.
@nolrak @PlacidPenguin @Rockme513 Yeah I remember it was my first time driving through NJ and I got out on the Garden Parkway (I think was called?) and to start pumping before a guy ran over and hustled me back into my car.
@reg036 Pretty sure it was middle-north.
@PlacidPenguin @rockme513 I used to live near I-95 in Maryland. Once or twice I assisted a puzzled traveler from New Jersey by showing them how to operate the gas pump.
I went to Australia and New Zealand as a Student Ambassador when I was 12. There were 20 of us from the Dallas area and 20 from California…turns out I went to elementary school here with one of the girls from California. Small world.
It was an amazing trip!! This was way before cell phones and email. My parents would send faxes to the hotels we would be staying at so they would be waiting for me when we arrived. We spent 2 weeks in Australia and 1 in New Zealand. We got to experience so many incredible things but it was too windy the day we were supposed to go to the Great Barrier Reef so that trip was cancelled. I’ve always vowed that someday I will make it back there.
The summer after graduating high school we took a trip to London, Paris and Rome with my Camp Fire group (think co-ed scouts) that had been together since 4th or 5th grade and this was our last hurrah. It was by far one of the best trips of my life! I’m sure it didn’t hurt that 18 year olds can drink legally over there.
My mom and I both fell in love with London so we went back with a some friends a couple of years later. My friend and I took a day trip over to Paris. This was January so it was super cold and snowy. We went up the Eiffel Tower and while we up there they closed both lifts for safety. We had to evacuate by climbing down the metal staircase that runs along the outside of the tower. Our legs were jelly by the time we got back to the ground and we were completely useless the next day.
I’ve also been to Mexico, Honduras, Belize, and Canada (very briefly) while on cruises.
I love to travel and wish I was able to do it more often.
TL:DR yes
@stardate820926 - Love that Paris story - we went with athletic friends a couple years ago and they INSISTED on walking up the first two etages of the Eiffel Tower (they won’t let you WALK up to the top - that’s elevator, i.e. extra money, only.) By the time I was half way up to the first level, I remember looking out the struts and thinking, “Remember the view, because this is something I will never do again.”
Of course, I saw it again on the way down.
The day after my wife and I spent almost the whole day recovering in the apartment.
@aetris I never need to go to Paris again in my life. The first time we went was in the summer and there was trash everywhere. I’ll never forgot the overflowing trash cans in the metro stations.
I would love to visit other places in France and to teleport directly inside the Louvre but Paris just wasn’t the romantic place I expected haha
@stardate820926 In the 80’s, the first time we went to Europe, we toured by rental car. We came over the hill in that lovely time when sunset is purpling into twilight. Just as we laid our eyes on Paris, they lit the Eiffel Tower, like it was just for us. It was pretty awesome. We decided to drive down and see it before looking for our hotel. When we got out of the car I realized that after driving all day I desperately needed a bathroom. They had these neat little one franc coin-operated public toilets on the Plaza, but we had driven in from Italy and I didn’t have any French money. I was standing there looking forlorn and some passing guy pressed a franc coin into my hand. So I have panhandled on the streets of Paris for toilet money.
@moondrake - So when you were in Italy, did you encounter an automated public toilet? I can’t remember specifically where it was but when we were there in '99, in some Tuscan hill town where it was completely out-of-place, I found this freestanding WC that did a complete self-wash after use. It was astounding and well worth whatever it cost at the time, but I remember wondering if they could possibly be worth the maintenance that had to be involved!
@aetris Actually that’s exactly the type of toilet I paid that franc for in Paris. I later saw the same model in San Francisco. Very cool.
@aetris @moondrake I’d gladly pay for a public toilet that washed itself.
Mexico. It was ok.
/giphy all-inclusive
Born in Norway, so the US was foreign to me except for what my mom had taught me. Besides that, I had a few hours layover in Iceland. They are all cool.
Took a cruise to Mexico, Jamaica, and Cayman islands. That was fun.
