I have not taken most of my vacation this year, my boss had been encouraging me to take some time as my job is so stressful. She took 3 weeks in Feb to tour New Zealand so she feels guilty.

I have nearly 5 weeks of time off but I horde it as my Mom is 90 years old and there are times when I just need to rush off.

However, this year, I have 10 days booked at the end of July/August for the next adventure.

Last year my friend organized a hiking trip in Switzerland and it was FABULOUS. Eight women, all ages and abilities.

We had a reunion in January and before we left that night we had our next trip planned. So on July 31 I head to Milan, Italy for 2 days with a fellow hiker. We are looking to do home cooked meal events with "EatWith" or some other way to connect with locals. Then Saturday the remaining 8 (we picked up two more who couldn't come last year) meet up and we drive to the Dolomite Mountains for a week of hiking. We bunk together as many as 3 to a room, sometimes even share beds..we don't care.. It is fun, and for a European vacation pretty cheap.

I cannot wait to be with this fun group again high in the hills.

What are your vaca plans this year?

Well we're transitioning from living and working in London to moving back to Colorado. So, we decided to have a S.O.D.S. this year. (SODS = Summer of Deficit Spending).

The first part of our holiday was from the end of April until early June. We went to Milan, Florence, Ischia, Pompei and Rome in Italy and then added on Rhodes and Athens in Greece. Great fun!

Then we hustled back to London to finish packing up our house and giving away what we didn't want to ship. Off to Colorado to take a deep breath for about 2 weeks so we could be sure not to exceed our 90 day limit on Schengen visas.

We've just finished a quick 3 day trip to Barcelona to see some friends, followed by 6 days in Brussels - again visiting friends. Right now we're back in the UK (visiting a friend of course). Sunday we fly off to Valencia to spend 6 weeks in an immersive Spanish course.

Then around the end of August we'll go home to Colorado, Sue will start her new job, and we'll start worrying about how to pay for all this stuff.

We were supposed to go to Cuba but there is now some question as to whether or not we will be able to go due to new travel bans.

We shall see.

No big trip this year. We went to England last year, and will probably go again next summer. So I'm enjoying being at home this summer.

BL - that sounds great. Cant wait to read the trip report.

I knew about Dan's SODS. He told me about it over drinks in London in April.



Our plans - We're taking 2 weeks in late August. Week 1 we'll be based in Vienna but will probably do a day trip or two.

Week two we go to Finland, by way of Estonia. Fly Vienna to Tallinn, spend one night, then ferry to Helsinki.

The original plan was to spend a week in Helsinki, but everyone tells us there isn't a week of stuff to do there (surely not true, but whatever). SO we're doing a 3 day side trip to St Petersburg. Apparently there's a fast train, 3.5 hours between the two cities.


I just submitted our passports and docs to the visa authority yesterday (well, an expeditor service). Always a leap of faith to hand your passports over to some nice person in a nondescript office and have them say 'we'll email ya when it's done'.


So the boy is pretty psyched. He has one of those wall maps where you scratch off the countries you've visited. It's a mercator projection, so Russia is extra huge. It'll look like he's been to 2/3 of the globe.


I'm psyched too. For all of it but especially St Petersburg.

Oh, also probably Argentina in December. Need to finalize that soon. And probably a 3-4 day trip to somewhere warm over thanksgiving.

We spent a few weeks in the southwest in May. Hiked in the Grand Canyon, visited Anthony in Las Vegas, wandered in Zion, and lounged in Santa Fe for a week. In August, we'll head back to Santa Fe for a week before the fall semester begins.

I have tried to enforce a travel ban for June through September because I love it where I live in those months.
So far we spent 10 days at the home of Bob's brother in New Jersey.
I August we will be in Santa Fe for two operas.
Bob's developments with his Parkinson's problems have kept us home more.

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
No big trip this year. We went to England last year, and will probably go again next summer. So I'm enjoying being at home this summer.

We did spend Spring Break seeing big cities and riding a train halfway across America.

I'm leaving tomorrow for a girls' weekend with Muffin, Muffin's Sister, and Mrs. Muffin's Brother (who needs a name of her own.)

Vegas, baby! Gonna see a Cirque du Soleil show and David Copperfield. Maybe go to the Neon Museum. Maybe lounge around the spa. It's gonna be awesome.

When we visited Anthony in Las Vegas, we took him to Ka in the MGM. It was a great show.

Went to Palm Springs in March; Portugal in May.

Got a wedding in Phoenix this fall.

So I think that's it for me for a while.

Next year, though. Next year I plan to do something outrageous. Maybe Australia or Thailand or Cambodia.

Sometimes I desire to travel again...

But,

It's so beautiful here, it is hard to leave.

quote:

I have tried to enforce a travel ban for June through September because I love it where I live in those months.

There is no place on earth better than Montana in Summer. The earliest I'll go anywhere this year is probably November. We're talking about doing a New Mexico road trip to scout out potential snowbird locales. I'm so done with winter. Three weeks in New Zealand is under consideration for February. We really want to go to Portugal and the Goleta horse festival is in November, so that could preempt New Mexico.

Vacation? What's that???

I was in Denver on business so I took one whole day of vacation to go see Chas for the weekend.

I don't think I've taken any other vacation this year. I don't really remember.

I was planning to take this whole week off, but my benevolent employer and the gummint agency that oversees us had different ideas. I worked 8 hours on Monday, 4 on Tuesday, and 3 on Wednesday. That was after working 16 hours over the weekend. And I worked 16 hours the previous weekend. *sigh*

I'm travelling for business again later this month and it didn't even occur to me to take some vacation around it, maybe to hang out with local WTFers.

Mrs pj is travelling for business next month and I decided I'm going with her just to get out of town. Ummmm... Dallas in August. That's what counts as a vacation in my world these days.

If I do get some time off, it's going to be spent at home... getting the garage cleaned out, fixing my camping trailer (I haven't opened it in five years and I have no idea what evil is lurking inside), stuff like that.

We're very short-handed at work. One of my cellmates abruptly retired last month. Another has been out of the country looking after his parents for the last three weeks. It's been crazy. So, I've kinda stopped making plans because whenever I do, external forces thwart them.

I get 22 days of vacation a year. At any time, I can have up to 44 days in the bank. When one accumulates 44 days, one stops accumulating. I currently have about 41 days, although I burned about two days so far this week. I will try hard not to top out. One guy in the cell next to me has been topped out since December and has not been able to take even one day of vacation so far this year.

Starting next year, the company switches from vacation+sick leave to PTO. So, I will get 32 days of PTO. But instead of maxing out at two times the vacation, the maximum will be one and a half times the PTO. So that's 48 days. Yes, I could take over two whole months off in one stretch ... longer than that, considering that I still accumulate PTO while I'm taking PTO.

That's my sitch.

On the plus side, when I retire, I get all of my vacation/PTO cashed out at my current salary. So, three months of extra pay at the time I retire will cushion the blow just a bit. I could just buy a new camping trailer with that.

PJ! Time for you to take a real break...you Arne getting any younger ya know!