FLOATING IN DREAMS

Last week I mentioned that I wanted to spend 2015 spending my time and money on experiences rather than things. And part of that plan was to travel over summer. Since I am a teacher, I get more weeks off for summer break, so it is an easy time for me to go out and do something. And since it has been a while since I crossed the pond, it wasn’t a hard decision what the destination would be.

And that destination will be the United States and Canada. It will not be my first time traveling there. I spent quite a few trips going to the US and the last time I went to the US, I decided to cross the border into Canada for the first time. However, during this trip, I will mostly be hitting up places I haven’t been to before.

I will be flying into New York and spend a few days there first. I’ve been to New York 6 times already, so it will just be a stopover before I embark on the rest of the trip. I will be meeting up with friends while I am there and I will hopefully get to meet the twin daughters of one of them, because I haven’t met them yet, as they hadn’t been born yet, the last time I was over.

Miami will be the next stop. I will be taking a flight down there and spend most time there. I have never been there yet and so I don’t have a set idea yet what I will be doing there. I’ve found that I like keeping things simple when I travel and not plan ahead too much. So all I’ve arranged are my travel routes and hotels, but what I will be doing in each city is not set in stone.

Next, I’ll move on to Seattle. I know, not a short way to go, but I wanted to go somewhere differently and so Seattle came up. Again, no idea yet what I will be doing there, but I have a hotel in the city center, there seems to be a lot of live music around and hiking in the area. Plus I will be really close to Vancouver.

Which is why Vancouver will be my next destination. I have family who live there so I may try to meet up with them and I thought Vancouver would be a nice change up from the usual. It’s the reason why I decided to go to Seattle too: why go all the way to the other side of the continent and only be there for a few days. So I decided to combine the two and I have booked a train to get from Seattle to Vancouver.

Finally, I’ll go to Chicago. This will be a revisit as I was in Chicago in 2005. But I was there in March, during a blizzard. So yeah, I can’t wait to see this city with nicer weather. Again, no real plans here, but I already saw a lot of the museums there last time as it was too cold to roam the city. But I will definitely be doing the latter, not just in Chicago, but in every city.

So I don’t have any concrete plans apart from the first 2 days I will be away, but for the rest of this trip: no idea yet. I may want to go the Everglades and the Florida Keys when I am in Miami. In Seattle and Vancouver there will be whale watching and hiking and in Chicago I’m sure I’ll be able to keep myself entertained. I pretty much love walking around cities and just taking in the atmosphere so I will be doing plenty of walking too.

I will be traveling round all by myself for 21 days. I will most likely do some shopping, there will be plenty of food and I am sure it will be a blast. It isn’t the first time I’ve traveled by myself and it won’t be the first time I am traveling to the US. So I know what to expect and I just know this trip will be epic.

Do you have any travel plans for summer?