Trip Planning: Spring Travel & Fall Travel

This spring I'm going on a trip with friends to North Carolina. It will be my 3rd time there (beyond the airport). I've spent a lot of time in Lexington NC and also Chapel Hill for work. I no longer travel really all that much for work so it's a treat to plan trips for fun.

I scored tickets on JetBlue for only $11 (used some JetBlue points!). I only keep frequent flyer points on Virgin America and JetBlue as it's hard for me to fly any other airline in the US. Outside of the US I'm pretty unbiased. I love non-USA airlines. I also got a free ticket to use for the fall trip--road trip for 10 days with my hubby in CO and UT. That will be my 3rd trip to CO and my first to UT (beyond the airport of course).

So it's fun at this point to dream about hiking in a tee shirt. It's fun to think about hiking in boots that are not snow boots. There's still several feet of snow at our home in Maine and the ice is still 18-24" thick in town at our friend's lakes. There was an ice fishing derby this past weekend.

I'm curious what trips you folks are planning for 2015? Are you like me and not really doing much work travel? I used to do work travel 3 months in the spring and 3 months in the fall so it was a lot. I was a bit of a road warrior and I do MISS it with all my heart and soul. I'm a bit of a nomad at heart. A nomad with roots. A nomad divided between MA and Maine (happily).

Here's what I'm thinking about today (below photo). Asheville, North Carolina. The mountains. Fresh air that is not recycled through a tired HVAC system. Cool breezes. Wearing my cowboy boots for a night out on the town. And maybe some magic on the trails. Spotting animal tracks or sharing a lovely lunch packed for a hike with friends.

Help Planning Germany Trip?

So here's what I have so far:

1. Sept 13 fly to Frankfurt via KEF, Iceland. Breakfast in Iceland (win!) and lunch in Germany (woo!)
2. Sept 14 is when we land in Frankfurt.
1. I need a suggestion of a hotel in Frankfurt
2. I need to know how to get to the train to Dusseldorf that will take us to Berlin
3. We plan on renting a car in Berlin and heading south.
4. We already have a hotel booked (and paid for) in Munich for Oktoberfest. So that's 3 days, two nights of 'fest (and you can walk to a castle from our hotel and it has free parking and free SKY TV so...that's cool (TV in English without subtitles).
5. I'd really like some suggestions on hiking, breweries to see on the way south to Munich.

Flying out of Frankfurt on the 24th of September, it leaves in the afternoon and gets in to Boston for 6:30pm the same day.

Thanks for any help you can provide! For those of you that have been...I'd love to hear from you!

We've rented cars in Europe 4 times before so it's not a big deal to us (only in Scotland where it was a standard and you had to shift with your left hand--yikes).
(photo source, Lonely Planet, click for page)

Reverb11, Day 15: Procrastinate

That's right. Too funny that weeks ago when I made my Reverb word list this word ended up on today.

I have yet to do my Christmas cards. I have yet to bake the breads for my co-workers. The holiday shopping has been done for weeks (so that I did not hold off on).

So...the word is perfect for me today because co-workers are leaving for vacation and I did not get their bread made. The cards I'll do this weekend (see, I'm procrastinating with that right there).


I'm a great procrastinator. Sometimes things happen quickly. This year I drove around with a busted (but patched radiator) to not only save $ but to also see how long I could go around like that. I drove with a busted AC and just started to sweat part-way home each night after work (this was mid-summer). In the end, we sold that Jeep in August after adding up all the repair costs (she was about to turn 10...our Audi turned 10 and it was one thing after the other so we learned that lesson well).

I'm really good at putting off things until the next day (laundry, dishes) and saving work tasks until day's end (difficult client calls). Tasks I enjoy doing (planning a trip for work or for fun) get done right away. It's fun to find the best deal and start to plan a trip. For our Iceland trip this past September I planned it all by January 16, 2011. By doing so I took advantage of a 50% off hotel rate special that was in early January. I booked the hotels, planned the route, and put the trip aside (waited on buying the airfare).

This coming June my family will be heading to Canada. The Canada book is already on the coffee table with pages folded down. So give me a task like trip-planning and I'm all over it.

What was it during 2011 that you put off doing? Was it looking for a new job or losing that pesky 10 lbs? Was it researching colleges with your teenager (because the longer you put it off the crazy price tag goes down, right?) Or was it just little things...as I mentioned above.

This is my book: