We are on a waiting list for a wine tour (part land/part cruise) in Italy and Croatia. If we don’t do it this year, we’ll do it next year!
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H and I talked to his sister and BIL yesterday (they live in Bermuda). They told us they will be in Scotland for the month of October with a couple of days in London at the end of their trip. Since we have booked our San Diego to London flights we will now try to find good flights to Portugal to visit Lisbon and Porto then return to London at the end of October and spend time with H’s sister and BIL. I love when things just work out!
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Well I can reply now. H went to the ortho today hoping to get the go ahead for a new hip. He did! We are hoping for an early July appointment. So relieved nothing else is wrong. It deteriorated quickly over the last couple of months
Our vacation is the last week of June. Flying to Miami for a few days, stay in south beach for a couple of days, drive through Everglades, and then down to Key West. I want to drive all the bridges. Younger S will be with us.
After that, as mentioned hopefully H gets his hips and will be mostly recovered before the start of school first week of august. So not much else for us until fall.
October we are going to Quebec City for the first time. And also staying in a log cabin in a state park end of October.
And maybe in September we will visit younger S in MA. He wants to buy a car and we technically still own his. I don’t want to sell it to him and replate it just for a few months.
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Yay, my gym trainer said he and his wife can housesit for us while we’re in Europe. What a relief. His dog is much calmer than our two and is a little intimated by them, so he may ask his folks to take care of her part of the time. He also said he’s going to see if it’s possible to tire them out and if so, how long it would take. Good luck with that!
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Hey, the trainers should charge for fitness sessions wearing out the dogs 
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What are people doing about luggage? Lost luggage stories are a normal thing these days.
We are going to Italy in September, visiting 2 cities and doing a 6 day guided bike trip. I don’t see any way we can manage with just carry on (we are taking our own helmets, and need bike clothes plus regular clothes for each day of bike trip).
We have 30 inch suitcases, and we also have 26. I just ordered some backpack/duffel carry on bags. I’m thinking we will go with the 26 inch and carry ons, and mix bike stuff and regular clothes in both.
We did 2 weeks abroad recently and my H and I shared a carry on suitcase and a large suitcase that we checked. We also each had a backpack. We used packing cubes and in the carry on suitcase we each packed 2 days of clothes, pj’s and 2 pairs of shoes. I put an Apple airtag in the checked bag, we had no problems but my big fear and why I usually don’t check luggage is I’m afraid it’ll get lost.
I can do one week with a carry on, maybe 10 days but not 2 full weeks. Have a great trip!
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Years ago, we went to Thailand for 6 weeks with a fair amount of luggage. We really did not use quite a bit of it, so the next year when we went to Costa Rica for 3-4 weeks we took much less and washed while there. It worked out much better and since then we pack very lightly.
This year, we went to Argentina for 7 weeks during Dec/Jan and each only took one backpack we could carry-on. It was a challenge as we did hiking in the cold southern parts plus were in Iguazu Falls and Buenos Aires where it was very warm. We had an AirBNB so we could was frequently.
The only downside is we tend to be wearing the same clothes in our photos, but it is much better than hauling excessive luggage. Shoes tend to be the toughest thing to decide on as they take up so much room.
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I want to be like you when I grow up! I am not kidding. I told a friend I’m going to make her come to my house and help me get rid of stuff I think I need to take.
There will be no opportunity for doing laundry on our Italy trip, other than stuff that will air dry overnight.
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Been two weeks to Europe carry on. No checking luggage for me. Having something to wear is better than none.
I learned a lot from Rick Steves–quick dry, wear clothes to shower and wash, hang to dry. Good to go. If damp, put it on and it’ll keep you cool for a couple hours (huge plus in hot climate). Need sooner? Rinse, squeeze dry, roll in towel to dry and then put it back on.
And then bring more money. And a money belt.
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I like wool tank tops and wool base layer shirts and quick dry travel shirts for a top layer. Only need an extra pair of slacks and the pair I wear on the plane. I only at most bring one extra pair of shoes.
