Best vacation? I'm in the midst of mine...

Two weeks in Tuscany by myself this summer was awesome. Ten days there last summer with mom, dad, brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews was even better.

Also in the running is a two-week trip through the Southwest with a buddy in our early 20s. Never laughed as much in my life.

 

Spent a year in Australia on a holiday work visa, had a fantastic time, came home at the end of my visa eventhough I had a job offer and an opportunity to stay. I was back in Canada 1 day and knew I had made a huge mistake coming home!

Lots of great family vacations as a married family guy, not super cultural but have had an absolute blast, Jamaica, Mexico, Aruba, DR.

Next big vacation is probably back to Costa Rica when our boy is a little bit older, love that place.

 

Shouldn't be posting if you're on your best vacation.

 

Have done nine cruises. All during winter to Caribbean. All were great. Two were particularly fantastic -- one in 2001 where I met people that I'm still good friends with and one in 2004 where we had 31 in our group.

 

I've done my share or cruises, too, and they were all great. All in the Caribbean.

 

Rarotonga. The biggest of the Cook Islands—in the South Pacific. Like Hawaii might have been if it weren't so messed up. It's a fuel stop on the Air New Zealand flight between LA and Auckland. Off you get. Just a beautiful island, fantastic people, no hotels—literally, not a single hotel—but good food and surrounded by big blue water. Great diving, too. Spent a month there in a rented house with my folks and my wife (then my girlfriend), just swimming and diving and reading. I've never felt better or healthier.

I talked about it so much after I went, my old boss went a couple of years ago and said the other day that it was one of the best things he's ever done. Just a magical place.

 

Europe backpacking trip (I know, cliche) with three college buddies the fall after we graduated. We hit England, France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Italy and Spain over the course of two months. Just incredible.

I've had great experiences with cruises as well. Met my wife on one.

 

My one large regret in life is that I didn't take a gap year and backpack around Europe—either after high school or after undergrad. Hopefully my kids like me well enough that I can do it with them.

 

My best was a solo six day trip to Paris for my last milestone birthday. It was shortly after my dad died and I really felt like I needed to get away. I'd been to Paris several times before so I knew my way around and I speak some French, so I didn't have to worry about language being a problem. I ran myself ragged around the city. I went to a ton of museums, walked for miles, sat in cafes for long stretches and ate great food. Before I left, I was worried that I'd spend too much time thinking about my dad and being sad, but I didn't. Despite the sore feet from all the walking, it was actually one of the most relaxing trips I've ever been on.

 

In college, a bunch of us went Eurailing. We were there for six weeks and had everything planned so we'd have enough money and time to hit just about everywhere...

Then we went to the Greek Isles. We planned to stay two days and we ended up staying two weeks. We only left because we had to meet another friend in Frankfurt. We were having such an awesome time that we thought pretty seriously about just not meeting him, even though he would have been seriously fucked if we had done that. This was in the days before cell phones but we thought about just any option so we wouldn't have to leave... It was so inexpensive and it was just beautiful and there were women all over the place and it was just crazy. If someone had described it to me, I would have called bullshit on it in about 10 seconds...

 

It's interesting... Having done it twice, from what I hear now, it's not safe on any level to do anymore... In hindsight, it was pretty unsafe when I did it, because we didn't have any idea how scary it would be in certain parts of Spain and anywhere in Portugal...

I think if you stick to the big cities, you can be fine, but I don't think you can just explore like we did... To anybody who does it, avoid Portugal like the plague and if you go to Spain, stick to Barcelona. If I had to do it again, I would focus on Scandinavia, Prague and the Greek Isles...

 

Curious about what you've heard, Mizzou. We went in 2003, so I can't imagine stuff's changed that much in 10 years. Then again, we were four dudes ranging from 5-10/175 to 6-5/210, so we weren't exactly prime targets.