The Making of an Excellent Adventure 2006 – Part 2

Two trips, 15911 km apart

I think that we’ve gone far enough into the year to spill the beans on our Excellent Adventure travel plans for this year. 2006 will go down in our travel history as a very significant year for several reasons. Perhaps the most significant is the fact that Barb and I will be travelling to two different places – 15911 km apart! If we wind back the clock about 18 months ago, Barb and I talked about her wanting to take her mother to Tahiti on a trip. Her mother had wanted to go to Tahiti for a long time and after our plans to go to Italy in 2005, we didn’t have anything specifically planned for 2006. Keep in mind that this was 2004 at the time. Under normal circumstances, we usually have a pretty good idea about of our future travel plans for the upcoming year.

So we all agreed that Barb would take her mother to Tahiti this year.

No doubt you’re all wondering where that leaves me. After giving it considerable thought, I decided that Tahiti was an experience best left to Barb and her mother and I would look at some other options. I’m sure that many people will find this hard to believe but I’m not really much of a beach person and Tahiti has never really held much attraction for me. Also considering that Tahiti would in all likelihood be one of the more expensive places we have travelled to, it just didn’t make sense for me to go somewhere and spend top dollar if I really wasn’t going to love it.

To me, my perfect vacation is a place where I can see and experience things – not just relaxing. Don’t get me wrong, a nice relaxing vacation to a place like Mexico can be a great thing but it’s not something that I crave. For me, Europe seems to have all that I can ask for at present and there’s still so much of it that we haven’t seen.

Speaking of Europe …

So Germany it is. Our last trip to Germany (my first) was in 2001 during Christmas time (see Barb and Baden’s Excellent German Adventure). Seeing all of the fantastic things in Germany during that time of year was an experience that I will never forget. Returning again in the fall will allow me to experience a different aspect of Germany in a non-holiday time of year.

Keep checking back here as the details of both of our trips unfold over the next several months.

Baden