re: Your top three vacations you have taken

quote:

---

Amalfi Coast ... we go every year. My wife has an office in Napoli. Zermatt, Switzerland ... been many times. Going back next February. Sun Valley, Idaho ... we've got close friends in Ketchum so we fly out there every couple of years.

---

Hell, y'alls just 1%ing, jet setting mofos

quote:

---

I read a silly little romance novel where the setting was in Amalfi. It made me want to go there.

---

I've been all over the world. The Amalfi Coast is by far the most beautiful coast on the planet.

We're fortunate because my wife has the office in Napoli and my brother-in-law lives in Rome but has a second home along the coast.

We do enjoy traveling and we've been blessed to have the means. But so much of our travels are because we have friends and family in so many places.

In turn they often visit us or use our place here at the beach where I am sitting right now. It's all a big trade-off between friends and family and an arrangement that everyone should foster over the course of their lives.

Proper traveling should always have a purpose. And you should always find a reason to write every journey off as a business expense.

1. Two months in Europe culminating in 2 weeks hiking and camping on the isle of Crete, literally setting up my tent with shepherds sleeping in caves on the beach with their flocks at times.

2. Six weeks in North Queensland Australia culminating in the wife and I backpacking on Hinchinbrook Island.

3. Honeymoon in Jamaica, staying in a local "resort" that was really more of a Rasta commune.

Honorable mention: following bands like the Dead and Phish around throughout my twenties which was sort of a prolonged vacation over quite a few years.

1. 3 week solo trip in Europe a few years after graduating college. Not completely solo as my cousin lived in Germany at the time and he was with me some of the time, but 90% of the trip was solo, and totally rad. Flew out of Atlanta with only a backpack, camera, 3 changes of clothes, a few toiletries, and a few books.

2. Honeymoon in the Bahamas. Intended to go to St Lucia, but I procrastinated on booking it and by the time I booked, all the return flights were booked and we would have had to come home 2 days earlier than we wanted to. Settled on Bahamas due to the short flight, and it actually was perfect. We did a destination wedding and did a lot of driving leading up to the wedding, so a 4 hour travel day on the first day of the honeymoon was exactly what we needed.

3. Disney World with the kids a few years ago. Yeah, it's commercial and pretty much sucks for adults, but seeing how much my kids, especially daughter, loved it was worth it. I'm as grumpy and cynical as they come, but even I can admit there is such thing as Disney Magic. I think this is the only week in my kids' lives where they didn't fight a single time.

1 - Charlestown. It pretty much has something for everyone. Great outdoor activities, loaded with history, fantastic restaurants.

2 - Disney. It is crowded, it is commercial, and it is just plain fun.

3 - Gatlinburg/GSM national park. Easy to get away from the crowd for quiet relaxation and then return for modern conveniences.

3 weeks in Australia - all over including Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, a week in the Outback, beach, Ayer's Rock, zoos, rodeos, etc etc

A month in the Mediterranean - southern Spain, southern France, all of Italy, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro

3 week summer Road trip across the USA - MLB games in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Denver, and Cleveland. A night on Bourbon in New Orleans, a night on Beale in Memphis, a night on Broadway in Nashville, a concert in Louisville. Mount Rushmore, Notre Dame Stadium, college football hall of fame, Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, a night in the grain silos in Akron. A LOT of other stuff. We drove through 20 plus states in the South, the great West, and the Midwest. And the only one we didn't do something cool in was Kansas.

1. Costa Rica
2. Cancun
3. Southeast Whitewater trip - 6 different rivers in 1 week.

Whitefish, MT - went 12yrs ago. Glacier is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. Drove into Canada one day (basically drove completely around the park) to Waterton. Also amazing.

Past 3 years we have gone to Longboat Key, FL. My kids love the beach and while there we would drive over to Disney, which my kids also love.

Cancun. We stayed at a resort that at the time was way south of the city and brand new. Great trip with just me and my wife. Got to go fishing and jumped 5 tarpon and landed one on a fly rod. Went to Tulum. Amazing experience.