5 week vacation this summer

[skyactiv]

My wife just got approved for a 5 week vacation this summer. My employer is letting me use vacation time and a leave of absence to have 5 weeks off.
So we are off starting the last week of June. My younger sister lives close by and can keep an eye on my place. We have passports and budgeted up to $20K.
We've already been to Europe and Israel, although I'd like to visit different parts of Europe. We are visiting Yellowstone National park and Grand Canyon National Park.
We are fit, active and want to hike somewhere exotic outside of the U.S. such as Japan or China.

Any ideas? What about using a travel agency?

 

[parshisa]

You should definitely look into APAC: Thailand, Vietnam, indonesia. Thailand is my absolute favorite, amazing country. Also, it is dirt cheap out there, so really your biggest expense will be flights.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

If you're already going to be out in Yellowstone, continue north and go through Bozeman, MT and up to Glacier National Park. You won't be disappointed.

 

[PimTac]

Japan could be a jumping off point. Go see Tokyo, the worlds largest city. After that, Australia and New Zealand.

 

[StevieC]

I would definitely do something in Asia. My in-laws a few years ago went to Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan and it was the best trip they ever did according to them and they have been all over the place.

Hotels in Japan are expensive in places like Tokyo but you can stay in the burbs and take high speed trains into the core while you are there.

The only reason you might not want to go in June to Thailand / Hong Kong is the really sticky humid weather and the increased air pollution at this time of year in the cities.
Japan although hot and sticky doesn't seem to be as bad and the air quality isn't terrible either.

If you are into electronics you have to go to the mall in Japan that will take you days to get through. It's huge and you can buy just about anything you want there.

 

[JLTD]

Holy smokes with that amount of time and budget there are so many options...a good problem to have.

5 weeks sounds like a great time period to explore Australia and NZ, with a 3-day rest in Hawai'i on the way back.


Originally Posted by Chris Meutsch
If you're already going to be out in Yellowstone, continue north and go through Bozeman, MT and up to Glacier National Park. You won't be disappointed.


Agreed; and if you're in to it - near the SE corner of Montana you will find Little Bighorn Battlefield, Devil's Tower(in WY) and Mt Rushmore(in SD).


As far as using a travel agent that could help, however the same info can now be had online....

https://www.wiredforadventure.com/worlds-most-exotic-hikes/

 

[zorobabel]

Originally Posted by Chris Meutsch
If you're already going to be out in Yellowstone, continue north and go through Bozeman, MT and up to Glacier National Park. You won't be disappointed.

If you're already going to be out in Glacier, continue North and go through the border and up to Banff and Jasper National Parks. You won't be disappointed.

 

[vwmaniaman]

Definitely if you go to Yellowstone you will never see it all in one trip. Wife and I have been 16 times and never seem to see it all. Yes do Glacier too as it is beautiful. Estes park in Colorado is a wonder also. We plan on going back to all of those again and we are retired. Have a Class B camper and have stayed at all those places. You could spend your entire trip just seeing the West. If you go to Grand Canyon, don't miss the train ride from Williams,AZ. It is lots of fun. Pikes Peak cog train is fun too. I could go on, Our country is so awesome and everyone pretty much speaks English.

 

[SonofJoe]

Have just started our regular four week break in the Western Cape of South Africa & can thoroughly recommend it as a place for a long stay holiday.

Food & wine are first class. There are plenty of wonderful, individual B&B's to stay at or houses to rent if you prefer. People are universally welcoming & speak English (especially once they know you're a tourist). Go to the right places & the scenery is spectacularly beautiful. We don't do hiking as such but the South Africans themselves are mad keen on hiking & all outdoor activities. It is also incredibly good value!

Like most people, you'll wonder whether you're going to be safe or not? All I can say is we've been coming here on & off for the last 19 years & have never, ever had any aggro.

 

[ZZman]

Italy?

 

[opus1]

Originally Posted by JLTD
Holy smokes with that amount of time and budget there are so many options...a good problem to have.

5 weeks sounds like a great time period to explore Australia and NZ, with a 3-day rest in Hawai'i on the way back.


