It would be a toss up for me, between San Francisco and Toronto. Both of these were work trips for my mom, but she was allowed to bring one person (me, since pops doesn't like travelling with her). I basically left in the morning sometime after she would leave to go to meetings and the only requirement was that I had to be back by dinner.
So I basically go to trapise around for a while, going to all sorts of museums and places with stairs.

(In second place would be Amsterdam, for obvious reasons, but it is knocked out of first place by the fact that I was with my mom, which severely limits anything I can do.)

Hmm... not technically a vacation, because it was for a conference, but my trip to Stockholm, Sweden was absolutely incredible. It's a lovely city, with great coffee and warm, friendly people.

As for actual an actual vacations, it would have to be the Mega Road Trip of Death I took with my mom in high school - we drove through a bunch of states, camping, visiting colleges and just sort of hanging out together.

It's hard to pick a single one, because I've had so many awesome experiences through travelling. But if I had to pick one ...

My trip to Canada and the US in 2005 was an amazing holiday. I travelled with a group of 120+ people for the AA World Convention in Toronto.

We arrived on the Saturday and the convention began the following Thursday, so I had a few days to explore Toronto by myself as well as with the group. There were a few social events arranged for us - two banquets at a fancy hotel, and on the Thursday night there was a party in the park next to the Convention Centre attended by 30,000 people. It was awesome!

The AA convention itself was incredible, very moving. I liked that I could, if I wanted, go to a meeting attended by 10,000 people, or one where there were just a few of us. People were so friendly and it really was an amazing experience.

Every night we'd end up in the Irish Hospitality Room at the Royal York Hotel (various AA groups had hired rooms for the duration of the convention) where we'd sing all the old Irish songs into the early hours, and then on to the Richtree on Yonge Street, two minutes from my hotel, for waffles and ice cream before bed.

On the Sunday night when the convention finished, we had a party on a schooner out on Lake Ontario - great food, wonderful music, fantastic company. I danced all night, and it was a beautiful night, sailing round the lake.

After the convention, we drove down to Niagara Falls where we stayed overnight on the Canadian side. It was 4th July, and the fireworks were astonishing, I've never seen anything like them. I spent the day with a good friend of mine from London, she's been a close friend for a few years, and it was one of those wonderful, memorable days I'll always remember. I'll never forget the sight of that nutter walking the tightrope across the two buildings, as we sat on the terrace at Starbucks. It was one of those can't-look-must-look moments.

After Niagara, we piled into our buses and drove down into the states, through NY and PA and into Ohio. I was in a bus with six of the nicest people I've ever met. I didn't know any of them before the trip, but we all got on really well. On the way through PA we found probably one of the nicest restaurants I've ever been to in my life, and we made a note to stop there on the drive back to Toronto.

We stayed at Hudson, OH, near Akron, at a big Holiday Inn. The plan was for people to visit the place where AA started. But my plan was to see George, who drove up from Southern Ohio to spend the three days with me.

On 6 July we all celebrated the news that London had won the Olympic bid, much to our amazement and delight. And on 7 July we had news of a different kind - the London Tube bombings. Luckily the hotel had free internet access so people could find out how things were back in London.

And 7 July was the last day I saw George, though neither of us knew it. We spent that last day talking about our plans for the future. He headed back to Ohio that evening, where it turns out he caught his then 17-year-old son having a party, thinking his dad would be back the following day ...

The next day I headed back to Toronto in the bus. stopping again at Crowleys near Erie for lunch, and we had one last night in Toronto, this time at the Valhalla Inn - beautiful gardens - before flying back to London.

It was like having five holidays in one, all crammed into two weeks. It was an incredible experience, and I loved Toronto, especially the people. Even the panhandlers were polite!

Engagement weekend -- my wife had convinced the paper she worked for that a travel story about Missouri wine country would be a good idea to do, and she could go oh, maybe her birthday weekend and write a story, if the paper would cover expenses.

We started the weekend in St. Louis, where we figured we'd go to birthday dinner at an Italian place up on the Hill. We ordered and then she opened her present before the entrees came. It was "Hugh Johnson's Pop-Up Book of Wine" (she collects pop-ups and drinks wine), and the centerpiece pop-up was a big French chateau and vineyard. When she lifted the roof to the east barrel house, there was a white gold diamond engagement ring, dangling from the roof on a piece of string.

I dropped to one knee, did the whole bit. She cried, I shook, and the entrees came literally about five seconds after my now very unclenched ass hit the chair. The table next to us quietly paid for our meal, congratulated us, and left. We're waiting for the chance to do that for someone else.

We left, she confessed she hadn't heard a word I'd said because of the shock of the ring, and I confessed I couldn't remember what I'd said because I was shaking so goddamned hard. Ack, ptui.

That night we went to see some friends of ours play at a local bar (stroke of luck that they were in town), and they were kind enough to announce the happy day to the whole drunken room.

Off we went up to Hermann, MO, a tiny little place up near the middle of the state, not so much a full town as a collection of B&B's, wineries, antique stores, and German restaurants. We bought some stuff, stayed at an awesome place (slept under a tin roof during a rain shower), and got very, very drunk on wine. Our last morning there, the local grocery store burned to the ground. The owners lived above the store, but made it out all right.

We still occasionally go back -- the wine in the region's frankly not that great overall, but the town's a wonderful place to be if you're looking for a quiet, picturesque place to spend a weekend.

The mister and I once took a bus tour in Europe. We were one of only two couples under the age of fifty. But it was the MOST FUN EVER. We kept getting the old people drunk and riled up. At one point they were so drunk and unruly, they started heckling the tour guide until he just dropped his microphone and declared to the bus driver, "That's it! I give up!"