@RiotDemon What part of Norway are you from? My grandfather’s family farmed potatoes about 1.5 hr (140km) NxNW from Oslo. Maybe they still do
Three years living in Belgium (Air Force). Should have traveled a lot more around Europe but was young, stupid, and partying most of the time. Netherlands, France, Germany, Mexico, Caribbean islands, Canada, and Texas.
@mfladd
/image giggle texas
My wife and I just spent two weeks with friends in Sweden. It was pretty great. Before that, we visited Germany a few years back - our first big trip together.
My mom’s family loves to travel, and my grandma made it a project to take all of her grandkids abroad at least once. Because of her I got to see Iceland, Portugal, and just a little bit of Spain.
The summer after I graduated high school, I spent a couple weeks exploring London. And I drove up to Canada for a convention about ten years ago.
So that makes seven countries so far, not counting layovers in Paris and Amsterdam, and I’ve loved them all. Can’t wait for the next one - we plan to visit Italy in 2020.
Um. Yes. A few were voluntary/vacation, while others were (mostly) all-expense paid trips (1-3 years) by the Department of Defense, some not so voluntary. Some were a lot more “different” than others. The two strangest (more different) foreign countries were definitely New Jersey and Washington, D.C., for various reasons. In the others, like South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Britain, and a bunchload of Western European ones - normal logic generally prevails. (Except when driving in Italy, where no logic whatsoever is evident. A friend once said that traffic laws in Italy are more like suggestions, mostly ignored.)
I like wandering around exploring new places, so I spent as much spare time as I had doing just that. I tend to wander away from the pre-approved tourist routes and explore back alleys. I’ve never been mugged or threatened in any of the foreign countries. D.C. - yes - but you haven’t really seen D.C. until you have watched major drug deals going down in broad daylight while waiting at a bus stop, or had to park in a fenced lot with armed guards so your car doesn’t get stripped or stolen while you work.
Now I’m old and retired, and no longer take vacations. If you take a vacation from retirement, does that mean you take a temp job?
@rockblossom
I ended up riding shotgun on our trip back to the airport in Rome. I have never been more scared in my entire life.
@rockblossom @stardate820926 Cambodia is rather, um, entertaining as well with respect to driving. The center line (and crosswalk lines) is mostly decoration. The most important safety devise on your car is your horn (forget having seat belts). He who makes eye contact first has to give way and that includes when walking across the street. If you want to walk across the road you walk slowly into traffic looking straight ahead and amazingly the traffic flows around you.
You share the road with elephants, mopeds and motor cycles, rickshaws, bikes… And all of them except the elephants may well be towing large trailers that may or may not be full of people. On the other hand it is chaos in slow motion so likely safer than most places.
If you get into an accident there are no ambulances and the unofficial role of the cop is to side with someone and expect the other person to make immediate restitution to both the cop and whomever they decide is the victim.
@Kidsandliz @rockblossom @stardate820926 that’s crazy, liz!
@moonhat @rockblossom @stardate820926 Yeah it took a while to get used to. You should try teaching a 10 year old who has limited English (the age of my kid when I adopted her from there) that you can’t cross a street like that in the USA. Fortunately I lived on a dead end street where kids played in the street ignoring cars (do the drivers were careful except one teen who tended to tear down the street) and I walked her the 4 blocks to school until I could count on her crossing the street safely.
Yes. Canada. It was nice.
/image erieau
@eonfifty Where is that?If it weren’t for no palm trees and/or so flat I would have guessed a barrier island or the keys.
@Kidsandliz It’s roughly across Lake Erie from Cleveland, by Rondeau Bay.
/image rondeau bay map
@Kidsandliz I was last there in March of 2012 (the off season), but I took some pics.
This is looking north at Rondeau Bay from the little lighthouse-thing they have there:
Looks like someone was building a bonfire near the cottages west of the lighthouse in this one:
Another one looking north toward Rondeau Bay:
Here is a look south:
I thought I had some better pics, but I guess not.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@eonfifty Ice must have melted by then. There are some really pretty areas around Lake Erie and the other great lakes.
@Kidsandliz Yes, but it was also a warm spring that year. The temperature was in the 80s a few days after those were taken.
