That sounds really fun (biking trip in Provence!). $4k doesn’t sound like too much for 10 days through France. I’m keeping all the fun ideas I hear about here for future reference!
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It would not be. It was $4K for 6 days of biking. The rest was separate (travel for 2 days, one day in Paris and one day in Avignon).
Interesting - so it was more total than $4k? I’m imagining yes, as we are planning a trip to Italy and it will likely be $1600 just for plane fare! Kudos to your wife - I’m looking into vacations that are more active-focused (big hiking component, etc.).
Yes @Jolynne_Smyth, plane fare was close to $2K. She also needed a hotel for one night in Paris and one night in Avignon, plus meals in Paris and Avignon. Plus uber to airport and from airport to hotel (the hotel was right near the RER line stop from CDG but there was a train strike).
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What company did she do the bike trip with? We have taken several guided bike trip (or multi-sport) vacations and we really like them.
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ShawWife said her trip was organized by a non-profit as a fund-raiser, which she had not known when she agreed to go. She had a fantastic time although the organized trip -suffered because the three staff for the trip caught Covid on the way over. But, she met two couples who were very happy with a company called Intura. I have never done a guided bike trip except in China in 1982, where there were 10 staff to the ten of us. A sag wagon. Mechanics. Lots of folks whose function was unclear.
We have done a number of trips where I made all of the reservations. The most complex was from SF over the Golden Gate Bridge through Marin to Napa Valley, cycle around Napa (and try vineyards and eat well),from Napa to Sonoma Valley, try vineyards and eat well in Sonoma, from Sonoma to Anderson Valley, stayed at the most wonderful hotel/restaurant (which no longer exists), then from Anderson Valley to Mendocino and then Highway 1 down the coast to SF (a number of stops along the way including a lovely stay in Point Reyes). The cycling down Highway was very difficult cycling and going to the Anderson Valley required getting up at 3 AM and the road ascended 5 miles without ever getting flat. We couldn’t do that trip today without e-bikes. I don’t know if what we were climbing would be considered mountains, but it felt like that. We carried our clothes in our panniers.
I have organized a couple of trips for my MIL and DS which partially guided. One trip in Finland and one from Vienna to Bratislava to Budapest. In those cases, a company helped us pick the route and hotels. A car carried the bags from hotel to hotel. But no sag wagon or mechanic.
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@1214mom, what companies have you used?
I liked the fact that the Intura company would do the semi-guided tours – they lay out the trip for you and make reservations and give you maps etc. but you are not part of a group.
What was it like to be part of a group? ShawWife said on this trip, she was the only one who was not divorced or widowed. Is that common on bike trips?
We do bike trips for our vacations. One of the best ones we did was with Creative Catalonia in northern Spain. We did a week long self-guided tour out of Girona. It was amazing!
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We have only done guided tours. We have done trips with -
Backroads- (as a side note - founded in Marin County, I THINK). We did a hike, bike and helicopter trip in the Canadian Rockies). They are pretty expensive and may cater to a more risk averse crowd (That’s old knowledge. They may have changed)
Sojourn (Oregon/Columbia River Gorge, Vermont fall foliage, and the Finger Lakes region of NY). They “pamper” you less than Backroads, but we are fine with that.
Wilderness Voyagers - The Great Allegheny Passage. They are definitely a step down from both of the others, but we’re fine for the trip we did. Food was very mediocre, and lodging wasn’t as nice, but the price was much lower too.
We are looking at a trip with VBT in Italy for next summer.
There are several vendors that do these trips. Another one we see a fair amount is TREK.
I’d say our groups have been mostly married couples, and they skew older than you might expect. There have been a couple of small groups of women traveling with us. I only remember 1 single woman and a couple of men traveling by themselves.
We have usually enjoyed our groups. We did have one older man who was VERY interested in my husband/sought him out an uncomfortable amount (he was harmless, but annoying), and there was a somewhat abrasive couple on one of the trips, but we enjoyed meeting and talking to people from different places. Of course some want to keep more to themselves, and some are more interested in the group. All of our guides have been very good to excellent.
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Those sound amazing, 1214mom! What is VBT?
The company was originally Vermont Bicycle Tours, or something close to that. Now they are just VBT.
Thanks, 1214mom!
With two older kids out of the house and now an 8th grader looking to attend boarding school next year, we might be empty nesters much sooner than planned! We already moved overseas a couple of years ago (right after our S21 graduated high school), so we’ve got that taken care of (although we’ll likely move back in the next decade to take care of aging parents).
I also have notions of getting my dream job (which would involve a lot of travel) or opening up a small shop somewhere once everyone is out.
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We are able to travel on each other’s trips when we want. I travel a lot – I flew to London for a day, am spending about a week in South Africa and than will have another day in London before returning home. I’m at a conference in a game park and go for a game drive every day – depending upon the day, we see lots of lions, zebras, wildebeasts, giraffes, warthogs, kuduus, antelopes, springbok and 4 cheetahs, 2 rhinos (could barely see them). I’m on my own, but ShawWife is going to join me In a couple of months in Nairobi where I have a couple of days of work and then we are going to try to go on a safari.
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So jealous. I’ve been on five safaris in South Africa, but my last was five years ago. Which game park?
One time in the Portland airport, I was wearing my jacket from the Simbambili reserve and a guy came up because he’d been there.
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I’m at the Dinokeng Game Reserve.
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Travel the world? Lol!! No chance! Empty nesters mean we’re paying for college…which means we have LESS money than when when she lived with us. Such cruel irony! 
Maybe someday DH and I will take a trip just us which we haven’t done since our honeymoon.
Otherwise, I’ve started quilting again.
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Well what I’ve done with one room is store my fabric, and with another part of a different room set up my cutting table and then sewing machine. OMG I have so much fabric and yet never exactly the right piece to finish what I’m working on.
Currently I need orange, and I have the perfect fat quarter but need more. I have a bigger piece of a lighter orange but don’t like that as much. So I know I’ll be at the fabric store buying more. Blue? I have every shade, every print, every everything in blue…blue doesn’t work in this quilt for sashing as some of the blocks are blue. But I have blue!
What I really want is a longarm which requires its own room. Oh, and costs $10k and I don’t want to spend that.
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What’s a longarm?? @twoinanddone