My mother traveled extensively, and I was offered the opportunity to travel along... however, it was usually at an inconvenient time, like spring finals time at college, or summer, when I was working for college funds.. A few of the trips I passed on were to the Phillipines(I had the shots too) with a layover in Tokyo....Israel for three weeks in the late 70's when it seemed safe(El Al)....Europe(she went for two months in April, and I was having too much fun as a college sophomore)... South America, Mexico, Australia.
However, one that I didn't pass on was to South Africa, 1982, for two and a half months. We have family there, and we were treated like royalty the entire visit. Besides seeing the animals and beautiful country from Pretoria/Jo'burg to taking the train to Capetown and driving to Port Elizabeth later(I did the driving in the funny car with the right hand steering wheel on the other side of the road!), I had an unforgettable ride in my cousins Silver Cloud Rolls Royce. I haven't ever forgotten how lucky I was to have experienced such a trip.

Elizabeth-reed - thanks for you kind comments. Sorry I didn't respond sooner - ironically there was a death in the family.

Now that I am in my 40s I realize that I did not travel enough when I was younger and had more free time and my money wasn't tied up the way it is now. In retrospect I think I thought travel was what you did when you were 50 and your kids were grown because that's what my parents did. I don't know what I was waiting for.

Its only been that last 5 years that I've insisted that we take a trip every year. We don't have big budgets for travel but we do the best we can now that we finally gotten started. My kids have the travel bug and will probably be great travelers as adults.

To KarenS,
You are sooooooooooo right for going, and I am quite certain you will never regret it.
I have a similar story... deciding to go on one's own or not that I will share with you, I am so glad I went, and I hope you are too! As a twenty-something I had always traveled throughout our country both with friends and on my own, I too love art museums, etc. and exploring new cities is a great thrill to me, but I was a bit afraid to travel to Europe by myself. I couldn't get anyone to go with me, so I waited. Then I had the opportunity to travel to Italy with friends, Rome and Florence. I jumped at the chance! While we were there, the friends I was with decided to stay in Rome, and not go to Florence. I had a decision to make, either travel to Florence by myself, or pass up seeing The Uffizi, The Accademia, The Duomo, everything in this city I had read about forever and longed to see. So Carpe Diem, off I went, young little American tourist x1 and spent a glorious week in Florence by myself. It was heavenly, and will live in my heart forever. Seeing art and walking on streets I had read about was incredibly moving. Everytime I speak of it, I am there again.

It is so funny, because I NOW know, that it had to happen that way, I was so fearful to travel internationally by myself, but now that I did, what I did, I am no longer afraid to travel anywhere alone. Kind of wonderful really that it occurred that way. Ahhhh, the lessons we learn.

So go KarenS, go! And make sure to post a trip report. Life is what you make of it, we're proud of you. Take lots of pictures.

Thanks for the original post Cassandra!

Well, hope the thread is still going... I had wanted to go to Maine for the longest time. My parents always went with on vacation with us at least once a year, so we planned a trip to the coast of Maine and then to Niagara Falls (I know, they're not even close together but she wanted to go to Rockland and Niagara was her favorite place). We had a ball! Only 6 months later, my mom was diagnosed with leukemia and wasn't able to travel anymore. Another time, we wanted to go west. Everyone picked something to see and I set about planning the most fun trip ever. We went from Jackson Hole to Mount Rushmore and then to a dude ranch in the Bighorn mountains. We saw Deadwood, Cody, Yellowstone and tons of other stuff. Unfortunately, my husband lost his job one year later and that was the last big trip we ever took. Now, we are separated. My youngest son and I have talked for about three years about going to Normandy and seeing the D-Day beaches. There has always been the money issue to deal with, so we haven't gone. Now, with the impending divorce, I should really be saving for that, but.... I don't want any regrets! Last month, my boss came and asked me to go with her to Germany for a visit to a sister site. It was the perfect opportunity to finally get to France! WE ARE GOING! We're leaving in June for 16 days, going to Germany, Paris and Normandy. Thanks, Cassandra for the post. It really made me think about how blessed I am.

A Windstar Mediterranean cruise with 2 other couples B.C. (before children) Why...why...why...

Had a chance to pick pinapples on Molokai '71/'72.

Little did I know it would take me 18yras to finally make it to Molokai.

From 1983-1988 I worked for DHL in San Francisco. Back then employees could reserve to be the couriers to various locations. That meant you packed a carry on only, but you flew for free. One of the easiest and most frequent flight taken by the employees out of San Francisco was to Australia. My husband and I always said we were going to go to Australia, but I ended up in management and didn't want to take two weeks off. (I'm mellower and smarter now)

We also planned out another vacation entirely to Fiji while we lived in San Francisco and decided we just couldn't afford it. We've never had a bad vacation or regretted the money spent on vacations. Australia and Fiji are still waiting.

In 1998 DH and I planned a trip to Vietnam. We were stationed in Yokosuka Japan and living in Yokohama. It was such a wonderful time full of exploring. I had always had my heart set on Vietnam and had everything planned - we even had our visas. Unfortunately, his leave was changed and we would have had to fly during golden week (think day before thanksgiving in the US) and airfare's were skyhigh.

So, we took a military flight to singapore and hopped over to Bali. So in a way, while I regret not going to Vietnam, I am so grateful for the time we spent in Bali, particularily Ubud.

Vanessa

My brother, my only sibling, died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 37 in 1990. He lived 1000 miles away.

I regret every trip we took in the 20 years before 1990 that wasn't to visit him. Places I can always see later, but I can't make up for not seeing him as often as I wished.

I let worries about money keep us from taking two trips, and I'll always be sorry about it. Should have borrowed the money, because nothing can buy the experiences once the opportunity is passed.

We were invited to the wedding of a daughter of a family friend. They lived in England; we lived in Atlanta at the time and we had two small children and our first big mortgage. We didn't go, and not long after our friend died unexpectedly. I was devastated at never being able to see and talk to our friend again.

The second trip I didn't go on wasn't tragic like the other one, but I'm still kicking myself about it. My mother took my sister and her daughter and my daughter to Italy for two weeks. I was invited to go, of course, but I was working part-time and I didn't to leave my job. Can you imagine not wanting to give up a lousy two-week paycheck for the chance to go to Italy? I think I had rocks in my head when I made that decision. Everyone had a great time and several years went by before I got another opportunity to see Italy.