Frequent travelers: repeat trips or new destinations?
 

As I'm getting older, I'm thinking about limited future trips. There are places I haven't visited, such as Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia--or places I haven't visited since the 60's, when the tourism infrastructure was shaky and there wasn't much in the way of amenities, such as Turkey, the former Yugoslavia, etc.

Then there are places I've visited more than once, or even frequently. Spain, Germany, the U.K., Austria, Switzerland. I've found lately that I want to go back to them rather than branching out to new destinations. I especially like going to places where I speak the language, such as the U.K., Spain, and Germany.

I know that some people love Paris and return to it frequently. (My nephew in Seattle bought his house from an older couple who wanted to move to New York so that it would be easier to fly to Paris.)

How about the rest of you frequent travelers? Do you choose a new destination for each trip or do you return to your favorite places repeatedly.

P.S. I think my next trip will be to the Alps an/or Dolomites. But that won't be for more than a year, when I hope the exchequer will be refilled or at least not as pitiable as it is this year.

<<Do you choose a new destination for each trip or do you return to your favorite places repeatedly.>>

Yes.

Recently I found myself up-sizing rather than down-sizing as many do at this age, as well as having to leave my job (I guess it's called retiring). So, knowing my available funds for travel may now be limited, I did both, a RTW trip picking up places along the way I'd always wanted to go and also spending time in places I've loved. Future trips may be home exchanges for longer visits in my favorite countries. That's my thinking anyway.

I think we are in a rut!!
Late I would liker to go to Italy aagain and Budapest. We ly we have returned to London and Paris twice a year for the last 15 years or so. We no longer feel comfortable driving so we stay in the city, we have visited the countyside many times. I would love to return to Dorset but the drive is just too much and a car in really nescessary to enjoy it completely.I wopuld like to return to Italy again and I really want to see Budapest. We may take a rivercuise there.At least I finally got to take the Queen Mary on a transatlantic crossing to England last year after waiting 50 years to do it!

We keep returning to Paris also. However, we combined it with Rome and Sicily last March. We are planning a Paris trip in February and hopefully Scotland in the summer if all goes according to plan. However, this will be trip #8 to Paris if we go in March. I told someone the other day that we had been 6 times but we are on #8 when I stop and count them up!

I do a combination of both - each year I return to favorite places (London, St. Martin, Norway) and go to new places also.

I'm also hitting the point in life of feeling my travel days are NOT unlimited and being a bit more careful to make good choices! I guess what I am mostly doing is going to countries that I have visited before and am very fond of (Italy, Spain, France) and maybe going to a different region. I'm not much of a WORLD traveler but do enjoy many places in Europe. I also travel slower and slower - I am thinking that one future trip might be an apartment in Nice for several weeks or a month - no more packing up and going to a new place after just a few nights.

As much as I keep thinking that this year I will skip Paris and Nice I know that the lure of these 2 cities will bring me back.I return to Paris and Nice each year but add on 1 or 2 other destinations, some new and aome repeats.
This year I returned to Rome, Florence and Venice in addition to my usual Paris and Nice.
Previous years I have added new destinations such as Prague, San Sebastion, Bilboa, Madrid and Tuscany
I have just started planning next years trip and will add on Puglia which is a new area for me.
Also thinking of returning to the Amalfi Coast.
I always stay the minimum of 5 days and the maximum of 3 weeks in each city.
I keep thinking 'IF IT AIN'T BROKEN DON'T FIX IT " in my going back to places that I love.

We usually do a combination of someplace new and Paris. I've lost count but think we've been to Paris over 20 times and just don't tire of it.
This year it will be Paris twice as my husband wanted to go to the Paris Motor Show. Unfortunately, the show is only on every other year and 2013 is not one of them. Too late to cancel!

At age 64, we know our traveling days may be limited. In the past decade, we have traveled to Germany almost every year but always find new and charming little towns to visit. St. Gilgen became a favorite of ours and we returned there 5 or 6 times before going back to Hallstatt, another past favorite.

DH had said that he wanted to start visiting places we haven't been so in 2011 we did a tour of Poland in combination with a driving trip of Germany along with a return to our old stomping grounds, Vienna. While we had a great time in Poland, I'm not as adventurous as he is and prefer more familiar surroundings.

We compromised this year and did a Danube River Cruise. We had never done a river cruise and even though the biggest part of the trip was in Germany and Austria, we also visited Prague and Budapest as well as Nurnberg, Regensburg and Passau, towns we had never been to before.

If I had the money, I could return to Maui every year but that AND a European trip would put us waaaaayyy over our annual vacation budget!

There are still places we want to go but it is becoming increasingly apparent that we may not get to them all before age related issues make it impossible.

It is never ever as special the 2nd time. Comfortable yes, but not special. We seldom repeat. Only Paris is exempt from this rule for us.

Ian

This fall, we are going back to Nice and Paris, even staying in the same apartments as we did last October, but we normally try to go somewhere new every other year. We are planning to go to Sicily and the Amalfi Coast in 2015.

Its a big world and aside from visiting a friend in Alaska twice (second time for her wedding), all of our big trips have been to new locations. Have visited 3 continents so far, looking at 2014 for South America or Africa.

I always try to mix something new in with a repeat visit.

There's a lot of Europe left for me to see, and I've been there more than 30 times.

Hi!
I have been in the same dilemma contemplating my August trip. A friend said, "You like cake and you eat it over and over so why not visit the places you love again?". That answer satisfied me for a while and I make plans to go to Italy and France, my favorites but left 10 days empty for a side trip to a new destination. I still haven't decided where but am looking at Romania, Bulgaria and Georgia with a short stop in Istanbul, which I also love...
Can anyone out there recommend Romania, Bulgaria or Georgia?
GEsssa

If possible we like to do a mixture of new and repeat cities/areas - although It's sometimes not possible due to geography and/or limited time. (And even if it's a country we have seen a lot of - there are always parts we haven;t visited yet.)

I must admit I do prefer places where I can bumble along in the local language (romance or germanic but not slavic). Although in recent years we have found english very widely spoken in all sizable cities and most larger towns (but not deep countryside).

Admit we haven;t been to Turkey yet and really want to - but not sure when we will get enough time off simultaneously.

I am not a frequent traveler in the same with class as most of the posters here. However, I like to see completely new places and there are some places which call me back. So sometimes it is one or the other and at other trips it is a combination. When I revisit a country, it is usually a combination of a favorite place and "new" regions.

It's about 50/50. We always find ourselves returning to Scotland and Spain and there's nothing wrong with that.

What irishface said. I'm strongly drawn back to France, especially Paris. Most recent trip to France was my 18th (If I'm remembering correctly), and my 12th that included Paris. There are still regions of the country to be discovered, as well as many items on my "Paris Next Time" list, so we'll continue to include France in future travel plans. New (to us) places on the wish list are Scotland, Portugal-Northwest Spain-Pays Basque, Turkey, and Prague-Budapest-Vienna.