/image early spring weather
Not counting the USA: Canada, Mexico, Scotland, England, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Cambodia, British (and USA) Virgin Islands, Bahamas, and Germany. Lived and worked in most of them.
And then there was the typhoon layover in Hong Kong trapped in the airport for a day (along with the Italian woman’s soccer team and a ton of students on their way to their semester at sea - so big soccer game in the international transit area at 5am local time) and the plane change in Iceland that had a 6 hour layover. Don’t think those count though.
China, India, Philippines, and Ukraine.
oh… Canada and Mexico too.
USA, Canada, Mexico, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy, Dominican Republic
I would say there are positives and negatives to all of them. That said, travel opens your mind to other peoples and cultures, makes you grateful for what you have and helps you strive to replicate the best traits from the societies you visited. So even a bad trip has positive implications
Visited:
Canada
Mexico
Italy
Switzerland
France
Belgium
Netherlands
UK
Iceland (layover)
Guam (layover)
Lived in:
Phillipines
All of this when I was in kid/teenager or within young adult years, except for periodic short excursions to Juarez
My experience in all of these was excellent. I was, of course, as an American middle class kid or young adult, in at least a moderately privileged social position. I never experienced bad things.
I loved it each time. So much to explore and learn.
Unfortunately, I never mastered any local language excepting the Texan version of American English.
Over the past 20 years I’ve vacationed in:
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Belgium
Belize
Canada
Cayman Islands
China
Costa Rica
Croatia
Denmark
England
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Honduras
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Japan
Luxembourg
Mexico
New Zealand
Norway
Panama
Puerto Rico (it’s on this list of countries…)
Russia
Saint Kitts
Scotland
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Virgin Islands
I tried to convince my travelling companion to add Iceland or Cuba to our list this month but he decided they are “boring”, so it’s a rerun of our favorite Caribbean destinations this year. Next year we are headed back to Dublin for Worldcon and further exploration and I hope to add at least Wales to the list.
@moondrake
My brother and his wife (late 50’s) spent a week in Iceland a few years ago and loved it.
Lots of incredible nature and geology to see - you don’t have to be ultra fit
@moondrake Totally jealous!!! So much of the world yet to see.
@moondrake what are your fave Carribean spots?
@moondrake @moonhat
Not that you asked me, but
Ambergris Caye, Belize, and Roatan, Honduras
@moondrake Wow! I want to be your travel life when I grow up!
@compunaut @moondrake wow, sounds great. We hope to retire in the next decade and sail there for years
@moondrake
you going to be in San Jose in what is it? 10 days?
@Cerridwyn You are sharp! Something like that. We’re taking a cruise the next week after worldcon.
@moondrake
smile
driving up tuesday before and back tuesday after
working reg
might see you there
but we’ll never know will we,
/image giggity
@moonhat Before my best friend died, he and I were actually semi-seriously looking at moving to Roatan. It’s amazingly beautiful, laid back, English is the main language, and the cost of living is low. There’s a governmental department tasked with helping American retirees relocate there. Next is Belize, equally beautiful, but the poverty there can be daunting. I think I’d have to pick St. Thomas for #3. But they are all quite lovely. I don’t care too much for Grand Cayman as it’s heavily Americanized and commercialized, but it’s gorgeous.
As it happens were were on Roatan 7 years ago today, August 3, 2011. Here’s a couple of my photos from that day.
@moondrake that looks sooo wonderful. Gorgeous pics, that water!! My husband and I know for sure we won’t retire in the US, it’ll be somewhere sunny in the tropics and I love that Roatan helps you retire there! That’s great.
@moondrake I forgot to say- I’m sorry about the loss of your best friend. He sounds like he was a good, smart one.
@moonhat Thank you. I still feel as if I’ve been cut in half. If you are looking for someplace tropical to retire, definitely look at Roatan, Belize and Costa Rica. Costa Rica would have been on our short list, except the 12hr days just didn’t work for me. Might not bother y’all.
I’ve been to Mexico several times, Canada a couple times, and have traveled extensively throughout the UK and western Europe. I met my fiancé in England and proposed to her on the Eurostar train from Paris to London (at the bottom of the channel).
