Suggestions needed for 2 wk vaca in US
 

I am hoping the generous Fodorites will respond to this question once again even though I know its been asked many times before. Despite years of reading this board regularly I cannot quite come up with the ideal spot for our upcoming 2 week trip.

Here is some info to get the ball rolling:

We are a family of 4 - Mom (me) Dad, 2 girls (12 and 15) from Boston area.

Looking to take a 2 week trip in the US. Driving or flying is okay but air fares must be kept at a minimum (less than $400 ea).

We enjoy (in no particular order):
Water sports - kayaking, swimming, fun pools
Amusement parks/water parks
Light hiking
Museums (history and art)
Minor league baseball
golf

We don't want to go anywhere we've been or that is too hot (average temps over 95). Previous vacations have been in New England and Williamsburg and Hershey PA.

For some reason everyone but me is resistant to seeing the National Parks of the west - I haven't been able to convince them that there is enough for them to do.

Don't mind moving around a region but prefer to areas to limit moves to 2 or 3 tops.

Considering California and Colorado but am having a hard time figuring out good itineraries. Also open to any other suggestions.

Really appreciate any suggestions that anyone might be willing to share. TIA

Forgot to add that we are taking the middle 2 weeks of August.

It will be hot lots of places in August, otherwise I would suggest heading straight down the coast via I-95 & 17. In lieu of the hotness, meander down to DC, over thru Charlottesville (a little wine there), head down the Blue Ridge Parkway, in NC there are a bunch of small minor league clubs. Take in Chimney Rock, Lake Lure, Boone, Black Mt. & on down to Lake Toxaway, Highlands, etc. If either sound interesting, I'd be happy to provide some detail. Otherwise I would look on here for areas that may hold an interest (you can search via area &/or state). However, you'll have a hard time escaping the heat most anywhere.

We're looking to spend almost that much time in Maine come June. Just another random thought. & are flying into Boston to start (from CLT).

What about Eastern Tennessee? August may be a little warm, but we have been looking at going there as well.. There are lots of mountains, rivers, camping...in the Smoky Mountainns, Gatlinburg area...there is also Dollywood, etc in Pigeon Forge that would be fun for your daughters with an amusement park, etc..all very family friendly..Just some thoughts..I know my girls would enjoy it and they are 11 and 14..Good luck, keep us posted! ; )

Brutforce - thanks for the suggestion. I will check the web for VA and NC tourism sites.

I would love to help out with your Maine trip. We spent the last two summer vacations in Winter Harbor ME and loved it. Its still Plan B for us if nothing else works out.

Winter Harbor is a very very small village close to the Schoodic Pennisula entrance to Acadia NP. It is about 45 minutes from the Mt. Desert Island portion of the park. Has a nice 9 hole golf course, a few good small restaurants, art galleries. Schoodic Pennisula is gorgeous. Lots of opportunities for biking, kayaking, rock climbing (nothing real high) and just hanging out on the rocks.

Bar Harbor is much bigger with lots of shops and restaurants. The main part of Acadia has lots of hiking and scenic drives. Popovers at the Jordan Pond House are mandatory.

Further south in Maine - we love Portland. Love the Portland Sea Dogs (AA affiliate of the Red Sox), love harbor tours and Portland Head Light state park.

My suggestion would be CA! It is not too hot and there are so many things to do in Northern and Southern CA.....with two weeks you can see both areas. If you fly into the major airports (SFO or LAX) the flight shouldn't be too expensive.

bnsilly - its true my girls would love Dollywood. We watched a show on the Travel Channel about it.

Fly into Chicago, do the city for a few days. Lots to do there.

Then rent a car and drive up the west coast of Michigan. Beautiful dunes, beaches, golf, minor league baseball. There is a nice amusement park and water park in Muskegon.

Go all the way up to Traverse City, Petoskey, and Mackinac Island. The kids would love the horse tour around the island.

Either drive back to Chicago to fly home or (closer) Detroit.

It would be perfect weather and plenty of sunshine. It is the perfect time to visit Michigan.

I agree that coastal California would have the weather you are looking for in August. You can probably JetBlue yourselves non-stop from BOS-Long Beach for under $400pp, and do San Diego, LA & Santa Barbara for your 3 stops. A more ambitious itinerary could include San Francisco and Yosemite, but would entail more moving around.

