The Road Not Taken. Yet.

Today, the Chicks discuss places we’ve longed to go…but haven’t yet.


Ellen Byron

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I’m so boring when it comes to this question because I always say the same thing: my dream trip would be to visit Haworth Parsonage, home of the Brontes, and walk the moors where they once walked. There’s something so extraordinary about experiencing the home of a literary legend. When I was a kid, we went to Concord, Massachusetts, and while I was devastated that Louisa May Alcott’s home wasn’t open to the public that day, I got to stare at it from the outside and see the front yard lilac tree she wrote about with such fondness. I’ve been to Stratford-on-Avon, which is too much of a tourist trap to get a real feel for the Bard’s past. But my mother and I did stay at Nab Cottage, the Lake District home of Hartley Coleridge, alcoholic son of the famous poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It’s where he died, and let me tell you, if there was ever a case to be made for ghosts, Nab Cottage makes it. Anyway, back to the original question. My dream trip would be to the Bronte’s moors… followed by a trip to the Marquesas Islands. Hey, if they were good enough for Gaugin, they’re good enough for me.


Vickie Fee

vickieThere are plenty of places I’d like to travel – Ireland, Scotland, Italy among them. But there are some vacations I’d like to take more for the experience than the location. For instance, I’ve always wanted to stay in a lighthouse, and hubs and I have looked at some specific places offering that opportunity, including one in Canada not too far of a drive from us. I’d love the romance of a grand train trip. Of course, the cachet—and Agatha Christie connection—makes the Orient Express a dream excursion, even just a short leg of the journey. A more practical, or at least possible, trip for us might be one of the Royal Canadian luxury train tours across Canada. And, this may sound corny, but I’d love to take a murder mystery cruise. There are some advertised on large cruise ships in the Caribbean, as well as smaller ones that cruise U.S. rivers. I’ve gotten as far as checking out the websites for these dream vacations!


Cynthia Kuhn

cynthiaThere are so many places I’d love to visit–among them, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and more. But thanks to many years of taking French classes, I  always dreamed of spending future days exploring Paris, writing in cafés, and wandering around the Louvre. Also: dressing like Audrey-Hepburn-as-beatnik-in-Funny-Face. Even went through a phase where I wore a black beret everywhere…until one of my relatives started calling me “Pierre.” And lo these many years later, I have certainly forgotten much of the vocabulary, which pretty much ruins my original goal of blending in (now have image of wonderfully sarcastic Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny: “Oh yeah, you blend.”) Oh well. C’est la vie. I’ll keep dreaming.


Kellye Garrett

6I’m actually not a big travel person. I lived across the country from the rest of the family for 8 years so any trips I did take, it would be back to the East Coast. Otherwise, I’ve gone to the Caribbean a few times—and enjoyed it. I recently did a Black Friday deal for Ancestry DNA that I’m super excited about. As you know, most black people in America don’t know exactly where in African their ancestors are from. Like we know, many slaves were taken from countries like Ghana but that’s it. I’m super excited to find out where I’m from. Once I do, it would be really cool to visit those countries. So maybe I’ll plan a trip next year!


Marla Cooper

CotC Marla Cooper

So, we were about to take one of our dream trips in October. We had bought tickets to Spain for a two-week trip, starting and ending in Barcelona. Then, two days before we were set to leave, Catalonia voted for independence from Spain. The fallout included police violence, massive protests with people flooding the streets, and a general strike that shut down the city. We made a last-minute decision to cancel the trip, and it was disappointing, but that wasn’t how we wanted our first trip to Barcelona to go. My other dream trip is Turkey. I got a freelance gig writing copy for a company that does group tours, and after spending a lot of time working on copy for their Turkey trip, I became obsessed with going there myself. But right after I decided that was my dream trip, the State Department issued a travel warning against it. So my revised dream trip? Someplace with no political unrest! Maybe… Ohio?


Lisa Q. Mathews

CotC Word balloons

Ordinarily I’d jump for some tropical locale, or maybe a sun-splashed tour of the Greek Islands (sans the fresh seafood, can I do that?), but lately Iceland comes to mind–specifically Reykjavik, because I’m not sure how I’d handle all the eerie remoteness yet. The white sands of the geothermal beaches sound very cool, and of course the hot springs. And if it isn’t too cliche, I would like to see the most spectacular display possible of the Northern Lights, maybe as a background for the Imagine Peace Tower that Yoko Ono put up. But to tell you the truth, you’d probably find me stuffing my face with hot dogs and hitting the pubs at 1 am. I’d also be up for an ice hotel somewhere–there’s one in Sweden (and a bar in Miami Beach where they hand you fur coats to wear on the way in). Before I start humming the soundtrack from Frozen, though, I might book the second leg of my Icelandic adventure directly to Hawaii.


Readers, drop us a note in the comments below! What are your dream locations?

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17 thoughts on “The Road Not Taken. Yet.

  1. My dream locale? A month in France, visiting all the regions tasting the nuances of the food.
    My dream stateside? Back to Vegas baby, to learn more of the history. Had tickets to the neon sign graveyard, but didn’t get there in time for the tour. Want to try more restaurants, the pinball museum, go to an Elvis impersonator show, find more nooks and crannies of the real history of the place.
    Realistically? Spending a weekend in Boonsboro, Md, in the Nick and Nora Charles room, at the inn owned by none other than Nora Robers, aka JD Robb. Or maybe the Dallas and Roarke room!

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  2. I’ve yet to make it France – sigh – but I have been to Australia. Mark, you’d love it. AND I recommend New Zealand. Australia reminded me a lot of California in spots. NZ felt like nowhere I’d ever been before.

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  3. My dream spot to actually move to is Alaska. So probably a reconnaissance trip there would be a dream vacation. Also going back to Germany and spending a month eating my way across the country. And any place I could be in a cabin in the woods that are in the mountains with enough supplies to be there alone with my dog (and maybe my family) for a month or two or the rest of my life.

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  4. Ever since reading Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet back in the early 1980s I’ve wanted to go to Alexandria, Egypt–to visit the scent market (what a wonderful concept, that!), stroll along the waterfront, have a coffee at one of its many cafes. But I think, alas, now is probably not a great time to go…

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  5. I’ve gone everywhere I wanted to go; my mother advised me to get travel out of my system while my bones could still tolerate sitting in a plane for hours on end. However, grandson and I are talking about taking the glass-domed train from Anchorage to Fairbanks later this winter so we can watch the auroras along the way, do some aurora hunting up there and probably fly back.

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  6. A few years ago, my hubby and I took a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate our anniversary – we saw lots of places for little bits of time, so I’d like to go back and see the things we missed the first time around, especially Greece and Croatia.
    And Barcelona! Marla, I’m so sorry about what happened with your trip, but I agree that seeing the city with protesters is not the way I’d want to do it either.

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  7. What a fun post! After wanting my whole life to see the fjords of Norway up close, I finally did it. As a bonus, the trip included one day each on the Shetland Islands and Orkney. Kelly’s wish to visit areas of Africa in her heritage made me remember the incredible and unexpected conviction I was “coming home” when we sailed into the harbor of Lerwick in the Shetland Islands. I haven’t had my DNA tested and maybe never will, but I’m sure in my heart that Shetland is in my bloodline. So glad that bucket-list trip to Norway included Shetland! –kate, writing as c. t. collier

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