@ruouttaurmind wow, ru, that sounds perfect! Good guy.
@ruouttaurmind Did you tell her you’d go to the depths of the ocean for her? That’s a great story, thanks for sharing!
@mehbee Now I wish I had… The real story was much less romantic than it maybe it should have been. We took a long weekend holiday and went to France. Everything about the weekend was perfect. We laughed, shopped, ate bad French food, walked in the rain, sang silly songs, slept late, had breakfast by the sea… it was like a montage stolen from a romcom.
On the train back to London I was overcome in the moment. I knelt down in front of her and blurted out probably the most inane proposal possible. Apparently the romcom screen writers stayed behind in Paris?
Her response was priceless. “Yes, of course I will silly boy. Now get up off that floor and kiss me.” The screen writers were back!
@ruouttaurmind Based on my 2 week visit to NW France in 2005 (Paris-LeMans-Nantes-Fougeres-Caen-Rouen-Paris), there is no such thing as bad French food.
@compunaut My simple Americanized palate has been numbed by years of processed mass market food. The French food was an adventure in taste and texture I didn’t find pleasurable.
She loved fancy cheese and was pleased with the variety and flavors. Most of the cheese repulsed me, with a cruel twist. The few which didn’t taste like zombie toe jam were either dry and hard as a rock, or soft and blubby, bordering on gelatinous.
I mostly stuck to the simple stuff. Beef Bourguignon, coq au vin, lots of salads and steak frites.
I’ll tell you one thing though. Those froggies can bake. I am a nut for pastries and baked goods. Give them some flour, butter and a mixer and the French could rule the world. Well, my world at least. I don’t think I passed up a single macaron in 4 days.
@ruouttaurmind Oh my goodness, now that is a story. The inane proposal(which I think you’re just being hard on yourself) was the catalyst for that great yes. I got some goosebumps reading that and since you’re still together, my belief in true rom com love is back.
I was born in Panama (my dad was stationed there for the US Army). I spent one summer in Norway, Holland, and Denmark with my grandparents when I was in elementary school (they both emigrated to the US from Norway).
As an adult I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, England, France, Belize, Honduras, & British Virgin Islands. I’ve loved the scuba trips to the Caribbean, but my favorite was probably visiting Normandy.
@compunaut My husband was born in the Canal Zone when his father worked for the military there.
@compunaut @pooflady Mine was born in the Philippines while his dad was in the Navy
Canada, Mexico, Germany, Israel.
I’ve been to Texas. According to their PR department, it’s like a whole other country.
@jst1ofknd damn skippy
Oklahoma
Texas
Missouri
Alabama
Alaska
California
Florida
Georgia
Wyoming
Kansas
Nebraska
Colorado
Georgia
Louisiana
New Mexico
Illinois
South Dakota
I know this isn’t the question, but this is how I choose to answer.
@jst1ofknd And a great answer it is!
Let’s see…Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Great Britain, Ireland, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Bulgaria, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Figi and Italy as layovers only. I spent the night in Italy but only saw the airport, interior of a hotel and dark ride on a shuttle.
I would return to all of them if given the chance. Most places I did not have enough time to see more than select highlights. A few favorites - Sydney zoo, Hobbiton, the Mine Wanda, Iguazu Falls, Stonehenge, Grand Square in Brussels, Louve although only outside so far, Cork guided tour and a lightshow set to music in Bulgaria that told the story of a battle. I have visited many gardens and love to get out of the city when I can. There is never enough time and money.
Albania, Austria, Bahamas, Belize, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Cambodia, Canada, Chile (including Easter Island), China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Kosovo, Laos, Liechtenstein, Macau, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Montenegro, Nepal, Peru, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, Switzerland, Syria, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey, and Vietnam. More than half of these were from an amazing one-year solo backpacking adventure, which I would repeat in a heartbeat.
@Trillian Alphabetized?!?
Sounds like that was a fantastic trip!
@Trillian that is amazing!!
