Rose Brooks

Episode 5 – Where we’ve been and where we’re (hopefully!) going

Lest you think we’ve just sat on our backsides for 40 years, rest assured our travel bug has not gone totally unfed.

It’s just that travelling while raising a family, for us anyway, needed to be economical, which generally meant road trips and definitely meant staying in North America. Ted and I went to Europe for the first time for our 35th anniversary, unleashing a monster (me!) who now wants to range much further.

Of course, we’ll still be spending time in Canada and the U.S. There’s lots to see in our own amazing country…. and we need to be here for a portion of each year to keep our health insurance valid.

“Been there, done that” (but happy to go back!)

  • Victoria, Ucluelet, Tofino, Duncan, Qualicum Beach, Chemainus, Port Alberni, Vancouver and Whistler in B.C.
Ted at the top of Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler
  • Halifax, St. John’s, Digby and the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia
  • Fredericton, New Brunswick
  • Kissimmee (Walt Disney World) and Cape Kennedy in Florida
  • San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco in California
  • Amish Country and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania
  • Williamsburg, Richmond, Norfolk, Virginia Beach and the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia
  • The Berkshires and Cape Cod, Massachusetts
  • Washington, D.C.
  • New Bern and Atlantic Beach, North Carolina
  • Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head, South Carolina
  • Branson, Missouri
  • New York City and Corning, New York
Dinner at Sardi’s
  • Nashville, Tennessee
Outside the Wildhorse Saloon in Nashville. Yeehaw!
  • Sedona, Arizona
  • Amsterdam, Netherlands
  • Bremen, Berlin and Munich, Germany
  • Budapest, Hungary
Arriving in Budapest at night along the Danube
  • Köln (Cologne), Nuremberg, Wurzburg, Rothenburg, Koblenz, Bamberg, Regensburg, Passau and Durnstein Germany
The locks on the Rhine were so narrow that we could touch the sides while standing on the balcony of our Viking longship
  • Vienna and Salzburg, Austria
Salzburg, with the Festung on the hill in the background
A typical Viennese coffee break at Cafe Mozart
  • London and the Cotswolds in England
Standing silent guard at Windsor Castle

Our initial wish list for the next 10 years includes Italy, Portugal, Spain, more of Germany and Austria, more of England, Scotland (the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo!), more of the U.S., Mexico, Ecuador, and New Zealand…but the more we look, the longer our list gets.

For our Canadian summers, the east and west coasts both beckon, and of course we will need to spend time close to our kids in Ontario. It’s not just health insurance that brings us back here!

My next blog will talk a bit about how we choose where to go and where to stay once we get there. (And yes, once we get going I will start to blog about food, activities and shopping too!)

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