I vowed, after I retired, to travel more, and to relatively exotic places. I’ve managed to take a few good trips in the last few years, which I’ve documented here (Antarctica, the Galápagos, etc.), but Covid largely put the kibosh on travel. Now I’m ramping up again, and would like to crowdsource some travel destinations. Here’s my travel schedule for the time being, but two of the three trips are work-related:
May: Amsterdam and environs to give a talk and a separate interview/discussion. (one week)
August: South Africa to visit Capetown and then Kruger to see the animals (one month)
October: CSICon Conference in Las Vegas to give a talk (four days).
Two of these trips are work-related, but I take work trips only to nice places or alluring meetings, and it would be a pleasure for me to visit Amsterdam again as well as to go to the CSICon conference, the Skeptical Inquirer meeting. However, this still omits the longer and purely recreational trips I’d planned to take. Therefore here I’m asking readers to suggest destinations for me.
Here’s what I’m looking for:
- A trip of several weeks to a month
- A destination that’s not a place I’ve been before (yes, I’m sure nobody knows all the places I’ve seen, but many know of some)
- Some place that’s fairly exotic and not a classic tourist destination (i.e., Thailand compared to Italy). Examples: a few places I’ve contemplated include southeast Asia, the Yucatan, Argentina, and Australia (the last one seems to me to require a trip of several months, so I’ve shied away from Oz although it attracts me greatly). But that’s a very small sample.
- A place where I can travel independently as opposed to in a group. (Cruises are an exception if it’s to a place like Antarctica or the Arctic where you more or less need to travel in a group on a ship.)
- Ideally, it should have good (local) cuisine
I don’t require luxury as I travel not too differently from how I did when I was younger and penurious.
I’m no spring chicken, and so want to go to the “harder” destinations when I’m still relatively healthy. I’ve always feared that my greatest regret on my deathbed would be not to have experienced the diversity and glories of this planet, which is so varied, beautiful, and fascinating.
If you give suggestions, any other ancillary information (reasons why I should go, things to see, etc.) would be appreciated.
Thanks!