If you are open to traveling just a bit out of the US, the "Cottage Country" north of Toronto looks very interesting. (I stumbled across it when planning a trip last year.) You could combine it with a Toronto/Niagara Falls trip.

The weather on the California coast is quite pleasant in August. The thing to remember is you want to stay within five miles of the coastline. After that, the further inland you go the hotter it gets.

San Diego and San Francisco (in that order) would be my top two suggestions for your particular group.

lvk - we actually have done the Canadian trip you mentioned. Boston to Niagara Falls then to TO. It was great - ROM, Canada's Wonderland, Harbor Islands, Blue Jays/Red Sox game - all with a very favorable exchange rate. If you haven't done it I would highly recommend it.

kelliebellie - I just discussed that very same trip with lunchmates. It would be great to see a Cubs game at Wrigley and I've always wanted to see Mackinac Island.

Thanks for the different ideas - hopefully one will really catch the girls imagination.

Michigan is just beautiful in the summer. You could also fly into Detroit and catch a Tigers game. There is just more to do (especially for kids) in Chicago. And the Cubs games are awesome.

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan has great things to offer too, but not as exciting as shopping the Miracle Mile in Chicago. And is an extra day in the car.

Check out Sleeping Bear Dunes:

http://www.sleepingbeardunes.com/

Michigan Adventure

http://www.miadventure.com/

Mackinac Island

http://www.mackinac.com/

Golf

http://www.michigan.org/travel/golf/

Saugatuk

http://www.saugatuck.com

Great resort in Petoskey
(they build a fire on the bay each night and put out a smore basket)

http://www.innatbayharbor.com/

Bennnie: We (DH and I) did a summer tour of the Colorado ski resorts (Vail, Telluride and Aspen) one year. We loved it! We enjoyed hiking on the various mountains (you can take the gondola or a lift to the top) - we went in July and the wildflowers were beautiful. Colorado is wonderful in the summer. The weather was nice in July and not too hot. We also went white water rafting just outside of Aspen which was a blast! We had a total of 10 days and with 2 weeks, there is even more to do. By the way, we are also from the Boston area and I think that you can get a reasonable airfare from Logan to Denver on United. We rented a car and first went to Vail, then Telluride and finished in Aspen. I recall that there is also golf at Beaver Creek (near Vail) and at Aspen as well as biking. Aspen is a neat western mining town with lots of history and is less "glitzy" in the summer. We spent the last night in Denver and took in a Rockies game at Coors Field (we like baseball, too!). So Colorado has a lot of the things that interest you and your family.

MarieF - did you rent condos or did you find hotels to stay in? My limited research seems to suggest that there are mostly condos available. Having a great pool is high on the list of priorities.

Hi Bennnie: We stayed at the Holiday Inn in Vail (my husband had priority points) and it had an outdoor pool. In Telluride, we stayed at a small B&B in the center of town (had a rooftop jacuzzi but no pool) and in Aspen at the Sardy House (which is now a timeshare, I believe) which has a small outdoor pool. From other posts here, I believe that there are lots of condos available in Aspen. When you travel with kids, I know how important a pool is! If you want to find out more about Aspen, check out www.aspensnowmass.com. The website now is focused more on skiing, but there's a link to lodging.

Lake Tahoe (California/Nevada border) is a fun vacation spot for a family such as yours. Various fun beaches, lots of water sports, light hiking, near historic places for interesting side trips (like Virginia City, Nevada, or Carson City) - lots of Gold Rush history. Then there's the Donner Party visitor center. (You could fly into Reno or Sacramento).

But I would pick Northern Arizona. The Grand Canyon is an amazing experience. Our teenage daughter loved it, especially the smooth water rafting trip we took on the Colorado River. Sedona is near enough for an additional destination, with amazing hiking, Slide Rock State Park (like rafting but on your bottom - great fun!) and some incredible natural pools for swimming complete with rope swing at the base of Cathedral Rock. It's warm in Sedona but not uncomfortable because there is no humidity. Try to do an internet search for info and images. The scenery in this region is unforgetable.

Thanks again for the great suggestions. California seems to be the first choice of the girls with a little reluctance on the part of my DH. I still love the idea of Arizona but DH cannot tolerate heat well.