@Trillian I don’t blame you, I would do it although I think I’ve gotten past the backpack age and sm into the 5 star hotels age…lol. However I would rough it in some 3stars to be able to go
I haven’t been outside of the US yet but I dream of going to Japan then doing a tour of several of the Southeast Asian countries.
@tnhillbillygal That would be a lot of fun
Ireland, Canada, and Jamaica, I feel like a minor league player here.
@reg036 so do I! Mexico, Canada, BVI, Ireland, England, Scotland.
@moonhat @reg036 Single-A ballplayer reporting to bat: Mexico (Cozumel 8 hours Carnival Cruise port)
I’ve been to Great Britain, St.Lucia, Jamaica, The Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Grand Cayman and am going to Iceland the end of this month. I may also get to go with my work in a humanitarian (?) trip to Haiti some time later this year
@targaryen. Excellent topic, thanks for posing the hard questions. I love reading where everyone else has been, thinking about my bucket list and remembering some of my trips
@mehbee I was just thinking there should be a bucket list topic for places we want to go and why.
@speediedelivery that’s funny because I was thinking about a bucket list topic either just a bucket list topic or a bucket list travel topic, I guess great minds think alike!
@mehbee No problem, I play hardball on the weekends. Meatballs are for the week.
Hmmm, so - reviews, eh?
Canada - Beautiful country, nice people. I’ve been mostly to Alberta; once to Quebec as a little kid. Would recommend it to anyone: Calgary, Banff, Lake Louise, could go on and on. Still want to visit Montreal, Vancouver.
France - Been three times: Paris twice, Nice once. Loved it but would want to go someplace different next time - Paris a tad on the expensive side, and I just can’t walk it anymore. GREAT food but from what I hear just as good in the provinces and cheaper.
Great Britain - Did a tour of Roman Britain in '79 - things have probably changed but GREAT trip, nice people, don’t remember anything about the food…
Greece - went on a strange off-season tour in '80. Things may have changed but very weird vibe, no women on the streets after 3 pm, some REALLY rude (local) men.
Italy - Two trips, both mostly Tuscany, most recent '99. Would go again - beautiful country, great food, nice people. Really want to do Venice and Sicily though.
Mexico - Parents used to have a timeshare there - too touristy for my taste but that was the idea. Nice people but no real interest in returning.
St Lucia - Again, all-inclusive vacay, very nice if you like that kind of thing.
As a child I went to Barbados once but that was a LONG time ago. Visited Belgium one time, Bruges and Ghent, very pretty but don’t remember much beyond architecture. Not actually a foreign country but used to go down to St Croix a lot - very funky, a little scary at times, kind of an acquired taste. I preferred Hawaii, but that’s a LONG trip!
@aetris Venice is at the top of my travel list!
@aetris @mehbee Venice is lovely. I understand that since we went there they have banned wheeled luggage, which would make it a lot harder to get around. I had always heard that there was a bad smell there, but when we were there in August it didn’t smell any different than any other big city.
@aetris @moondrake Well I just bought a wheeled carry on that can also be carried like a backpack so I’m golden!
But in all seriousness, aside from Canada, I have never been to any other countries.
It’s kind of hard when you don’t fly. (And yes, I know that technically I can use a combination of boat & car.)
Not even to go sightseeing; to see relatives.
Used to go in the summer almost yearly, though over time that changed.
@PlacidPenguin I’m terrified to fly, but I’m also really good friends with Xanex
Israel last year and by airplane. Previously, flown by airplane to England, France, Germany, Italy Greece , Mexico as well.
Bulgaria
Japan
Czech Republic
France
Mexico
Bulgaria was an awesome experience, a hidden gem out in the world. Definitely worth a trip, especially if you know locals to help get around.
I go to Japan every 2 years or less (especially if I get a raise here…). We go and visit my wife’s family so that they get time with their grandkids. Fantastic country and culture. Tough language to pick up.
Prague was fantastic. Only visited Prague, but hope to go back to visit more. One of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever visited. Knowing Bulgarian helped a lot here.
Only visited Paris in France, and it was nice, but would much rather visit other areas in the country if I ever get a chance to return.
