Italy
Day 1 Arrived in Rome, enjoyed walking around all day, Trevi Fountain, Piazzo Navonna
Day 2 Pantheon and then walked over to the Spanish Steps, shopping, back to the hotel and then took teenage DD to thrifts store south of Piazzo Navona
Day 3 Did a guided tour of the Colleseum and Roman Forum so we could also see the underground area, walked back and walked around the Prati
Day 4 Vatican City, Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel, wish we would have booked a tour through St Peter’s but next time,, walked back
Day 5 took the train to Venice, enjoyed walking around everywhere , stayed near St Marks
Day 6 went to Rialto market (was much smaller than I remember) , took the water bus to Murano, went through the glass shops and factories
Day 7 was going to go to Burano but there were thunderstorms so we stayed in Venice walking around and shopping with umbrellas

A lot of our walking around includes hanging out in cafes or restaurants and just exploring which is my favorite part of the trips. Weather was great, food was amazing.

Paperwork for airplanes, connections, worry about Covid test coming up positive really sucked.

Rio Mar - The first one was on the beach, great pool. Unit was a little run down. When we came in there was standing water on the floor from a leak in the laundry. Luckily my husband is handy. Figured out where the leak was coming from. It smelled moldy and musty. Just generally needed an upgrade. But the porch, beach access and pool made up for it.

Cabo Rojo - what can I say about this. The pictures made it seem new and described it that way. Clearly it was older. The neighborhood was ok, but behind it there was some sort of situation with roosters that got up at 6am. Then the birds started. Then the dogs started. It was a lot for us, but others might be fine. Keep in mind, roosters are everywhere so not much you can do in that area. Had a solar hot water heater - never worked so cold showers. Then there was a power outage - 36 hours with no power or water. Owner never called or texted to check on us. There was no generator or backup water supply. So I would never go back there.

Love this thread

Anonymous wrote:PR poster. Umm not the Vrbos we stayed at But highly recommend the Rio Mar area as a base. Look at the Wyndham (can do vrbos or airbnbs there) or El Conquistador for resorts. Our vrbo was on the beach right by the Wyndham. If you can find a nice one there, it is a sweet location. Quiet, beach access (can be rough), but easy to get to El Yunque, tours out of Fajardo.
Cabo Rojo is nice, but really quiet. We liked that. It is def a much poorer area. You can access Rincon from there. I might suggest staying up in Rincon and then doing an easy day trip to the beaches in Cabo Rojo. Rincon seemed nicer.
San Juan had some amazing resort hotels. We visited the Marriott on Ashford and loved it. I am sure others have tips for hotels in San Juan.

What didn't you like about your particular VRBO?

PR poster. Umm not the Vrbos we stayed at But highly recommend the Rio Mar area as a base. Look at the Wyndham (can do vrbos or airbnbs there) or El Conquistador for resorts. Our vrbo was on the beach right by the Wyndham. If you can find a nice one there, it is a sweet location. Quiet, beach access (can be rough), but easy to get to El Yunque, tours out of Fajardo.
Cabo Rojo is nice, but really quiet. We liked that. It is def a much poorer area. You can access Rincon from there. I might suggest staying up in Rincon and then doing an easy day trip to the beaches in Cabo Rojo. Rincon seemed nicer.
San Juan had some amazing resort hotels. We visited the Marriott on Ashford and loved it. I am sure others have tips for hotels in San Juan.

Anonymous wrote:We went to Puerto Rico. It was amazing. Visited Rio Mar/El Yunque, Culebra (the highlight), Condado, and Cabo Rojo/Rincon. We had 36 hours without power in Cabo Rojo. Not ideal for lodging, but didn't impact the activities that we did. Highly recommend the trip for active, adventurous families. It is an amazing place.
No problems flying at all. Took Southwest from BWI - non-stop to San Juan. But I felt for anyone flying Jet Blue or Spirit. That looked horrible - cancellations and delays.

Any recommendations for places to stay please?

Anna Maria Island.

Would definitely repeat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We drove to Cherry Grove Beach, SC where we rented an Airbnb in a quiet residential neighborhood. The house was on a canal and one block from the beach. We went kayaking, played mini golf, and enjoyed long walks on the beach.

It was a very relaxing week. We didn’t want to deal with the hassle of air travel.

