Summer is finally, officially here. Wickeds and readers: if you had the time and the funds, what would your dream summer vacation be? Where would you go? What would you do? Who would you bring, or not bring? Let’s dream big, here.
Sherry: I would tour the British Isles. First to Ireland, then Scotland, and back through England. I’d love to stay in a cottage in a small village for a couple of weeks in each place and take day trips from there. I’d take my husband Bob and spend quiet afternoons in pubs on the days we were tired of wandering. We’d visit the Trinity College Library, look for the Loch Ness monster, and visit the lake district of England. Clothes and lots of comfortable shoes is all I’d need to take. I’d wrap up the trip in London and go to a couple of plays.
Jessie: I’d love to go on a knitting vacation with one of my beloved sisters. There are any number of places to visit, from Iceland to the Baltic and all sorts of places in between.There’s even a schooner offering knitting cruises off the coast of Maine. Most of these trips offer beautiful sights as well as behind the scenes peeks at some part of the knitting process like sheep shearing or wool dyeing. And of course they offer a chance to improve your craft through classes and seminars taught by experts. For an avid knitter, it sounds like a perfect blend of fun and relaxation.
Edith: I think I’ll go to Italy. I’ll go a week early by myself and check into a Tuscany cooking school. Mmmm… Then Hugh will arrive and we’ll go north to Lake Como where 
we’ll visit Livie, the Italian exchange student at my California high school whom I became good friends with (and haven’t seen since), as well as two of the sisters in my Brazilian exchange family who ended up in Italy. We’ll go back to Tuscany for more
good food and wine. Then we’ll visit Rome for a week, and end up in a village on the Mediterranean in the south. Could do worse, right?
Julie: I am actually going on one of my dream vacations this summer–a trip down the Danube. Italy is definitely on my list, as are Greece and Spain. Summer vacation dreams are so much more mobile than winter vacation dreams. In the winter, all I want is warmth and water. In the summer, I like to explore, to learn, to visit. And to rest.
Barb: So many places, so little time. Bill and I have a big anniversary next year and we’ve been talking about a trip to Scotland. I love Edinburgh, so we’ll definitely spend time there, and then maybe a second week driving. Up to the ancestral home in the Highlands? Don’t know yet. Half the fun is in the planning.
Readers: What’s your dream vacation? Staying home and reading? Trekking in Nepal? Finally hitting that beach in Fuji? Or spending quality AND quantity time with the grandkids?
I have a couple of friends who’ve recently been to Iceland and loved it. So that’s been on my mind….But I’d love to go to Italy. Never have been, and my father’s family is from Venice!
Venice is the one place in Italy I have been to. Fascinating.
I have a friend who went on a writing retreat and class to Iceland. She loved it.
I had the opportunity to take my dream vacation a few summers ago. My family and I traveled from Baltimore to San Francisco by train. I wanted to retrace the trip my grandmother had taken during WW2 when she was 38 years old. She was a young widow and had never been away from home. She took her son (my dad, who was about three) to stay with her sister and her sister’s family. My great uncle was stationed in San Francisco at the time after returning from the Philippines. I brought along my husband and children and my auntie. She had been about eleven when her parents lived there. She took us to the house they lived in and the school they attended. My dad had just recently died and I learned so many new things about his childhood. That trip was one of the happiest times of my life.
Wow, what a great trip, Kim. And important family time, too.
I would love this trip…
I think I’d plan on a whole summer in Ireland, but since West Cork has a handy airport, I’d take (ridiculously cheap) flights from there to Paris and London and maybe Florence.
Sigh. Can I come?
I think I’d send my family on the vacation and stay home to enjoy the peace and quiet!
Solo staycation sounds perfect!
My husband and I took our dream vacation two years ago (and I’m still recovering). We went on a 12-day safari in Tanzania, just us and another couple with a guide/driver. We spent two night each in six different places, including a couple tented camps, surrounded by the wild. It was a pretty spectacular trip, and along with seeing more than 200 new species of birds, we also saw hundreds of thousands of zebra and wildebeest, and hundreds of elephants (several hundred at one place). We also saw a rare rhino with an earless calf (the gene pool is so small at this point), we watched in horror as a pair of lions took down a zebra, and we saw dozens of hippos wallowing in a pool together. It was amazing.
Wow. I’ve never done an official safari, but in West Africa I was near elephants in Ghana, in boat in the same pond as hippos in Niger, and around some scary snakes and insects in Mali.
Some of the exploring of Europe sounds great to me. And I’ve always wanted to visit Australia, although I think I would save that until our winter/their summer. Likewise, I think I’d save my trips to the Caribbean until the winter as well. Me and everyone else. Maybe Spring when it would be a little less crowded?
Oh, and since reading Lucy Burnette’s books, I’ve really wanted to visit Key West.
Key West! We could do a Wickeds and Company tour of Key West and descend en masse on both Barb and Lucy.
Australia is amazing! I accompanied my husband on a two-week business/research trip there and spent half the time with my mouth hanging open. Look, that’s a real kangaroo! An emu! The Sydney Opera House! Well worth the trip, as long as you allow time to get over the jet lag.
I went to Australia 3 times on business and was lucky enough to take a family member with me each time. I loved, loved, loved it, and want to go back, but as you say, during our winter.
I’m late to the party today, but no one will be surprised to know I dream of the beach. And Italy. And come to think of it, Ireland…
I would like to travel to the British island of Mull. That is where the movie “I know Where I am Going” (with Dame Wendy Heller) was filmed, and it made such an impression on me that I have added a trip there to my bucket list. If you’ve never seen the movie, look for it. It’s a classic.
Ooh, ooh, I visited Mull in 1971! There was this lovely guy in a kilt (really) leading a group of children across a field of heather (I was sitting in a cemetery in the rain at the time), and I wondered if I was hallucinating the Pied Piper. Must see the movie.
There are SO many places I want to go. I would love to do a genealogy trip to England, Ireland, Scotland, the Palatinate area of Germany, and the Netherlands. I would love to see the cave paintings at Lascaux in France, see Scandinavia and Iceland, and go back to Greece (I spent a few weeks there as a young unattached woman after college). Oh, and see Machu Picchu. Australia? Yes if it’s not too hot. Books, please sell so I can fund my travel dreams!
Such a delicious post! It gave me pleasure all day to think about all the places I want to go and to choose just one for my comment. I am not one of those people who likes cruises; I am too much of a landlubber and like more privacy and anonymity than most cruises allow. That being said, there is a cruise of the islands surrounding Great Britain — Scillies, Orkney, Iona, and ultimately the Shetlands, that I would like to do. It’s one of the few ways to see most of the islands. Ending the tour on midsummer’s eve in the Shetlands would be perfect.
I treated myself to a Hawaiian cruise when I graduated, I mean, retired — a favorite student and I “graduated” at the same time. It was lovely, except for the long flight. Since this game is price-no-object, I’d love to go again, first class. Key West has been tempting me as well; I’ll credit Lucy for that one.
Sherry, I’m with you. Did England, Scotland, and Wales three years ago. I truly believe God lives in the Lake District!