@luvche21 Knowing Bulgarian would have made a huge difference when I visited there! We went to a conference in Sophia and then took a guided tour. I would love to go back and see more with the same tour guides.
We did the same in Japan. We were in Osaka for the conference and then took a tour to Kyoto. More people knew English and more signs were bilingual so I had an easier time exploring the city.
@speediedelivery that’s the hard part about Bulgaria right now, there isn’t much English yet (except in certain areas). But, that helps to keep the country more of a guarded secret. Was your conference in that massive center in Sofia? What is it, the NDK or something? Man, I miss that country.
I haven’t made it to Osaka yet, but Kyoto is really nice. Every time I go to Japan I make a point to get our to the countryside which tends to always be my favorite part.
Did you notice that they eat Bulgarian yogurt in Japan instead of Greek yogurt? I think I’m going to make Bulgarian food tomorrow too!
… What kind of work takes you around the world like that?
@speediedelivery p.s. If you ever get back to Bulgaria, definitely get as far away from Sofia as you can, it’s my least favorite part of the country (although it’s still a nice city).
@luvche21 We were in a hotel casino a few blocks from city center. Mom retired from working with kids and parents in foster care. She taught classes at the conferences and I went to explore. We had a nice walking tour in Sophia with students from the university. The tour afterwards we got out into the country. Definitely would like to get back and explore. We enjoyed the food and the history in the area.
In Osaka I did not explore as much as I would have liked. I met some interesting people at the conference. They were very curious about the US. A couple people kept telling me I would have a hard time getting around but I was fine when I did get out. We did not get out of the cities this trip so I need to get back and check it out.
I guess I don’t have to state that we love to travel
Antigua & Barbuda
Austria
Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Canada (7 of 13 provinces/territories)
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Germany
Greece
Grenada
Honduras
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Jamaica
Mexico
Panama
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Turkey
United Kingdom
United States of America (all 50 states)
Vatican City
And we’ve enjoyed all of it!
@jksquared Ooh, Vatican City! I need to add that one. Our car was broken into and my passport and other items were stolen while we were hearing the Pope say Mass. I left my passport in the car as we’d been warned all the way across Europe about pickpockets in Rome, and I was indeed patted down by a throng of street children, but the only thing I had was my camera strapped to my wrist. That got an experimental tug but they let it go. We said I was fated to lose my passport that day one way or another.
@jksquared @moondrake I guess I should add Vatican City to my list as well. I always forget it’s not part of Rome lol
My brother left his passport in a cab in Rome and had to scramble to get a new one before we fly back home.
Canada, Mexico, Belize, Grand Cayman, Aruba, St. Kitts and Nevis, Costa Rica, Turks & Caicos, England, France. They all have their charms and were fun, except some of our group were robbed in Aruba and someone stole a shopping bag my wife set down in Paris as she was checking out at a gift shop.
Bahamas (Paradise Island twice, Freeport once) Family trips where my parents gambled and I played in the arcade. The only exception was the second trip to Paradise Island which was on a cruise ship as a high school field trip.
Canada (Once. I don’t remember, but I was told I was as a baby).
I’m late to the game, but I’ve been to China, Japan, Thailand, Korea, the Philippines, Mexico and Canada.
I lived in China for 5 years. It started freat and went downhill. It’s a great place to visit. Wouldn’t suggest living there.
I worked in the Philippines for 4 months. I loved it there. The people were my favorite part. I’d retire there one day if my wife will let me.
Thailand. The Chess song is sooo right.
The others were just short vacations. Nice places worth a visit once. But I have other places on the list to go before going back.
@evilstan60 - Very curious about how it went downhill? It’s on my bucket list…
@aetris It would take a novel to describe. Basically if you jutmst want to travel there, it would be great. If you want to live there, then a year is definitely enough.
Man most everyone here is fairly well traveled, I need to go visit some other countries to keep up.
@Targaryen No the people who posted, which is a small minority of people who post on the forums… We may all be exceptions to the “rule”… but visiting other countries is interesting and worth doing.