Originally Posted by Chris Meutsch
If you're already going to be out in Yellowstone, continue north and go through Bozeman, MT and up to Glacier National Park. You won't be disappointed.


Agreed; and if you're in to it - near the SE corner of Montana you will find Little Bighorn Battlefield, Devil's Tower(in WY) and Mt Rushmore(in SD).


As far as using a travel agent that could help, however the same info can now be had online....

https://www.wiredforadventure.com/worlds-most-exotic-hikes/


If you wind up doing this part of the trip, I definitely second Devil's Tower, Rushmore, and will add the Crazy Horse memorial as well. I managed to visit Crazy Horse on a "blast day" and even though I'm guessing the viewing area is a good mile from the work, you definitely feel the blast. The Air and Space Museum and Badlands National Part were also a good stop.

 

[Triple_Se7en]

Originally Posted by skyactiv
My wife just got approved for a 5 week vacation this summer. My employer is letting me use vacation time and a leave of absence to have 5 weeks off.
So we are off starting the last week of June. My younger sister lives close by and can keep an eye on my place. We have passports and budgeted up to $20K.
We've already been to Europe and Israel, although I'd like to visit different parts of Europe. We are visiting Yellowstone National park and Grand Canyon National Park.
We are fit, active and want to hike somewhere exotic outside of the U.S. such as Japan or China.

Any ideas? What about using a travel agency?


Spend that 20K here. Boston, Cape Cod, Plymouth, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, Manhattan/NYC, Philadelphia, Washington D.C, ......... all nice vacation spots.

None are very distant from the next. A few hours drive from place-to-place. I did this trip above and we finished it a couple days under four weeks...... 27 nights & 26 days.
We kept moving and glad I decided to buy throw-away Poloroid cameras. Much easier to show company that visit our home real pics of this vacation, instead of inviting them to scan pics thru a laptop. I think I took almost one dozen throw away cameras to Walgreen, to have them developed. The lady freaked out when I laid all those cameras on the counter.....lol

This was back several years ago. Saw a major league baseball game in seven different ballparks there too. Stopped on the way home and saw a game in Pittsburgh - then after spending the night there, saw an afternoon game in Cleveland, then back to where we live north of Detroit.

 

[WhyMe]

5 weeks? i would do a week each in Japan, Korea, China, HK and last Australia . it really depend on your budget. All these places have so much to see and are great values.

 

[Oro_O]

Here are some past lengthy trips I have done that were very rewarding, and two I am contemplating for the future:

1) Asian Tour: Cathay Pacific used to have this awesome summer "student" fare (you can be any age and not a student, that's just the target market). It was $900 and "as much as you can fly" in 30 days, non-return. E.G., you can't do six round-trips, you just keep moving on different legs. So we flew to Bali, spent a week on the beach decompressing. Then we (wife and I) went to Thailand, spent 10 or so days touring around, mostly cultural spots in the north and not the randy beaches in the south. Then on to Madras/Chennai, and by rail across India to Bombay/Mumbai. Then on to London for a few days of relaxation/friends/re-acclimating to the west before back to the US. It was fantastic. I also REALLY wanted to squeeze in Sri Lanka but the violence was bad then and she veto'd it; I think it's OK now. Some of the beaches are amazing and uncrowded, and the interior hill country and tea plantations are supposed to be wonderful. Plus, there's Kandy and the temple and [censored]'s tooth. Want to get there before I die. Anyway, I saw this fare advertised again not too long ago so and I think it was still around that price. I think they still do it every summer . It was a massive bargain, and their route schedule is perfect for something like this.

You can use a travel agent for parts. For example, we did our own thing in Bali, because we weren't really touring, just relaxing/decompressing. But then when we got to Bangkok, we had 10 days booked through a Thai specialty agent in NYC. We had a tour guide, driver, (yes, both), and a mini-van and all our ground plan mapped out. I was hesitant to give up control but it was fantastic AND NO MORE EXPENSIVE. I priced it out and their package was just as cheap as us trying to do it ourselves and way simpler, so we enjoyed, saw, and learned more. India we did on our own as it is less of a language barrier, and she had some familiarity and distant relatives in India we could connect w/periodically, but you could do the same thing there. My recommendation WRT this is find a small immigrant-owned travel agency as they know the most/get the best deals. E.g., we used a thai-owned, smallish agency in NYC and it was way better/simpler/cheaper than having a non-specialist or foreigner trying to do it. We just gave them the dates we were in-country and a budget.

