MY FUTURE TRAVEL PLANS

I love to travel. I like to escape from the day-to-day to visit strange places. I love to see new and old lands, buildings, and people, and every year it is troublesome trying to coordinate, plan and afford to visit each place.

For some time now I have been wanting to organize my thoughts regarding vacations.
My belief was that if I put together a spreadsheet to keep track of all the places I wanted to visit - either for a weekend or as much as three weeks - I might be able to start planning some of the trips far in advance and start putting money aside to afford them.

So what follows is my list. Starting in order of my desire to visit, I assigned a number to every location in each category - and there are four categories.

There are some places I like to go every year...at least once. These are long weekend trips so they rarely cost vacation time and if they do its never more than one day. I try to coordinate them with a holiday to give me three or four days. They are as follows:

1 Michigan to Visit Family
2 New York, NY
3 Chicago, IL
4 Long Beach, CA
5 Palm Springs, CA
6 Sedona, AZ

I then put together a list of places I would like to visit for long weekends with some frequency but not necessarily ever year - maybe every third or fourth year. Remember, this is ideally.

1 Provincetown, MA
2 Miami Beach, FL
3 Black Hills of South Dakota
4 Burlington, VT in the Fall
5 San Francisco, CA
6 Washington DC

After that it is long weekends that I would like to do just once. These are places I have never visited or have visited and enjoyed myself enough that I would like to return.

1 Clinton Presidential Library, Little Rock, AR
2 Savannah, GA
3 San Antonio, TX for Fiesta
4 Yosemite National Park
5 Napa Valley
6 Bryce Canyon National Pk
7 Zion National Park
8 CA Central Coast Wineries
9 Austin, TX
10 Denver, CO

From there it is on to full fledged vacations. Due to the distance and the need for several days to sight see these trips would take seven to ten days.

1 Auschwitz (Poland), Germany, Prague, and Amsterdam
2 Idaho, Montana and Glacier National Pk
3 London and England
4 Paris and France
5 Italy
6 Spain and Portugal
7 Alaska
8 Vietnam
9 Brazil
10 Peru, Ecuador, Argentina and Chile
11 Puerto Rico
12 Central America

Somehow I need to fit a week each year on the beach in Hawaii too.

I would also like to go to Australia for three or four weeks sometime. Because of the distance, everyone I know has gone there for a minimum of three weeks. The same is true of Africa but that is probably the lowest on my list.

When Noelle is either nine or ten years old I plan to retrace the steps Sydney and Sara and I took (the same steps I took with my grandparents during the summer of my tenth birthday) to the Black Hills and Yellowstone National Park. I figure that will be in about 2016.

There is also one odd trip I would like to take with Fettit some day. Ya see... Fettit loves weather and we have talked about taking a vacation to Tornado Alley. I am intrigued and would like to see a tornado, whereas Fettit is a weather freak and WOULD LOVE TO SEE A TORNADO... and to possibly chase one.

If we don't get there before retirement (and God knows Fettit doesn't like leaving Phoenix) we will definitely be doing it after we retire.

Okay... I have to go pack my bags. This is gotten me in the mood for a trip..... hmmmm.... Where can I go next?

How about you? Where would you like to visit (either a favorite or new place)? What is your favorite long weekend trip?

I've learned my list isn't 100% comprehensive. Since writing it and posting it I remembered that I would like to visit Toronto, Montreal, and the Maritime Provinces, and go back and spend more time in Vancouver. As I remember them I will put them in the comments.