Vacation, all I ever wanted

I write this to you from the late-sun-drenched porch of a blue-shuttered white bungalow on the shore of Pleasure Bay in Stone Harbour, New Jersey. I took two days off this week to come up here with Amanda to her family's beach house, and I am utterly relaxed. We've beached, we've biked, we've beered, I slept 10 hours last night. In a word, vacation.

I realized the other day that if I don't have to use any other days for random occurences, I'll have 5 or so days left of vacation between now and the end of of 2012, so I've been plotting ways to use them. A yoga retreat in Costa Rica? Camping in West Virginia? A jaunt to Chicago? I definitely want to use these days, because if I don't before the end of the year, they go poof.

So I turn towards crowd-sourcing for vacation ideas. Requirements: It has to happen between October 8 (after my marathon) and early November, or after November 12, but before Thanksgiving (November 11 is the wedding of a dear friend in Austin, Texas, which I'm pretty psyched for. I'll be there for a couple of days before the wedding if anybody wants to hang ). I will also probably be doing the traveling solo, so somewhere that's welcoming to solo female travelers would be good (I'd love to do the aforementioned yoga retreat, but most yoga retreats in 2012 are in December, and my company has a vacation blackout between Thanksgiving and December 20). August is out as I'll be in Glacier for a big chunk then, though I could do late July/early August, I suppose.

That's pretty limiting! But I'm hoping somebody out there has a brilliant idea. Where would you go?

*Any typos in this post brought to you by two glasses of prosecco

Comments

[Brian]

Costa Rica surf vacation?

Or, have you ever been to Patagonia? I'm told Springtime in Argentina can be pretty nice.

Closer to the States... I spent a week in Tahoe/Nappa/San Francisco in October once and it was an amazing time of year to visit.

[Matt F]

Great Smoky Mountains National Park! It's a beautiful section of the AT, takes 5-7 days to hike, and the leaves will be changing color right around then. There's an airport about an hour away, and a bunch of companies offer shuttle services to hikers.

[Arlene]

I've thought a lot about this and if I had the same time off during the same time of year and would be traveling alone I'd probably go to Ireland. It's relatively close in terms of flight, it's small so easy to travel through, I wouldn't have to worry about a language barrier and it strikes me as a relatively safe place for a solo female traveler. I see myself popping into pubs to read books and drink whiskey all day or taking a bus to small villages out in the country and hike or bike around the hills and quote Yeats like a doof. IRELAND! It's what's for dinner.