Favorite Place on Earth to Visit?

[Josh]

So, guys, what are your top favorite places on earth? Or what places that you've haven't visited are you really interested in experiencing?

[Josh]

Favorite place in North America:
Banff and Jasper, Alberta, Canada, for their natural beauty

Favorite places in Oregon (in order)
1.The Wallowa valley and adjacent Eagle Cap Wilderness
2. Mt. Jefferson and Jefferson Park
3.Cannon Beach (I know it's trendy, but I still like it)
4. Hood River

Favorite places in Europe:
1. Oxford, because I'm a sick anglophile and I love the thoughtful gloominess of the English countryside
2. Rome and the Cinque Terre coastline

Place I'd most like to visit:
1. The Holy Land

[michelle]

Favorite Places I've Been:

1) Crater Lake - when everything is covered in snow and I've ridden up on the ridge opposite the lodge. It's breathtaking.
2) Makena Beach in Maui - warm, crystal clear water, the almost white sand and not a building in sight.
3) Turtle Bay in Maui - there is no experience I've had quite like swimming with 100 + year old animals.
4) San Francisco - I never get tired of visiting San Francisco. It has such charm to it and I love it there, though I don't think I'd ever want to live there.

Favority Places I've Never Been:

1) All the museums in Europe - if I had a wad of time and money, I'd take a tour of a bunch of museums in Europe.
2) Thailand - I don't know why, but I've always wanted to go to Thailand.
3) Spain - I'd love to travel all over Spain.
4) I realized a year after I posted this the first time that I never said MOST OF AFRICA...geez, where was my head. Actually, that would be #1.

[rose]

Wow! I love travelling and wish I could do it more! I guess I'd say the best place I've been is Vernazza, in Cinque Terre, Italy. We have a picture of it in our family room and I just love looking down onto the little village built into the mountain/cliff overlooking the Meditteranean Sea. We were only there a few days but it was well worth it.

My 2nd favorite would have to be Rome. I love the architecture and history that this amazing city has to offer. I would love to go back for a longer stay.

My 3rd favorite is Venice, also in Italy. Do you begin to see a pattern here? I was much younger when I went to Venice, but I was so intrigued by a city built over the water! Yes, I know, it's a dirty city with lots of garbage floating around. But you just can't get away from the Italian charm of Venice!

Ok, so it seems that I LOVE Italy! Yes, you figured it out. I even tried to get Josh to agree to move there for a year, pre-kids, to experience it more fully...to no avail. Oh well.

These are the places I'm dying to visit...

1. Spain - any parts, but specifically Barcelona
2. Greece - the mainland and the islands, specifically Mekenos
3. New York City & Washington D.C. & Boston- I guess if I can't go to Europe, I'd at least like to visit the east coast.
4. New Zealand - I have always had a thing for this country (along with Australia). It just seems to beautiful.
5. Ireland - I've always had a thing for this country as well.
6. Banff/Jasper - Josh has shown me some amazing pictures of this part of the world, and it just seems breathtaking! So I'd like to go there too!

I need to find out how I can become one of those people who travel the world and then tell about it on the travel channel. Now that's a job!

[elizabeth]

Places I've been:

1.)Santa Cruz, California. LOVE IT. Sandy beach board walk, Sea lions under the dock, Warm weather.

2.)Skagit Valley, Washington. Home of the Tulip Festival.

3.)Mi-Wuk Village, California. Large redwoods, forest, and good memories.

4.) Oregon, Washington and California's Coast. Just something about the Ocean in general.

Places that I haven't been

1.) Ireland & Scotland. My heritage

2.) Formally Yugoslavia. Again, heritage, curious to see if I look like them?

3.) Italy. Coffee, warm weather beautiful ocean, I would love to see it for myself.

[aimee]

I have to agree with Michelle on Crater Lake in the snow... I cut my teeth on cross country skiing there and it is the most lovely place I've been in the winter, the snow gets so deep there and the trees look like little icecream cones upsidedown. All that white looks really neat against the blue of the lake.

I agree with San Francisco as well During our college days Alex and I once took an impromtu road trip there with some friends, it was lovely The moon was red that night (or perhaps it was the sunrise) through the clouds and haze and the sweet warm air.

Another one I have to add is Cape Perpetua...(especially the look-out) It is so awesome to go there and look out at the boundless/fearsome/awsome sea... I once went on my own during a wind storm and the rain was hitting the cape so hard it was driving up into the sky, it seemed so wild and free.

Places to visit:
-Egypt
-Ireland & Scotland
-Germany
-Maine
-Oxford
-Wherever it is that those cool pictures of white domed villages against the azure blue, blue sea are taken....
-The Amazon Jungle (like in The Medicine Man, I would love to belay through the trees on rope systems like they did!) o.k. so it's a pipe-dream but I can dream can't I??

[Josh]

Anyone else have some favorites?

[sonlyte]

Favorite Places I have been:
Cannon beach at night in a storm (there has to be a storm)
Most of the island of kauai
Grand Canyon (bright angel creek trail)
Yosemite, just about everywhere

Places I would like to see:
Angel falls
underwater caves in Mexico
The himalayan mountains
Mouth of the amazon river
South Pole, in summer
Top of Half Dome, Yosemite

[Josh]

Sonlyte,

So, we were in Kauai once. Rose and I tried to go on a hike with Justus but got stuck in the mud. I really wanted to go further on the trail because I guess the valley we were trying to get to had unique species found nowhere else on earth, etc...

I think perhaps we were just there in the wrong season.

The drive up there was super beautiful, tho.

[Josh]

Hey Mo I'm curious what your favorite places in Europe are?

Amy, what are the favorite places you've been to or would like to visit?

BTW, I'm going to add New Zealand as a place I'd most like to visit along with the Holy Land.

[Margot]

So many places, so little time
Favorite places on Earth, in no particular order:
In the U.S.:
Capitola, California (just outside of Santa Cruz, with beaches that are sunny, NOT hot, and great people.)
Vermont (because it's almost as good as Oregon,)
San Francisco, California, (because I was born and raised there and it is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.)
Aiken, North Carolina
Forest Grove, OR ;D

In Europe:
The countryside just outside Grindelwald, Switzerland (kind of like stepping onto a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate.)
The entire UK, but especially Oxford, Edinburgh, Wales and the Lake District.
All of Austria, especially Vienna

Places I'd like to see??
New Zealand, Nova Scotia, New York City and, most of all, Ireland!!!!!!!

[Josh]

Margot,
What were your favorite places in Oxford? Did Paul ever tell you about our similar experiences there? (especially at the Kilns)

[michelle]

Oooh, Margot a woman after my own heart. I agree that San Francisco one of the most beautiful cities. I love the architecture there. I actually really wanted to go to college there at USF, but my parents said if I went to school there, they wouldn't help me pay for college. I think they were afraid I'd become a lesbian or something.

[krhagan19]

Favorite Places I have been:
Wallowa Valley, Lake, and Eaglecap
Carlsbad Caverns
Las Vegas
Mesa Verde
Disneyland/World
Victoria
Asheville, NC (Biltmore Estate)
Places I want to Go:
All of Western Europe and Scandinavia
Machu Piccu
Christchurch, NZ
Victoria Falls
Egypt
Holy Land
and if I make it big
Outerspace (be it on a Virgin Galactic sub orbital flight, to a space station or even a possible retirement on the Moon or a Mars in the process of being Terraformed.

[Josh]

Another Wallowas fan!

[krhagan19]

Yeah, personal story, My Grandmother on my moms side grew up in that area. We scattered her ashes into a creek way up in the Wallowas. It will always be a special place to me.