2) Central/East European trip I want to take: I want to see as much of "old" europe as I can before it's gone for good, so that means the parts of Central/Eastern Europe that wasn't too devastated in WWII either as the Nazis rolled east or the jack-booted, equally fascist Russians land-grabbed their way back west, AND has not been re-paved by western capital yet. Fly to Munich, relax there a few days and then start zig-zagging east through places like Prague, Buda/Pest, Krakow, etc. I got this idea both from my own historical interest and also Rick Steves, that Seattle-based travel guy who raves about the virtues of seeing European cities like those, so you could check out what he says about that.

3) True luxury cruise: I love the sea and wish I could take a ~45 to 50' motoryacht (or better yet, a Nordhavn 62) and spend a year in the Med. The next best would be to take a luxury cruise on a Cunard ship or smaller boutique line and do the Eastern med or whatever you like. Spend a week on either end somewhere nice and three weeks in-between going port to port in style.

Quote
Have just started our regular four week break in the Western Cape of South Africa & can thoroughly recommend it as a place for a long stay holiday.


I've heard similar and that is an interesting suggestion; no personal knowledge.

EDIT: I was talking about the Temple of the Tooth above in Sri Lanka and no idea why "Siddhartha's" name is treated like a curse work and censored?

 

[PandaBear]

Budget plane tickets to APAC for around $3k-4k in the summer for 2. You have 16k left. If you stay away from major big cities you should be doing really well with that amount.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Originally Posted by opus1
Originally Posted by JLTD
Holy smokes with that amount of time and budget there are so many options...a good problem to have.

5 weeks sounds like a great time period to explore Australia and NZ, with a 3-day rest in Hawai'i on the way back.

If you're already going to be out in Yellowstone, continue north and go through Bozeman, MT and up to Glacier National Park. You won't be disappointed.


Agreed; and if you're in to it - near the SE corner of Montana you will find Little Bighorn Battlefield, Devil's Tower(in WY) and Mt Rushmore(in SD).



If you wind up doing this part of the trip, I definitely second Devil's Tower, Rushmore, and will add the Crazy Horse memorial as well. I managed to visit Crazy Horse on a "blast day" and even though I'm guessing the viewing area is a good mile from the work, you definitely feel the blast. The Air and Space Museum and Badlands National Part were also a good stop.

Devil's Tower was indeed spectacular also, and the Badlands NP is like being on Mars.

 

[sloinker]

Keep it all in North America. Rushmore, Devils Tower, Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Alaska and South through Washington, Oregon coast and Redwoods in Northern Calfornia, Yosemite is the prettiest park on our continent imo. Sounds like fun and I'm jelly.

 

[slug_bug]

I'd recommend forgetting the foreign countries and doing a driving trip around the U.S. Buy a tent and camp at as many national parks as possible. If you're not a camper rent a small RV or Minvan and throw an inflatable bed in back. Easy camping. Take a Northern route to on the way to California. Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, badlands, Pikes Peak in CO., Salt lake City/Great salt lake, Vegas, Red Rocks, Hoover Dam, Redwood Forest, San Francisco, Mesa Verde. So many great places to see! So many great hikes to go on. Enjoy the journey and all the little touristy places along the way. Come back on a Southern route. Arizona, Grand Canyon, havasupai falls. Stay at little motels once in a while to re-charge. My list is a little disjointed, but, you get the idea. A little research will yield all kinds of great places to visit/hike/explore in many states. My family did something similar when I was a kid. Took a month. Best vacation of my life!

 

[hpb]

I vote for going overseas - but remember it will be winter in the Southern Hemisphere. You can have holidays "at home" any time, so I'd be making the most of the 5 weeks and generous budget by jetting off to somewhere new!

 

[AntiMatic]

Places on my bucket list: Galápagos Islands and South Pacific.