We are in Cherry Grove Beach now. It's been warm enough. Very relaxing.

Is the ocean warm enough to swim?

We also went to Arizona and it was awesome. Great weather. Flights were on time. Only thing that went wrong was that we waited in line 4 HOURS for our rental car at the Phoenix airport. 1.5 hr wait inside the car rental building and then when we went down to the garage to get our car, there was a 2.5 hour wait in the garage!! We waited all that time w little to no communication from Dollar/Thrifty/Hertz employees and we were worried we wouldn’t even wind up getting a car at all. They were SO incompetent it was ridiculous. Still don’t know what the hold up was but sounds like a PP had a similar experience.

But our trip was wonderful and I’d love to do it again: hiking in the morning, pool in the afternoon, great food.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sedona, Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Page, and a Diamondbacks game.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to Page and my personal opinion is to do GC for no more than a day (really, a few hours), if not doing more than the Rim Trail. We loved renting e-bikes and biking through Zion, stopping to do hikes as we pleased. We also loved Bryce. Another really fun thing we did was doing a ATV ride to a slot canyon.

Can you detail your itinerary? Considering similar for 2023.

Sure! Keep in mind that we’re not hikers so we did the highlights tour rather than go in-depth at fewer places.

Day 1- arrived in Phoenix in the evening (turned into the early morning the following day with flight and car rental delays!); overnighted at airport hotel.
Day 2- drove to Flagstaff and walked around.
Day 3- Montezuma’s Castle and three hour kayak trip down the Verde River near Sedona (highly recommend!)
Day 4- Doe Mountain trail in Sedona and then drive to the Grand Canyon. Walked the Rim Trail.
Day 5- walked some more at GC and drove the Desert View drive on the way to Zion.
Day 6- rented e-bikes at Zion (highly recommend as well) and hiked a small trail. Lunch outside the park and then went back in to walk the Parus Trail.
Day 7- drove to Bryce and hiked two trails. Astronomy tour at night; very fun- my kids liked it a lot- but it did get very cold.
Day 8- drove to Kanab to do sand sledding at Pink Coral Sands State Park. I would absolutely skip this, as my kids didn’t find it nearly as fun as we thought they we like. Took a tour of Peek-A-Boo slot canyon which was amazing and included a very fun ATV a ride to the canyon. Then drove to Page, AZ to visit Horseshoe Bend. We were unable to get kayaking booked so we just used it as a stopping point on the way back to Phoenix. I’d say it was lovely to look at during sunset but it was also filled with gnat swarms that made it unpleasant.
Day 9- drove back to Phoenix and went to a Diamondbacks game.
Day 10- early flight home!

The national parks pass was invaluable as were hiking shoes and camelbacks!

Anonymous wrote:Medellin. Awesome trip, so much to see, learn and do. From museums to aerial gondolas to coffee tours and Guatape, Amazing.

How old are your kids? Did they have fun? I'm looking for ideas for this summer since we are rethinking our plans.

California, which included 4 nights in the Bay Area (explored SF, Muir Woods, visited with family) and 1 night in Laguna Beach, and 3 days at Disney. Visited w/family and friends in SoCal, too. Totally not relaxing but we had a great time. No COVID.

Anonymous wrote:Went to Sedona too. WAs packed but loved it so much going back in July. Great hiking. Should be less people in the dead of summer.
Heading to Europe this summer and dreading the paperwork leaving and coming back.

Yeah Europe is just not in the cards for us this year . The hassle of getting in, the worry of getting back out if you hit an asymptomatic positive … maybe 2023.

Anonymous wrote:We drove to Cherry Grove Beach, SC where we rented an Airbnb in a quiet residential neighborhood. The house was on a canal and one block from the beach. We went kayaking, played mini golf, and enjoyed long walks on the beach.

It was a very relaxing week. We didn’t want to deal with the hassle of air travel.

We are in Cherry Grove Beach now. It's been warm enough. Very relaxing.

We drove to Cherry Grove Beach, SC where we rented an Airbnb in a quiet residential neighborhood. The house was on a canal and one block from the beach. We went kayaking, played mini golf, and enjoyed long walks on the beach.

It was a very relaxing week. We didn’t want to deal with the hassle of air travel.