It could have been the worst vacation ever, but it turned out to be the best.

The Palenque Ruins in Chiapas, Mexico.

- Eating psychedelic mushrooms and then encountering monkeys in the jungle, high in the trees roaring like lions on motorbikes.
- Finding that the ruined home of a long dead Mayan you're standing in is full of bats.
- Drinking Mezcal and swimming in a pool with a turtle in it, dancing with Poi dancers, visiting amazing waterfalls, riding through treacherous mountain passes in a cramped collectivo in brutal rainforest thunderstorms.
- Having the collectivo stopped by banana sellers barricading the road with rope.
- Watching the geckos on the ceiling of the $14/night cabana jump upside-down catching moths to eat, and drop poops on the bed.
- Wondering what that four legged giant spider wanted with us every night.
- Wondering what the hell this thing was.
- Feeling completely safe in a the deep, dark rainforest.
- Enjoying a view of half of Chiapas from the top of the Temple of the Cross.
- Exploring Palenque, its church, tortilleria, political parades.
- Exploring Villahermosa, visiting the Mexican equivalent of WalMart, the Mexican shopping mall, buying fishnets in the Mexican equivalent of JC Penney.
- Eating amazing food, eating terrible terrible "Japanese" food, basking in that bad idea.
- The hostel room in Villahermosa flooding due to the sideways rain pouring in...

Oops! Meant to make my first link to the whole set.

Motorcycle camping. 12 mile hike til my feet were bleeding before noon, chop wood for fire (or else freeze to death at night), then row all the way across a lake at (what felt like) breakneck speed, only to have to return as fast/faster due to thunderheads threatening me and my little metal boat. Follow that with a nice swim in the same lake (thunderheads went on by safely), then splitting the aforementioned firewood. Then start a fire (without lighter fluid) and read The Art of Dreaming by firelight in my sleeping bag.

I have never slept so well as I slept that night.

I only spoke with two people the entire day. A true introvert's paradise. For me, much better than an entire year of crowded, sandy, touristy beach vacation. Me, my boots, my bike, sharp things (knife and axe), and some fire. What more do I need in life? Trip report (sorta) here (also, the entry before and the planning entry).

Side bonus: The following day, I packed up camp and went on a 150-mile odyssey trying to find the art gallery of my girlfriend's aunt, with only a vague idea where it was in a small town in PA. We'd only met once before, but she gave me directions to find her house and I spent the afternoon doing something my gf had been promising to do for years, simultaneously making her look bad (not really) and winning major points with her. Plus, I got to ride along the Eagle's Nest (or whatever it's called) outside Port Jervis, which has some crazy amazing scenery and winding curves.

The Mr. may be hurt by this, but my best vacation was taken before I ever met him. After my divorce was final, I took a few days by myself to Cape May, New Jersey. My mom watched my kids. I've never vacationed by myself before. I could get up when I wanted, do whatever I wanted, walk all over the beautiful town and admire the Victorian homes without any time frame. I went whale watching (didn't see a thing, but still enjoyed it); I ate dinner at a themed restaurant (Elaine's Haunted Dinner Theatre) - they sat me at a table with a skull that "talked" to me. (through remote). The skull and I had so much fun chatting that a nearby family thought I was friends with the people in the restaurant! I got over eating alone, all in all I had a wonderful time.

The second best time (so far) was our Honeymoon in Bermuda. We hiked what used to be their railroad - seeing sights most tourists never see. We visited forts, private coves, the aquarium/zoo. It's where we want our ashes spread there some day.

That is, unless we like Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic, better. We're heading there this June!!!!!!!!

Well, it was the "best" in that it's the only vacation we'd ever taken in all our years together - out take-home pay was meager. With my hubby running his own business and me working an hourly wage job, any time off was without pay for the both of us.

After 19 years of marriage, we take a trip to the Fla. Keys to go diving. My brother and Nephew also go along to share the 2-bedroom suite.

What a change from diving off our coast where a trip to the warmer water of the gulf stream is 2 hours...dip your toe in, and, voila, you're there.

The place had about 12 rooms and not all the people were diving - it's off season, so the four of us have the dive boat to ourselves except for when a neat couple of gals from England join us for a few days.

The best part of it was the time-suspended where we couldn't care about anything. No libations needed. Never checked email. Forgot the hassle of our old car breaking down on the trip to Florida, the crammed full car once we picked up Brother and Nephew in Miami.... It was everything a vacation should be - no worries.

Heavenly. Just Away From The World. Doing something we loved, with people we loved.

I've taken a lot of fun trips to all kinds of beautiful places. The funnest ones were before kids when my sister, husband, and I would fly to Biloxi, Mississippi and gamble our heads off, see a good show, drink and eat a lot, and get along beautifully the entire trip. I've had a lot of fun in Las Vegas before kids too, but I won't list those because the flight sucks. The Biloxi trips were perfect start to finish.

My entire life feels like a vacation, but I quite liked my month in Berlin.

I've been all over the world, all 7 continents and 70 some countries for work (I'm in the adventure travel field), have explored amazing places and have been lucky enough to have stayed in many fabulous resorts and hotels BUT the best VACATION I ever had was a one week rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.

Why? It wasn't for work.

I was with my twin sister and two of my best friends from Ireland, and showing them a part of America they didn't know existed was a blast. We camped every night, slept under the stars and didn't bathe for a week but every moment of that trip is etched in my soul as being one of the most satisfying, most fun, and most incredible weeks of my life.