How do you Vacation in the U.S./Canada? tell the Aussie

I'd love to learn more about all of you in North America, I'm certainly learning lots about your fine cars. Please tell me what you like to do for your holidays / vacation.
What you like to do to unwind?
What time of the year is best for you?
Where are your favourite places?
Do you like to fish? Hunt? etc
Please anything you wish to share, I'm happy to hear!!

 

I have a place on Lake of the Woods, a cottage, or "camp" as we used to call it in the old days. My family had a commercial fishing licence there back when.
We take a boat about 8 miles to get there. Time is spent maintaining the property, fishing, barbecue, scrabble tournaments, and getting laid. Not necessarily in that order.
Many, many (thousands) people make the weekend drive "out to the cottage", and in most cases these places are second homes, completely functional all seasons, including the winter.

 

Americans love their time off. Lots can usually get an extra day off on occasion to stretch the weekend out.

Some like resort-type vacations - hotels / spas, etc. Others like the great outdoors. This can be anything from tent camping, all the way up to 40 foot (or larger) motorhomes. (The more expensive and larger units are usually confined to private "RV Parks" with all the amenities - rec room, pool, other outdoor activities, etc. Smaller motorhomes and travel trailers can use the state or U.S. government-owned park campgrounds.

Some folks like boating or all-terrain vehicles dune buggies or small 4-wheeled ride-on ATV's. They go to places that have large sand dunes to ride on.

Some people like ocean cruises - here on the west coast, we can take 3-8 day cruises to Mexico, or fly up to Portland or Vancouver and take an Alaskan cruise.

Then there's Hawaii..................(been there twice).

Some adventurous (sp) types even set up 'theme' vacations. For example, those that enjoy baseball travel around and visit ballparks in different cities. you can take a 'historical' vacation, visiting landmarks (mostly on east coast) in our nation's history. That could include Washington D.C. and all the monuments there, Gettysburg (civil war battle location), etc.

...And not to forget mentioning all the 'theme' parks like Disney World, etc.........There's a lot of them all over.......

Time and budget are your only limitations.

As to when we do all this stuff? Practically anytime. The weather in the southern regions is good most of the year. Otherwise, you can go anywhere, including Alaska, in the summer months - June - September.


What do you Aussies do?

Marshall

 

My last get-away was a long weekend in Naples Florida. I flew down to see a buddy who retired early there. Walked the beach every morning. Went into town for lunch. Talked him into buying a NEW 2009 Dodge Challenger RT. The next day he let me drive the new Challenger to Sanibel Island where we had lunch. Flew back to Connecticut the next day.

Past vacations?

Scottsdale Arizona- toured some great junkyards!

San Fransisco- Did the Alcatraz Island tour.

Los Angeles - Stayed on the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

Orlando Florida - Universal studios and Epcot.

Daytona Beach Florida - Drove the beach!

Spent a week in London England.

Spent a week in Rome and Florence Italy too.

Whale watching off of Cape Cod Massachusetts.

Sightseeing in Boston and New York City of course.

There is so much more to see just here in the States. I'd love to drive some of old Route 66 and see the country.

 

I will discover that myself by going for a road trip by the end of this month. More or less this will be the route I will be traveling:


LA/Monterey area/San Fransisco/Yosemite/Death Valley/Las Vegas/Few UT parks/Moab/Colorado Springs (for the Buick Nationals ) /Grand Canyon/Lake Havasu/San Diego and finish in LA again to have the car (1971 Buick Electra) transported to Europe;

 

Had the chance to drive one of the oldest parts of the route in MO when I was there for my job last May:

Near Devil's Elbow Waynesville, MO:

 

I was born in Canada's French province (state) and raised across Canada almost from birth. My dad was a WWII air-gunner and like most post-war Airmen, got the pick of the jobs, so he got into project management, running major construction projects. Being bilingual, he could go anywhere, and we did. I got the travel bug to see the country from all 3 coasts (Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic).

Then when I joined the Army (ROTC), our training was close to the US Border, and we'd get into one of our cars and hit the US freeways. Back at home, after the Army, the whole family travelled to Florida, from Canada twice, right down to Alligator Alley on the Keys. Again in University, a buddy and I decided to take our summer vacation and drove down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Nashville, New Orleans, in my hotrod Corvair pickup truck.

