As I mentioned in my opening post for the month, I have about 7 categories of trips in mind. The first one I’m going to talk about are trips that are “bundled” destinations that Andrea, Jacob and I are interested in. There are other destinations too, some even nearby, but we kind of see these as bundles we could do as a “grouped set of destinations”. The groupings are not in priority order, as you’ll see from the descriptions.

United Kingdom (4 weeks)

I think the first and most obvious bundle for me is the United Kingdom. Andrea’s uncle and aunt, plus cousins, live in England, and she visited London for a few days back in about 2005 or so as part of a work trip. Jacob and I have never been, and we are both interested. I confess my interest is more primarily London within England, although open to other areas around London. We could probably find enough to keep us busy for 10 days, easily. Various museums, parks, buildings, and perhaps some plays in the West End. Coming from a country where most of our historical sites only go back 200 years, a bigger history palette seems very attractive and interesting. We’re not going for the food or weather, obviously. 🙂

After that, I really want to do Scotland. My screensaver on my TV has shots of various Lochs for the Scottish Highlands, and every film I’ve ever seen with shots of Scotland are just breathtaking. I don’t really know much about Scotland, where I would want to go, how long I would want to be there, etc. Probably a week, or longer if we’re able to drive around the countryside and the coasts.

Andrea wants to do Ireland more than Scotland, Jacob wants to do both…but ultimately we all want to do all three. I’m open to other options too like the Isle of Man, Wales, anything else really. It would be a big trip, and it seems to make some sense to bundle it rather than a series of one-off trips to England, Scotland, etc. Call it another week in total to do the other destinations, about 4 in total.

Paris and friends (4 weeks)

This bundle is primarily Andrea’s bundle. I’ve been to Paris, spent time there for work on more than one occasion, it was nice. But I was also there by myself, and I’m not a great solo traveller when I’m also working. She wants to spend a bunch of time in Paris, which I’m okay to do with her, and it would be nice to share her excitement. The Louvre would be on the list, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, the Eiffel Tower, a cruise on the Seine perhaps. But for me, that’s probably only about 4-5 days. I like the idea of the Palace des Versailles, a bunch of WWI and II battlefields, Normandy and Juno Beach, etc. I read a book about the first Tour de France after WWI, so I do have SOME interest in the French countryside, but again, it is probably mostly Andrea that would be driving the desire for this bundle. If I seem negative, I don’t mean to do so. I’m sure I would enjoy it, it’s beautiful in photos, but nothing calls to me or resonates with me about France. There are river cruises that go through France, and Andrea might be interested to try one of those, helping us get around. I think another 10 days outside Paris, and that will mean about two weeks in total in France.

After France, Andrea also wants to do Switzerland. While I have been to Geneva, and wandered around a bit there and in the old city, I didn’t do much in Switzerland. I’m open to doing anything that she and Jacob want to do. Jacob is interested in Paris (above), but he is likely more interested in the Swiss Alps. He loves the idea of mountains. They resonate in his soul, calling to him regardless of how small or tall they are. The Alps will be like catnip. I can see us doing Geneva, some other stuff in the Alps, and perhaps a train to Zurich. I’m torn if it would be a full 7 days or only about 5 perhaps. We won’t know until we look at it for active planning, I think.

We were also thinking of adding Austria into this trip, primarily for Vienna. We could do a small detour to take in Munich, then back to hit Salzburg, as we make our way towards Vienna. I confess I know very little about Austria. Andrea loves the idea of Vienna, I would love some of the music centres, and Jacob is fascinated by the history in general of the area. I can’t say it would be a full 7 days again, but perhaps not far off that mark.

Overall, that might put us a bit under four full weeks, hard to say. And if for some reason we ever decided to do Austria as a one-off trip, maybe it might be just France and Switzerland. There are lots of bundled tours and other trips that have Vienna as part of them, so it might be met through another routing.

This would seem like a good bundle for Andrea to want to do as her first “travel” after she retires.

Germany and enemies (4-5 weeks)

Jacob is fascinated by European history, and particularly Germany in the 20th century. He has a huge interest, and I could see him easily doing 10 days in various parts of Germany without breaking a sweat coming up with places to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to cover Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremburg, Frankfurt, Cologne/Dusseldorf/Essen, Bremen, Hamburg, Leipzig & Dresden, and Potsdam. And that doesn’t even take us to Berlin yet. I have NO idea how he would narrow it down to all the places he wants to see, and if we leave it open to him, 3 weeks is not out of the realm of possibilities. He literally wants to see everything. Andrea and I would probably be okay with about a week. 🙂

Where it gets dicey is after Germany if we’re bundling other countries in. He definitely wants to do Poland. That is a no-brainer for him. Warsaw and Krakow would be obvious, and he can probably name another 5 that would interest him. Call it another 3-6 days, I would think. That might be low, but we’ll call it. Andrea and I would probably be okay with 2 days.

