Wanderlust

My travel shelf

I'm thinking about a trip. Once again, like the old days, on my own. Which is fine. Go where I want, when I want, and do what I want. Turn around and double-back 30 miles to check out that scenic overlooked you carelessly skipped? No problem! No one to yell at you or complain.

So I've been thinking about my options. The first things that occurred to me are two discarded itineraries from the past. First is fall in New England. Fly into New York, stay a night at my sister's and hang in Manhattan, then get in a car and wander up the Hudson Valley, cross over to Vermont, head up through the Green Mountains, get to the top, then turn around and head back down through New Hampshire and the White Mountains. And do it all from Monday to Friday to minimize crowds and save money on off-night lodging.

The other one is New Mexico. Open-jaw flight, arriving in Albuquerque, doing Santa Fe and Taos, then heading over to the Four Corners. Hit the natural wonders and Indian reservations, particularly the Hopi pueblos, which are set on three giant mesas above the desert in Northeast Arizona. From there, head down through Sedona and fly back out of Phoenix.

But for some reason these trips aren't really tugging at me. I know part of the reason they came to mind, in addition to being pre-planned, is that they knock off two states (Vermont and New Mexico) I haven't yet been to. I've got just six to go.

So now I'm thinking ... London. A giant hole in my travel history. I've been to Bratislava, Slovakia and Zaanvordt, Netherlands and Zaragoza, Spain -- places where probably fewer than one percent of Americans have been to -- and I've never been to London. Or Rome, for that matter.

But I hadn't priced international travel for a while and was shocked that taxes and charges pretty much double the airfare. Insane. And, of course, London's ridiculously expensive. Another itinerary on my agenda is open-jaw to Lisbon, where I'd get a car, head up to Bilbao, through the Pyrenees, southern France, the Cinque Terra in Italy and finally end up in Rome, where I fly back. But that's a two-week trip, or 10 days, minimum. And similarly expensive for these precarious times.

So more research is required. But September/October is the time. Great months to travel -- off-peak, fewer people, fewer kids.

Oh and Japan. That's another one ...