I visited the Philippines when I was in high school, but I haven’t been back since. I remember having a good time with family. I want to go back in 2020.
This June I just did my first major international trip as an adult - Switzerland, Italy (with more family), Germany, the Netherlands, and France, almost all big cities.
My time in Switzerland was just a day trip to two cities in the Italian part of the country - Lugano and Bellinzona. Very pretty, hard to find parking. Lugano’s right by a beautiful lake and Bellinzona has excellent castle ruins to explore. In Bellinzona I also had a delicious “piadina”, which is a hybrid between a crepe and a panini.
Most of my time in Italy was Milan, which was a big, old, and loud city (and thus, being a New Yorker, I felt right at home). The Duomo (the big cathedral) is immense and dizzying, and worth paying extra to not wait on the huge line to go on top of, as long as you’re not deathly afraid of heights. I also went to Florence (really gorgeous, lots of little stores and street performers) and Venice (really easy to get lost in but absolutely delightful to walk through and eat/drink in). If you’re in Venice, take at least half a day to go to Murano, where the famous glassworks are - the museum is lovely, and you can pay a small amount to watch glassmakers at work in one of the many small stores.
Munich was very pretty, very much a big village yet a modern city. If you like sports stadiums the Allianz Arena is easy to get to, has daily tours in English and is really well organized. The food courts are also open even in the off season for perfectly solid beer and Bavarian food, and the “fan experience” club history museum is surprisingly detailed. (As an FC Bayern fan for over a decade I’m clearly biased here, but yeah - I’m so happy I finally checked that off the bucket list!) Most of Munich’s stores are closed on Sundays which made it hard, but still very lovely to just walk along the river and take in the architecture. Berlin is marvelous - so many museums and sights and so much to see, and if you like art/alternative culture it’s a DELIGHT. It’s easy to barhop and go thrift shopping and find weird artist enclaves, just great. (If you want to do one Serious Historical Thing, go to the Bebelplatz. I don’t want to spoil why the Bebelplatz is so impactful, but whisper me if you want to know.)
I only went to Amsterdam, which was indeed pretty, but I was stuck in the tourist/bachelor-party-heavy district so it wasn’t as great a time. Good Indonesian food and Belgian frites and lovely architecture, though.
Paris is great, but you really should be ready to walk. The food is as good as you think it is, and not just the French food, Moroccan and Senegalese and Vietnamese too. Most of the souvenir shops along the Seine are also used booksellers, some of which could be compelling if your French isn’t great (I got a complete works of Blaise Pascal, leather-bound in perfect condition, for less than 40 Euro!) Paris also has a really solid geek scene, mostly along Rue Dante - comics (bandes desinees for French/Belgian, but also American and Japanese), tabletop games, and other stores of that kind are really common.
@Kawa I lived, at one point in my life, about an hour south of Munich. They had (at the time) a fantastic outdoor store with a climbing wall (I was taking people camping for a living in the German and Austrian alps - saw the sound of music “house”, hiked the mountains behind that, saw the field that movie starts on). The clock tower (show) (on the square) was pretty cool when it went off on the hour. Very fancy. I’d take the train to town (or hitchhike) and stay in the big circus tent (no idea if they still do that) although on my way home (to the USA) the youth hostel was full so I stayed in a nunnery (where the included breakfast as at 6am) close to the train station. I liked Munich.
I guess I’m boring, but I already knew that.
Oh, I forgot, I have been to Troll’s Butte!
@Barney That place is deadly
@stardate820926 Yeah, it’s a killer of a place to visit.
I’ve been to the mysterious northern land of Canada
. Toronto a few times for Red Sox games mostly. Niagara Falls, which is a cool nature thing but mostly tourist trap and casino. Hamilton, ON to visit a friend, and I actually really liked it there. Did a train trip from Portland to Seattle to Vancouver. Vancouver was okay but our least favorite of the 3. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ The people were surprisingly unfriendly. Went to Nova Scotia for our honeymoon last year, that was lovely in the fall - awesome foliage, deserted seaside villages, people with the best accents, and Halifax was a way more legit city than we expected, with really good craft beer.