Baby Boomer Traveling: What's next?

decorative use of Molcajete on a
building in San Antonio

That is the question of the moment: what's next? To be honest I had to think long and hard about that one. The world is a big place with endless possibilities of places to go, things to see & do, and most importantly exciting new adventures to experience.

With that being said, I had some decision making to do. I felt like I had to have a game plan so to speak for my blog. What direction would the blog take? Would travel be domestic (just the U.S.) or international? Would I keep writing with my own generation in mind? Or would I expand and include younger or older groups? Should I include more facts about costs, where to stay, where to eat? And finally should there be less writing and more pictures?

spring flowers in North Carolina

We've decided to incorporate some international traveling as time and money permit for us. We've tentatively scheduled a trip to Europe in Spring of 2013 for now. We hope to visit two different cities. Paris and Rome are the goal at this point. But we're going to continue to travel here in the U.S. and have several trips planned through the end of the year. I'm excited about those and looking forward to all of them.

Pink dogwood at a plantation
in Louisiana

Our first trip will be in May. We're going back to Louisiana as Dan wanted to see some of the plantations. That worked for me better than you can imagine. During our New Orleans trip we saw three plantations and I have a total of 3 pictures of them. I believe I called it disaster striking. What happened was one for the record books for me.

First up my memory card was full and couldn't hold any more pictures, so I started clearing space on it which then zapped my battery so even though I had some space for pictures I had no battery. That was my luck with the first two plantations, the third plantation I had a full battery, new 32 gb memory card and was ready to roll when the sky opened up and rain poured. I wouldn't even take my camera out under those circumstances. Good thing too, I was soaked through just going from the truck to the entrance to the plantation. So I'm hopeful with this next trip that we can see more of the plantations, I can get some great photos and since Dan and I will be spending a little just us time (we never include the poopies as extras) this trip will be very renewing and wonderful.

Adobe building from
New Mexico

June will bring us to a new locale neither of us has been to before. We're going to go to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. We hope to touch down and stay 6 days in San Juan, travel the island on Moped, visit the beach and check out the Rum distilleries as well as several historic buildings, homes, forts and who knows what else. I'm excited to see what the food will be like also. Maybe we can even do a little snorkeling, or at least I can. Dan's not much of a swimmer. Since we've never been there, we're open to suggestions from those of you who have been.

Fireworks in
Albuquerque

July will put us right back on the mainland visiting one of the birthplaces of this great country. We'll be in Boston and surrounding areas checking things out during during the first week of the month. How exciting to see the fireworks exploding over the bay. We hope to visit Concorde, Salem, Martha's Vineyard and many other places while we're there.

Capital Dome in
Atlanta, GA

August puts us back in our home in Tennessee with plans to visit Atlanta again. Only about 3 hours from our house to Atlanta. So much more to see that we didn't get the chance to last time. We also will spend some time at Biltmore in North Carolina which is about 1 1/2 hours from us. They have a wonderful concert series with some folks we might like to catch. Steve Miller Band, Peter Frampton, Chris Tomlin, and Foreigner are just some that will be playing at the amazing location. We're also thinking about Virginia. The Blue Ridge would be gorgeous will fall colors and we'd like to make historic Jamestowne and colonial Williamsburg destinations that we check out. Perhaps we'll have time to visit Lexington on this trip also. If not there's always Christmas for that.

But don't think that I won't also tell you about some new "one tank wonders" or stay-cation spots for us Texans. There will be plenty of them. I will continue giving you places and adventures right in our back yard. Every weekend that we are not traveling farther away, I will working on what is available for us close by. On my list: is Galveston after Hurricane Rita the same or better;

the Hill Country winery tour with a few other places thrown in for good measure;

Padre Island National Seashore for great places to spend a weekend on the beach;

South Austin for a quirky and fun day trip;

Fort Davis and the mountains of west Texas;

East Texas towns to visit;

and much more.