So far in the running are:
California
Coastal NC
Chicago and Michigan
Colorado

Our family of 4 spent the best vacation at the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone Park, Jackson Hole. The weather was beautiful every day during our 10 day stay in July. We got off the beaten path and felt like we had the whole park to ourselves at times. The scenery was spectacular, the swimming,rafting, hiking, horseback riding in the Gros Vente Mountain- unforgetable. We enjoyed Acadia,ME the year before but it still didn't compare.

monicane - A few questions for you:

Did you fly or drive there? If you flew where did you fly into?

Where did you stay?

I would so love to do this trip but am having a hard time convincing the rest of the family.

I would definately include Lake Tahoe. The weather in August will be perfect, the best month of the year to go, although it is busy. You can kayak, hike, swim, take the ski lifts up to the top of the mountains, etc. I would also try to include Yosemite. It would only be hot driving there, but perfect when you got there......and you can bike, hike, take raft trips and swim in the river. San Diego would also be lovely in June with lots to do, a great zoo, trips to Mexico if that interests you, lots of water sports, and of course, SF which has museums, ferries in the bay, you can go to the ocean, etc. All would be great

Thanks again for continuing to respond to my question. It is very daunting try to plan this trip for some reason.

Is it realistic to do a trip that includes:

San Francisco -2 nights
Yosemite - 2 nights
Tahoe - 3 nights
Monterey area - 3 nights

bennie,

I live in the Yellowstone area.
It is best to fly into either Salt Lake, Idaho Falls or Bozeman depending on the best airline deal. I think the best approach to the park is from Idaho Falls drive west thru Swan Valley, Driggs and over Teton Pass. It is spectacularly beautiful. Jackson Hole has a lot of good hotels or look for a place on Jackson lake. This company does a great Kayak or whitewater trip http://oars.com/

If you want to spend time in parks and your family doesn't you could do a quick 1 day in Yellowstone. Amazingly enough you can see a lot of yellowstone in just one day.

After that you could go a couple of directions. North/West to Bozeman, Missoula, Couer d Alene then either take the freeway to Seattle cut up to Highway 2 (beautiful)

OR from the park go East to Cody (good western museum in town) then over to N Dakota and all the incredible stuff south of Rapid City... custers last stand, mt rushmore.

That being said San Francisco south along hwy 1 is wonderful.

&quot;realistic&quot; is in the eye of the beholder insomuch as you can physically <b>be</b> in many locations but not really <b>see</b> them.

Put more simply, I would cut one of these four destinations and add two or three additional nights to San Francisco.

I agree with bardo. San Francisco is worth quite a few days.

I want to thank all who have contributed such great ideas and great details. I am continually amazed at the time Fodorites are willing to put into responding to questions.

We finally have made a decision, based mostly on finances. We are headed to Southern/ Central Coast for 9 days. I was able to secure 2 roundtrips on frequent flyer miles and good prices for the remaining two.

Southern California has all of the criteria the family was looking for:

Cheap flights (free for 2 and less than $400 for the others)

Water Sports - will do a kayaking tour

Amusement Parks - Disneyland/California Adventure

Golf

Easy hikes

Museums - Getty and maybe San Simeon

Most likely will spend 4 days in Orange County area and 4 in Santa Barbara area with one night near LAX. Wish we could have managed to get to San Francisco but that will have to be for another trip.

I'm sure I will be posting again with lots of questions.

Really looking forward to spending time with the family. Hopefully we'll have a real California Adventure to write a trip report about.

Hi bennie,

I'm sure you will all have fun in southern CA.

You really need to convince the family to broaden their horizions! Next vacation should be to the Tetons and Yellowstone. They have absolutely NO idea what they are missing. You can't run out of things to do, and there are even golf courses if you must have something UNatural!

The perfect spot in the middle of August - Alaska. Don't know what airfare would be from your area but it was the best vacation we ever took. Rented an RV (as cheap as renting a minivan and hotel plus we were able to cook our meals - eating out in AK is very expensive) We went on day cruises and saw glaciers and wildlife, went kayaking and biking, did flightseeing tour. We camped on the side of the road (free), in some state and national parks ($12-15/night), and a few private campgrounds ($20-$35/night. We played yahtzee and cards in the RV at night. It was a wonderful family vacation. I cannot forget to mention that I am truly a beach lover but I would go back to AK in a minute - it was that spectacular.

I second the Alaska suggestion, as we went there last year.

I mostly posted to say, though, that if in the future you decide to hit the Tennessee/Virginia region, West Virginia has great whitewater rafting on the New and Gauley rivers. Mostly around Fayetteville.

Enjoy California!