Friends, family living in ideal areas

[shootingstar]

for vacation planning purposes.

Long ago, I turned down several invitations to places where good friends and family members lived due to primarily work-related reasons. So I passed up: New York City, Cambridge (in England) and Germany. (latter is still possible with dearie having family there).

I wouldn't stay my whole time in a desired vacation spot at a friends's/family member's place, but it is nice to go somewhere and combine personal visits plus see the area. Divide home stayover nights with some hotel/motel.

So now in our lifetime we hope to plot to visit :

*a mountain ski resort in British Columbia - a couple that we know well, live there year-round. They urged us...again to visit.
*mid-eastern coast of Vancouver Island (near a rainforest )- another couple plans to relocate there. Plus I have a childhood friend who relocated south of there in the Vancouver Island winery area.
*Toronto- which is a city I lived in but I do miss certain things there that Vancouver does not offer. My whole family lives there.
*Germany- he's getting abit bored of his original country. But maybe one day..do a bike route crossing that country ..into another country.

Of course, several good friends and family members have visited Vancouver, BC for stayovers. We urge them to and enjoy showing them the area. Yes, we usually do include a little local bike trip around.

[tulip]

When I was married, my DH's family lived in France. Great, right? Free place to stay in Paris, right? At first, yes. But it got old, very old. Since I only had 2 weeks of vacation every year, we always went to visit his family. We rarely went on a vacation that was not family-oriented. I got to really resent it, despite being a complete Francophile. I wanted my own vacation, one that did not involve the MIL!

Got it now (that's a mix of emotions).

[papaver]

I had a very good friend in beautiful Norway... never went. She's back in Belgium.

I have a friend in Notting Hill... never went. But I still have time... I think.

I have family in Canada... never went.

Family in Spain... never went But I'm not so Spain minded so I'll probably never go...


BUT if i had friends in Italy (which i don't have) I would go every year...
Same goes for France

[Cataboo]

I have a hard time sometimes with the visiting relatives/friends. I think it's rude to visit someone without hanging out with them... Yes, I love visiting my family or friends. However, my idea of a vacation vs. their idea of a vacation is different. They don't want to kayak or ride their bike everywhere. I have relatives all over Scotland, and there's a ton of things that I'd love to do in Scotland... but I usually end up spending most of the time visiting elderly relatives and while I don't begrude them that because I know I don't have many more years to visit them while they're alive... I'd love to hike the west highland trail, kayak the isles, or something like that.

I had a bf whose family lived in Belgium... spent a lot of time visiting them, and when I was over... they wanted to have great big huge family dinners that took 12 hours... Or visit his 102 year old grandmother in the nursing home... Which was great - but I wanted to see the country. Then all his friends from childhood would want to see him. And while they all spoke english, they typically would speak flemish while together and I usually had no idea what was going on. It also meant that anytime we went through Europe, we had to take a few days through Belgium... Which after a while kind of irked me and I would fly home earlier instead about half the time.

One of my scottish cousins has a ski lodge at ski resort in Canada - and he's great if I visit. He works or he's not there, and I go ski - maybe we ski together a few days - and we meet in the evenings for food. I have other friends that live near ski resorts that I find constraining when I visit - because if I'm on a ski vacation I really really want to ski every day because that's not something I can do where I live. But if the person you're visiting doesn't feel like skiing or wants to do something else or thinks that the snow isn't worth skiing on (since they live near snow, they can afford to be picky)... It gets frustrating. In the latter case, I really would rather just pay for lodging.

It's sometimes easier if the people you're visiting work regular hours, so you can get away with doing your own thing.

[papaver]

Oh and I have a good friend who lives in and owns this place in Zambia

http://www.kaingu-lodge.com/

Would love to visit.

[papaver]

I had a bf whose family lived in Belgium... spent a lot of time visiting them, and when I was over... they wanted to have great big huge family dinners that took 12 hours... Or visit his 102 year old grandmother in the nursing home... Which was great - but I wanted to see the country. Then all his friends from childhood would want to see him. And while they all spoke english, they typically would speak flemish while together and I usually had no idea what was going on. It also meant that anytime we went through Europe, we had to take a few days through Belgium... Which after a while kind of irked me and I would fly home earlier instead about half the time.

Typical Belgian behavior I'm afraid. I'm not like that fortunately. I like to be on my own too and visit stuff and not just hang around with people.

[shootingstar]

It's sometimes easier if the people you're visiting work regular hours, so you can get away with doing your own thing.

Very true. When visiting and staying with family, I usually let them define certain key activities for me to join them. Then they prefer we entertain ourselves rest of the time ..by cycling since they must get on with their daily lives. It works out well so far since my family is health-conscious oriented ..so they understand need for daily exercise. Some of them practice yoga, jog or do pilates on their own time.

