BigWeather
Member
Hello GAF -- looked for a general travel thread and came up empty, took the liberty of making a new one. I just learned that my daughter won't be interning this summer. So this summer that we thought we'd take off from traveling (after a crazy sequence of Alaska in July 2015, India in January 2016, and Italy/Austria in June 2016) now looks to have the potential for trying to do one last nice family trip.
The following facts are known: July is the month, two weeks maximum, like to keep it to under $10,000 for the four of us inclusive.
We've ruled out Australia and New Zealand (due to winter weather, cost, and not enough time), Japan (due to nasty hot and cost will be tight), Scandinavia (cost -- $6,000 or so in airfare alone!).
That leaves us with the following three possibilities:
1. A drive around the U.S. Midwest to pick up five of the remaining eight states we haven't seen (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa)
2. Ireland (and possibly Scotland)
3. Iceland
Ireland and Iceland in July seem to be a decent fit weather-wise and at < $4,000 for airfare should easily fit in our budget. The U.S. trip is the ultimate fallback, cheap to fly to Chicago and rent a car, and we've done four other U.S. driving trips before so it's relatively easy to plan.
Biggest thing with Ireland is I'm not too keen on renting a car. I've heard that Irish roads can be pretty narrow and I'm not eager to deal with driving on the left side of the road. Unlike England where you can reach most things by rail (done it twice, loved it), Ireland's rail system isn't quite as extensive. Perhaps I can pick several bases of operation that are accessible by train and hire a driver / tour guide for day trips? Is that cost effective? I'm loathe to get on with one of those "See Ireland in 10 days by air conditioned coach!" tours. We've also toyed with trying to do a bit of the Highlands of Scotland as well, my wife has always wanted to see that. Problem with Scotland is a lot like Ireland -- the rail network isn't as extensive once you get much past Edinburgh.
Iceland worries me with the food (we don't do seafood) and I'm a bit worried that two weeks is a bit much to spend there. Though we could go for like ten days or something. I'm more willing to rent a car there since they drive on the right side of the road and since we'll stick with Route 1 (the paved ring road) I'm not worried about the quality of the road.
As for the family, my son enjoys nature and natural sights and is totally not impressed by museums, culture, etc. My daughter does like culture, wine tasting, daily life sort of things. They're both well-traveled and 17 and 20 years old.
Any insight is appreciated, I'll happily share the blog from whatever we choose to do. If you are curious about our previous trips, my blog (no ads on it or anything, so no ulterior motives here) is www.bigweathergames.com and the trips appear in the link cloud on the right (use ?order=asc to sort the blog ascending if you prefer).
Thanks!
The following facts are known: July is the month, two weeks maximum, like to keep it to under $10,000 for the four of us inclusive.
We've ruled out Australia and New Zealand (due to winter weather, cost, and not enough time), Japan (due to nasty hot and cost will be tight), Scandinavia (cost -- $6,000 or so in airfare alone!).
That leaves us with the following three possibilities:
1. A drive around the U.S. Midwest to pick up five of the remaining eight states we haven't seen (Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Iowa)
2. Ireland (and possibly Scotland)
3. Iceland
Ireland and Iceland in July seem to be a decent fit weather-wise and at < $4,000 for airfare should easily fit in our budget. The U.S. trip is the ultimate fallback, cheap to fly to Chicago and rent a car, and we've done four other U.S. driving trips before so it's relatively easy to plan.
Biggest thing with Ireland is I'm not too keen on renting a car. I've heard that Irish roads can be pretty narrow and I'm not eager to deal with driving on the left side of the road. Unlike England where you can reach most things by rail (done it twice, loved it), Ireland's rail system isn't quite as extensive. Perhaps I can pick several bases of operation that are accessible by train and hire a driver / tour guide for day trips? Is that cost effective? I'm loathe to get on with one of those "See Ireland in 10 days by air conditioned coach!" tours. We've also toyed with trying to do a bit of the Highlands of Scotland as well, my wife has always wanted to see that. Problem with Scotland is a lot like Ireland -- the rail network isn't as extensive once you get much past Edinburgh.
Iceland worries me with the food (we don't do seafood) and I'm a bit worried that two weeks is a bit much to spend there. Though we could go for like ten days or something. I'm more willing to rent a car there since they drive on the right side of the road and since we'll stick with Route 1 (the paved ring road) I'm not worried about the quality of the road.
As for the family, my son enjoys nature and natural sights and is totally not impressed by museums, culture, etc. My daughter does like culture, wine tasting, daily life sort of things. They're both well-traveled and 17 and 20 years old.
Any insight is appreciated, I'll happily share the blog from whatever we choose to do. If you are curious about our previous trips, my blog (no ads on it or anything, so no ulterior motives here) is www.bigweathergames.com and the trips appear in the link cloud on the right (use ?order=asc to sort the blog ascending if you prefer).
Thanks!