Need travel ideas - flying from Boston

[donthasslethehoff]

My husband and I are trying to plan a vacation towards the end of June or end of July. We'd be flying from Boston. We're open to pretty much everything, except we don't want to go anywhere we've been before. We're likely going to fly out on a Wednesday night and go for 4-5 nights, so likely come home Monday or Tuesday of the following week. If we go to and island, we'd want an AI.

Places that we either don't want to go or have been before include: All of the USVI, BVI, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Europe (we've been before and 4-5 nights is entirely too short a time to be there), Jamaica, DR, Mexico, and Florida.

We're looking for something somewhat budget friendly - trying to keep it all within $3-4K for the 2 of us.

One of my ideas include going somewhere in California that we can reach both decent breweries and wineries. If we did something like this, is 5 nights too short?

[anna7602]

Flights to the Azores from Boston are pretty reasonably-priced and you would spend less time in flight than to California. I believe the same can be said for Iceland.

These are two on my "want to go soon" list. While I've done some research, I haven't actually been to either yet.

Every time I try to plan a trip to California, I find it being way more expensive than a trip to Europe or Latin America once you factor in car rentals and hotels.

[donthasslethehoff]

Azores didn't even cross my mind, actually! I have the same thoughts about California. I automatically think it will be cheap/quick to get to since it's in the US, and my guess is that once I actually sit down and try to plan something it's going to be longer/more expensive than what I was originally thinking.

Ideal California trip would include a couple nights in Napa to visit wineries and some breweries and then a drive (or quick flight) up to Portland. I am not sure we could do everything we wanted to go though in only 5 nights.

[mdgirl]

If you're interested in flying from the Napa area to Portland, Alaska Airlines flies that route out of Santa Rosa. There aren't many flights a day, but if you're already up there it would be way faster than going back to Oakland or SFO. Just something to keep in mind!

[Deleted]

I think you can go to London in about 5 hours from the east coast.

[frlcb]

I was going to say Dublin or Iceland.

[alleinesein]

Feb 24, 2014 10:23:55 GMT -5 donthasslethehoff said:

My husband and I are trying to plan a vacation towards the end of June or end of July. We'd be flying from Boston. We're open to pretty much everything, except we don't want to go anywhere we've been before. We're likely going to fly out on a Wednesday night and go for 4-5 nights, so likely come home Monday or Tuesday of the following week. If we go to and island, we'd want an AI.

Places that we either don't want to go or have been before include: All of the USVI, BVI, Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Europe (we've been before and 4-5 nights is entirely too short a time to be there), Jamaica, DR, Mexico, and Florida.

We're looking for something somewhat budget friendly - trying to keep it all within $3-4K for the 2 of us.

One of my ideas include going somewhere in California that we can reach both decent breweries and wineries. If we did something like this, is 5 nights too short?

San Diego/San Diego County

Wineries- we have a few in San Diego County proper and Temecula Wine Country is about an hour north of downtown SD.

Breweries- 74 at last count. www.drinkupsandiego.com/sandiegobreweries.html

There are quite a few companies that have tour packages for beer and wine tasting.  That way you can enjoy and not have to worry about driving.

[scout8]

What about somewhere in Central America?

[Vespasia]

SATA flies direct from Boston to the Azores and it's very inexpensive. Food and lodging seem to be pretty reasonable once you get there too. They don't have AIs that I am aware of but you could rent an apartment for a very reasonable amount. I have been doing research for a potential trip and I'd be happy to send you the links I've collected if you decide to go that route.

[monsterz]

Cape Breton or Nova Scotia in general. I am not sure if they still do the overnight ferry from NH, I did that years ago.

Yellowstone and Grand Tetons national parks.

[Vespasia]

I'll send them along this evening!

We were planning a little over a week but that was figuring in a lot of time to just relax. If you stayed on one island it could easily be done in a 4-5 day trip. I've also thought about doing 10 or so days split between Portugal and the Azores since the airline has cheap flights to Lisbon, connecting in the Azores. I'd suggest checking out the SATA website to see which days of the week they actually fly depending on when you want to go. It varies from 3-5 days a week I think, depending on how busy a time of year it is for tourism.

I'd really love to go in May, as that seems to be peak whale watching season. The weather seem pretty temperate year round but it seems like it can vary a lot throughout the day.

I've become a bit obsessed with going here and I'm really disappointed that it's not going to work out for our yearly trip.  

[anasara]

Iceland might be a good fit.  We did 3 days there on our way to France in May 2012.  Gorgeous place!  Of course we didn't get to see everything we'd have liked to but had a blast (except for the food; challenging being a vegetarian).  It's only a 4-5 hr flight & Icelandair has packages you can do if you don't want to explore on your own like we did.