Then I went to Germany as an Exec for a Software company, and fell in love with the countryside. I have never seen such precise brickwork on even farm buildings, let alone homes, anywhere.

I married my Mexican wife in Mexico, although we met in Vancouver, Canada, and lived in Central Mexico for almost 5 years. Again the countryside is so contrasting and straight out of the Western flicks, that it too has its own rugged beauty.

Love the US contrasts too. Some great changes from one state to another. And I really love the oceans of grain and corn fields here in our Canadian Prairies.

We travel to Mexico every few years, and we're due for one maybe this winter (if I get my renos done ). But I hope to take my wife through our backroads here and show her some of the stunning scenes of our grain and veggie farming and pick up another car project.

 

Never been on vacation in my life. We're homebody's.

 

Forgive my bias, but you've got a beautiful country, just from the main highways. Hope you get to see it before they start tearing them up for lack of fuel.

 

Looks like the place to be and sounds great too! The fishing's pretty good too I take by the looks of things.

 

If it was not for the distance and the obvious fact that we are different countries, it pretty much wraps up what we also like to do. Campervans (motorhomes) have become more & more popular here over the years. It's something we'd like to do in retirement is get a campervan and just cruise around Australia.
We have alot of diversity in the landscape as well, although snow regions are very very limited...to the Snowy Mountains, parts of Victoria & Tasmania. I've only seen snow once in my life?
I live on the east coast where the majority of the population has settled, if you take a map of Australia start at around Brisbane work your way south down to Melbourne, that's the general concentration of people.
I have travelled to the west coast approx a 4 day constant driving (only sleeping breaks), but the lack of population over there is incredible. Other than the cities, you can just about pull up anywhere and it's the land or sea, the sky and you that's it!!
Part of the trip to Western Australia takes in the "Nullarbor Plain", There is a stretch of highway approx (from memory) 147kilometers in length (almost 100 miles) which is absolutely straight!!!!! There a no bends, no sweeps nothing, actually you'd be lucky if there are bumps in the road.
It's also an eye opener as the signage on the "Nullarbor Plain" warns of distance between fuel stops, from memory you can be 320kilometres (200miles) between fuel stops?? Oh & by the way fly repellent doesn't work on the Nullarbor
The northern parts of Australia are generally warm climate most of the year. The southern can be quite cold in winter, but not as cold as North American winters. Here today the temp was about 24 degrees Celcius and it's our winter!!

 

Quite Cold? 24 Celsius? That's our late spring!

Come to Western Canada, the easy warm part, not where I am. Vancouver. You'll get a gentler taste of our cold. Late October should do it. We don't wanna freeze-dry you at -3C up to -10C. If you feel really adventurous, you can go skiing in the Rockies in a few meters of snow.

For the dumb and the numb (haven't decide which one I am ), we get down to -50C. That's cold, trust me. You don't breathe outside air except from the nose, and you don't walk around for more than 10 minutes without covering your face and looking through slits from a ski-mask. The skin will break off at those temps.

 

HOLY COW!!! I didn't realise it was that cold!!! I might have to take you up on the offer one day soon.
I can always repay your kindness with a warm welcome to this part of the world, especially if you like your marshmellows toasted without the fire.
The warmest we've had here was 51C, average summer temps are low to mid 40'sC and humidity up there as well.
Talk about extremes!!

 

This is June 5, and the National Weather service thinks we might beat the coldest day record for today at 11C. We should be in the low 20's:

This is for my city:
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/mb-38_metric_e.html

Further North at Churchill Manitoba (still 800 miles SOUTH of the North Pole, they're a ZERO C:
http://www.weatheroffice.gc.ca/city/pages/mb-42_metric_e.html

In JUNE!!!

You can choose other parts of Canada too, before you come in the Drop box. Some parts of the far north are warmer than we are.

 

Here's a couple back at ya Stormin' Norman,
This if for Brisbane (our capital in Queensland)
http://www.weather.com.au/qld/brisbane
This is for our general area we are approx 43kms south southwest of Brisbane:
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/qld/southeast-coast/jimboomba
This next link is the weather cam for Brisbane & shows the City skyline from the Brisbane river:
http://www.ourbrisbane.com/see-and-do/places-to-see/webcam-south-bank-brisbane?cb=090606103525#reload

Seems weather records are out for the breaking this year. You're heading for the coldest June, we have just had the wettest season for 30years. It's supposed to be our dry season during the winter?