Papaver: If there is a link to dearie's cousin's hotel & restaurant in Black Forest region in Germany, I'll give it later. In family since 1700's.

[papaver]

o cool. Thanx shootingstar.

[shootingstar]

papaver:

Inn has been around since 1750.
It's in German. http://www.rebstock-waldulm.de/launch.htm but with lovely pics and reasonable prices. Dearie translated for me..just now.

Under the link at website "Die Region" there are automatic photos of the views from inn...which is on the side of steep hill vineyard area in Germany. His cousin is the chef of restaurant also and has been reviewed in a German foodie or travel magazine. The inn/restaurant is approx. 30 kms. away from Strausborg, France where there is a well-known cathedral.

This is the first time dearie saw his cousin's revamped website. Wonders of the Internet. Now we're going to shoot off the link to dearie's son who is a chef in Toronto and definitely does cook cheffy-like even though he can't read German.

Now you know, that elegant cooking and baking....genuinely is a family tradition and highly valued. My comments about quality food/cuisine both German ..(and Asian, since there have been restaurant owners in my extended family also) are for real.

[papaver]

Oh I can read and understand German quite well... thx for the link!

[jobob]

"If you gotta have in-laws they may as well live on Oahu"

- jobobism

[NoNo]

One of the really cool things about the car club I'm in is that even if you haven't actually met someone, you still open your home to them. In May of 07 I went over to England to meet the people from the club over there. Someone picked me up at Heathrow, took me to their house to stay for two days. Someone else picked me up from that house and took me to the hotel where the charity ball was held. People drove me around all that weekend. Then another person took me up to their house near York to stay for a few days and drove me around the area showing me the sights. It was a blast, my only housing costs were the weekend of the ball, and I got to see things that only the locals would know about. More importantly, I made some lifelong friends and look forward to returning there or opening my home to them.

In addition to the club, my mom's cousin just moved to London, after several years in Paris. I'm kind of upset I missed out seeing them in France. We also have family in Italy that I would like to meet. I talk to one of them on Facebook, and two of my cousins have gone over and met that side of the family, so at least there's some kind of link.

[sfa]

My sister and her family lived in Norway for six months this year, so of course I took the opportunity to visit them! What I didn't understand was that my sister and I were the ONLY family members to do that. My parents, other sister, and Norway-sister's husband's whole family stayed firmly planted in the US. When else are they going to have the opportunity to go to Norway with a free place to stay?

I wish I knew more people who lived in interesting places. I've lost touch with my Swiss friend (spent a lot of time with him in Lucerne 20 years ago) who has since moved to Australia. I have one friend in England, but I don't know her well enough to crash on her sofa--more of a "get together for a day if I'm around" kind of a friend. And my family lives in such exotic locales as Winston-Salem, NC and Blacksburg, VA. Sigh. Nice enough places, but not ideal vacation spots.

Sarah

[shootingstar]

My sister and her family lived in Norway for six months this year, so of course I took the opportunity to visit them! What I didn't understand was that my sister and I were the ONLY family members to do that. My parents, other sister, and Norway-sister's husband's whole family stayed firmly planted in the US. When else are they going to have the opportunity to go to Norway with a free place to stay?

Sarah

It is a shame sfa. For some people it's a huge psychological effort (and at times, cost and timing) to even plan a trip outside of North America, heck for some, even outside their own state/province. There are still some siblings who haven't visited me yet here. Will take time.

I actually have whole slew of relatives in San Francisco and these are aunts, uncles and cousins of the first order, not 2nd,3rd order. Heck, even a first cousin my age who was born a month later than I. Didn't even know until my late 20's when meeting her. But not close enough for me to phone any Frisco relative out there for even a coffee and pastry together. (no, not dim sum. Geez, coming from Vancouver....!)

One of the main reasons I've chosen so far not to visit Germany at that time when dearie was seeing relatives there, was to avoid the same situation as Catriona in Belgium. Freeze-outs due to lack of local linguisitic fluency. I know full well this living reality since my Chinese fluency has seriously eroded.

However we have entertained some German relatives since relocating here and now, I know which relatives we would be comfortable to drop by...for an "exchange" goodwill and happy visit.

[Cataboo]

I think the US really doesn't have that much of a culture of overseas travel - or out of the country. The US is huge and there's so much to see inside of it, that you can do for cheaper than going over seas and you don't have a pesky language barrier to deal with.

Although, I've really found that I do okay being a clueless tourist who only speaks english where ever I am in the world. However, it was easier traveling with the belgian bf and his french, english, flemish, german, russian, english, spanish, and italian language abilities. Even if it meant that he was speaking German to some Turkish guy up a small mountain in the middle of nowhere Turkey because that was the only language they could find in common.

But I've had people tell me that they have no desire to ever leave the US or to visit another country because they can see everything in the US... and it just boggles my mind.