The “disaster” on the Carnival cruise Triumph ship this week got me thinking about holidays… and reminded me that even when they go well, cruises are precisely the opposite of my dream vacation. I can’t imagine anything less relaxing that being stuck on a floating hotel with nothing to do but lounge by the pool getting sunburned or sit in the casino throwing away money. It sounds like summer camp for grownups. It sounds horrible.
Now, there are cruises I’ve heard that go down the Nile or along European rivers on small ships with maybe a dozen cabins and meals are prepared by a gourmet chef and your cruise director is, like, the curator of the Museum of Cairo. I think I could endure something like that.
But my dream vacation would be an African safari. A luxury one, of course — no reason to rough it if you don’t need to, and money should be no object when it comes to fantasizing. Something about the landscape of Africa gets to me a primal way, and I’d love to see it with my own eyes.
What is your dream vacation?
Have fun!
This question was suggested by beccity98 in a previous QOTW, which asked “What kinds of things would you like to learn about your fellow FlickFilosopher readers?” Feel free to continue adding suggestions there for me to grab for future use.
(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD/QOTW, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTW sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)
My dream vacation?
traveling with a madman in a blue box. But meanwhile…
I’d love either of these trips:
1) to Mayo County Ireland where they filmed The Quiet Man
2) Grand Canyon, with a stopover at Tombstone AZ
3) Prague, with a film crew to make a cheesy “Golem in the 21st Century” movie
4) Jamaica
I’ve done 2) – Tombstone was touristy and tacky.
Not surprised. But I live in Florida, so I’d never notice. :-)
Grand, lazy and long tour of Europe.
a few good friends. big ass sailboat. enough booze to drown a small army. all small batches and single malts. the cruise starts in the arctic, and ends somewhere in virgin islands.
Someplace I’ve barely heard of, with broad expanses of stunning countryside I can stomp through all day long, abundant wild or domestic animals I can see up close, crumbling ruins or something ancient and well preserved, an old town center with fascinating architecture, big museums and little shops, and not another tourist in sight.
I like yours very much! Can I come along, too? I’m pretty quiet.
Sure! No tourists, but traveling companions are welcome. :)
When I was younger my dream honeymoon was to rent a motorhome, hire a guide (with his own, separate, motorhome, of course), and tour the Australian rainforest. Now that I think about it, I didn’t give much thought to the beaches or the Great Barrier Reef. Tour those, too. I didn’t know what my new husband would do on our honeymoon, but that’s what I’d be doing!
Nowadays, I’d love an extended cruise that only cruised around the Hawaiian Islands. Almost all cruises leave from the States, spend several days at sea (bor-ring!), only cruise around the islands for a couple days, then several more days at sea. There’s some silly cruising law that says if you’re going to have an international staff, the cruise MUST stop at an international port, and the hawaii ones usually make a very short stop in Mexico on the way back. I’ve only heard of one cruise line that does what I want, but it’s got an all American staff, and I’ve heard that American crew are more rude, lazy and act more entitled than other cruise lines, who hire, uhmm, some kind of Asian, who are hardworking and very pleasant.
I have a fascination for castles, and a fascination(life long love affair) with gardens. So I would want to travel around the world visiting the most amazing castles/estates, and the most amazing botanical gardens/Arboretums/home gardens, etc. Often the two are combined, which is especially joyous for me.
It’s that simple. That would be awesome.
End-to-end Japan, from Northern Hokkaido to Southern Okinawa, over the course of a few months.
I’d love a full tour of all the ancient ruins of the Mediterranean and Middle East. Starting from Rome, I’d wander through Italy, Greece, Turkey, Iraq, then back West through Jordan (gotta see Petra) and Israel, into the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aqaba to southern Egypt, back up the Nile all the way North, detour to Alexandria, then back to Greece by way of Crete, eventually to return to Rome.
Doing a backcountry journey around the New Zealand forests would be fun, but one hell of a hike.
My previous dream vacation was visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando, and I got to do that two months after it opened. (And being there, it was a dream come true. And we visited it several times.) But the journey there and back to North Carolina… not so pleasant. It was a road trip — about 9 hours there and back — and I would’ve gladly shelled out $400 extra to fly there. I wasn’t roughing it, but the people I was riding with made it a chore to not say ‘Stop the car, I wanna get off.’
Amsterdam. It makes Las Vegas look like Chuck E. Cheese.
Someplace where I can see a dolphin stampede and breaching whales.
A year tagging along with a BBC film crew as they travel the world filming their next nature documentary.
As it should; it’s where we all come from. In the deepest sense, it’s home.
I want to go to New Zealand and see every place that wasn’t filmed for the Lord of the Rings movies.
Last year I spent a week at Camp Runamok, a bartender camp in Kentucky. It was absolutely fascinating; but we only got to see the tiniest bit of the Bourbon Trail; there were 130 of us, and we were just bussed around places. What I would really, really love, is to go back, with the ability to control the time spent more…more time in Bardstown at the craft distillers, etc. I have a good grounding in New England rums, but I would love to follow it up by heading to Puerto Rico, and seeing the distilleries there (http://is.gd/BwiIMY), or spend some time in Mexico at the tequila regions (http://is.gd/ACEPW1). I am pretty focused; when just on vacation I get pretty bored, but learning is fun and fundamental!
The yen’s weak at the moment. Never been a better time…
“uhmm, some kind of Asian, who are hardworking and very pleasant.” and paid $0.5 a day so they are dependent upon tipping for survival. It’s not a nice world out there in cruise land I’m afraid.
That would be… um… there’s this sheep farm oop north I think.
Just not the part that’s irradiated still. Stay safe.
If he scooted round through the western part of Yamagata he’d be fine. They don’t even let you enter the irradiated part (I mean, obviously there’s radiation elsewhere, but there’s radiation of some level or other everywhere.)
I’m not sure if it counts as a vacation, but I dream about attending every Formula One Grand Prix race during a single year.
my dream 5-star vacation is the modern orient express. a couple or three weeks traveling europe in restored first class railroad coaches visit national capitals and cultural centers in high style.
my dream adventure vacation would be southeast asia capped off with a visit to angkor wat. it would also probably be a lot by train, though not first class railroad coaches.
Yes, I have no doubt that that’s why it gets to me.
Across Europe by car, stopping when and where we feel like it, no plans beyond “should probably get back to England by this date”.