And Jacob thinks we should do Budapest on the same trip. He didn’t mention Bratislava or Kosice in Slovakia, maybe part of another trip. I have no real understanding of the rest of Hungary, he would definitely be the one driving the bus. For him, it’s probably a trip of a lifetime. It is definitely something for his bucket list. One of his possible school trips would include some of these destinations, might tick a box for part of it. But he’s definitely going to want to spend a lot of time, and not as part of an organized group. He’ll choose where he wants to go and it won’t be the obvious tourist traps. I’m excited and scared to have him lead us. Call it another 5-7 days.

Overall, I think we could squeeze it in and remain under 4w, but since it is Jacob’s bucket list trip, I think we’ll end up going over. Call it up to 5 weeks. I could easily see us doing this trip as an “end of high school” / “end of college/university” type trip for Jacob. Or he kicks Andrea and I to the curb, and does it himself as a semester abroad.

Scandinavia (3 weeks)

I have to confess, I have no real idea what this one looks like. We all love the idea of exploring Scandinavia, and we want to cover Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Beyond that? I don’t really know.

For me, it’s mainly about the coastlines. And so, it would seem a no-brainer to me to do a cruise. But, as I mentioned earlier, Andrea has no interest in ocean-based cruises. She might go for some river, Alaska, or Mediterranean options, but not much beyond that interests her.

So, this one will likely remain the least defined for me. Whatever Andrea and Jacob want to do, as long as I see fjords, I’ll be covered. I’m ballparking it at 3 weeks, but it could be plus or minus a week.

Vietnam and its neighbours (3 weeks)

We are all interested in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. The whole region, honestly, but we’d likely keep the bundle to this grouping.

The odd part about this region, though, is that I feel a lot more nervous for arrangements than anywhere else on the list and might want to join some sort of organized tour, where 90% of the arrangements are already built into the plan.

I suspect this option would be unlikely to rise to the list of priorities, so I’m not worried about it. Call it 3 weeks and leave it relatively undefined. If a tour comes up? We’ll consider it.

New Zealand and friends (3-5 weeks)

This one is perhaps the most contentious for scoping. We all generally agree that we could spend two weeks in New Zealand probably, and be good to go. Maybe evenly split, a week on each island.

Where it becomes problematic is how long we would spend in Australia. Andrea has already made a trip back when she was in university, and she joined her aunt and uncle, who were touring around. She thinks anything less than six weeks is too short for Australia. By contrast, I could probably do it in a week and be good. Jacob isn’t super excited either for a longer time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure more time in Australia would be great. I’d be happy to spend six months in Australia and New Zealand, maybe an entire year down under. But without an unlimited budget to do so, I don’t see that happening.

As much as we are excited about New Zealand, Andrea is not interested in only a short visit to Australia. For her, it’s a waste of time if you can’t do it “properly.” My suspicion is that means we probably won’t be able to go as a group, even though this would likely be my #2 priority overall for a bundled trip.

If the trip happened, I would love to add in some other destinations on the routing. Tasmania? Papua New Guinea perhaps? New Caledonia? Fiji would definitely be on the high-options list. Heck, I’d be willing to skip Australia to do a week in Fiji, where my friend is right now. Or French Polynesia. Let’s face it, any of the islands would make the list of possible “commuting” stops on the way to and from New Zealand. 🙂

If Jacob took care of the Germany bundle through school, I could see us perhaps doing this as a post-graduation / pre-Andrea retiring bundle that could go 5-6 weeks.

Okay, so I have six big bundles

While we have other trips in mind, some that might even go multiple weeks, none of these are the same types where we would be bundling multiple countries in the routing. There is nothing on our list to bundle in Africa or South America. I could see bundling a bunch of Caribbean countries if we were doing a cruise, but that’s not on the list. And there’s a potential for a Mediterranean cruise, although that interest is likely more about Greece than trying to merge multiple destinations.

Just for simple cost and logistics, I suspect we can do one bundle with Jacob before he graduates college or university and perhaps one bundle in our retirement i.e., after Andrea retires. The rest, we could tick off part of them as a one-off trip. For example, maybe we don’t do the France / Switzerland / Austria bundle; we just do 10 days in France. Or we don’t do the UK bundle; we just do a week in London and another trip another time for a week in Scotland.

Once we get to the stage where any of these are on our radar, I suspect we’ll pick one of the six to do and just blitz through for timing and what to do. We have good resources to chat with about destinations, once chosen. My niece Liz works for CAA on the travel side; my sister-in-law is now an expert in packaged tours having done a whack of them herself; Andrea’s parents have been doing a number of different trips in Europe, including some river cruises (which has sparked Andrea’s interest); and then there’s our friend Vivian. She has the travel bug, and is our “most-travelled” friend. She’ll be a great source of info, although her types of trips and level of effort on a given day will far surpass our approach. Oh, and Andrea has a friend who is a travel writer. That’s not a bad stash of friends and family to be able to pick their brains when we get there.

For now, the only real “to do” list item for me was to come up with the list itself. And, by the time of retirement, to pick which one of the bundles to actually do first.

Next up on the travel opportunities list later this week? The bonanza of single trip destinations that populate our potential “go to” list.

But enough about me…where would you like to go for a “bundled” trip?