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We bumped into some older friends this weekend. It was good to see them, but it was also tough since they are dealing with serious health challenges. They strongly encouraged us to travel now, when easy to do so. Twas a good reminder, hopefully will make me less stressed about upcoming travel splurges.
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DH and I talk about that. We’ve had too many friends and acquaintances die at a young age to skip travel now. I think I’ve mentioned my 61–year-old dear friend who has early onset Alzheimer’s. She and her husband scrimped and saved their whole lives. They have a large savings account and planned on traveling a lot when he retired. Now they can’t. She is already too ill to go anywhere. He was supposed to retire already but hasn’t. I really think it’s because it’s hard for him to be around her. 
So we will go to Europe this summer and enjoy every second. Normandy will be a dream come true for me. Our AirBnB is in the tiny village at Omaha Beach. We can bike to a lot of historic places.
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Husband and I are doing just that. We have 2 of our bucket list trips planned in the next 9 months. We briefly discussed postponing one a year, but decided not to because you never know what tomorrow will bring. We are doing some active vacations while we can still be pretty active.
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That’s pretty much where we are - I could retire early right now, but I like my job and we’d have to be careful with spending if I quit working.
So I cut way back on the retirement savings and basically now I’m working to fund a big lavish vacation each year along with smaller spur of the moment shorter trips, meanwhile our retirement savings continues growing organically. We kicked it off with 3 weeks in Italy this year, next year probably 3 weeks in Australia.
The last time I took 3 weeks of continuous vacation was probably 25 years ago, so it definitely feels great to slow down and make that mental shift from working to retire vs working to have fun.
And I thought I’d mention that I just bought this digital photo frame so we can see our travel photos every day. It’s mounted prominently in the kitchen and really a delight to be able to see our photos with a glance. I like it because it has a relatively painless process for getting photos off my iPad onto the frame.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00MTWDG6W?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
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We have been in “travel now” mode for a while since health stinks. These days it’s not my medical ailments that are the issue, but the orthopedic problems. Will have injections in my knee and back before we go; will have walking sticks, hiking boots and good walking shoes. H gets five weeks of vacation, which is nice. Traveling in the off-season is much more relaxing.
Neither of our moms were able to travel by the time our dads retired, so going while we’re able has always been on our minds.
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Our trip to Japan was more arduous because of all the stairs everywhere. We aren’t as young as we were and both of us have sone health issues that make traveling a bit more challenging. We are grateful we can afford to pay a bit more and have a bit of luxury.
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I feel your pain, literally – I had steroid injections in a knee before our family visited Florence last year, in order to be sure that I could walk to the top of the Duomo. I am getting a partial knee replacement this Fall, and hope that I will be back in shape next year for some hiking along Hadrian’s Wall.
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Ack the stairs! Fortunately we’re still able to do them but they are a huge reason to pack light!
In Paris we got a room which was second floor. But you entered on what would be basement level. They had an elevator–which you couldn’t access until level 1 (reception) and 1/2. Yep. 1/2 floor up from reception was where the elevator started.
We talked to the owner and he said basically the historical sociey guidelines deemed their “elevator” to be historical and couldn’t be replaced because they would have to move the very historical unsafe spiral staircase. Didn’t matter it was unsafe. It was a story out of every HOA saga that ever existed. Then he told us how they wanted to replace windows for safety/ energy reasons (keeping the historic look at great cost) and the problems they were running into. The paint color wasn’t quite right. Didn’t matter the color would never be “original”–the building was 400 years old (said that took three inspectors to find one who finally approved it).
I got a steroid injection in one knee before my Italy trip last fall. It helped but it didn’t last and I definitely was hindered. I need a new knee but I’m have been putting it off. I had another injection in early May of Hynovis which is a gel. It’s helped but I’m not pain free. I think I’d want to get the new knee before I think about another big trip.