Dreaming of the next vacation

Part of the frustration of writing this blog is the fact that I have several interesting topics to blog about - several of which I'm sure you're interested in (see the comments in my recent "questions about UCAS" post) but I cannot blog at all about these topics until the next Beta release, which thankfully is not too far off.

So I decided to take a break from the technical articles and talk about vacations.  My wife and I have a deal where we each trade vacation choices.  One year she picks and the next year I pick.  So far the choices have been the following

Paris – Nelya

Rome – me

Singapore – compromise choice

Peru – just me

Dubai – Nelya

Thailand - me

Nelya has the next pick and has already decided on Israel with a short trip into Jordan (Petra).  Now I am debating on my next pick.

Originally I chose Chile with the possibility of a short extension to Easter Island.  The idea was to rent a car and drive from Santiago to as close to the tip as possible, and maybe use a plan to get to the extreme south.  The problem with this idea became very evident in Thailand - the kids do not do well in car trips.

My next idea was to take a trip a little longer than three weeks to Australia.  We would hop around Australia - seeing Ayers Rock, the Great Barrier Reaf, and possibly Kakadu.  Unfortunately with the airfare this trip was beginning to look expensive and I didn't like the idea of such a long delya between the Israel trip and the Australia trip due to waiting for vacation time to accrue.

We currently have two possiblities now available.  The first, and currently less likely one, would be a trip to Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.  Most likely we would not include all three of these - probably two of the three.  Since Armenia and Azerbaijan do not have good relations, the likely choice would be Georgia and either Armenia or Azerbaijan.  Right now we are slightly concerned about safety and the current idea is that we will go here in 2011 because they are a short flight from Dubai, where we will return for our 10th anniversary.

The most likely choice is a trip to Vienna, Budapest, and parts of Croatia - Split and Dubrovnik most likely.  Depending on how long the vacation is we may add or remove places, but I have always been interested in seeing Budapest.  I have already been to Prague so I would not include it.  We would most likely use trains for getting from place to place, though short trips by air are also possible.

The trick in any longer vacation (this one would probably be a little over two weeks) is to mix it up a bit.  Therefore we may nix a few cities in favor of staying in the mountains and/or by the coast.

The funny thing is our future vacations after that are also close to being decided.  After I pick, Nelya has already stated that her top choice is Turkey - though she has been interested in Fiji lately.  When I pick after that my most likely choice will be a tour of the 'stans' - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.  I would have picked them rather than Austria/Hungary/Croatia except our kids are still a bit young for a trip to the 'stans'.  Although these areas are considered dangerous by some, we should have few problems because my wife was born in Tajikistan and she has many friends in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and we know people from Turkmenistan.