Need help with big anniversary trip!

My friends celebrated an anniversary at Lake Bled, Slovenia. Beautiful and romantic. Lake Bled might not qualify as "off the beaten path," but driving is easy in Slovenia and you can easily make your way out of the tourist areas.

Perhaps a beer and wine combo - Prague and Budapest. Budapest is beautiful on the Danube and very romantic, all lit up at night. You might enjoy visits to Hungarian wineries. (You could get more info on that with a post in the Hungary forum.) Hubby could get a good beer fix in Prague. (Definitely not off the beaten path!) There are easy trains, but you could rent a car for some stops between the two.

I would suggest you decide based in part on where you can find direct flights to or from Istanbul and build a cost effective Open Jaw flight.

For instance, one of the cheaper flights for me to Budapest is through Istanbul on Turkish Air which means IAH IST BUD IAH works well for me. One of the beauties of Istanbul is that Turkish Air goes every place and relatively cheaply so even if you are going over on another carrier you can use them one way to a place your carrier serves and still get a cheap Open Jaw. I've done Turkish Air from Istanbul to Kyiv and Lviv too.

CW -

Lake Bled does look really nice and we've talked about doing Slovenia before, so I'll mention it to hubby. We were in Prague a few years ago and it's definitely one of his favorites for beer (soo cheapy and tasty, according to him). We stayed an amazing hotel that always somehow ends up being what we compare just about all our other hotels to. I told him I want to stay in a place like that again (everyone went above and beyond and were just so nice and the hotel was gorgeous).

James -

We aren't as concerned about the cost of the flight to Turkey (and hoping to possibly fly into Izmir) as the timing. We have seen some crazy flight times from various cities that we've checked (one had a 12 hour layover for a 2 hour flight.. ugh). We're also planning on trying the Excursionist perk through United so the flight could be free!

Our Austria and Czech Republic visits were on the same trip. Things have undoubtedly changed in each place in 20 years. After several days in Austria, touring on bicycles, departing Vienna and ending in Ybbs, we took a train to Czesky Krumlov, then made it to Prague. With a car, you’ll be able to find your own route, and get more off the beaten path.

Portugal was combined with a Spain trip, but you could certainly be in Portugal your whole time. We did have a car, and departed from Lisbon, headed north as far as Obidos, then nights in Evora. It was quite warm that June so July/August might be outright hot. Wine will be great, and their beer is stronger (higher alcohol content) than next door in Spain.

Turkey is very interesting, very hot in summer. I loved the RS tour, but there aren't any in July-August (which should tell you that it's hot then). What kind of trip are you envisioning there? Istanbul is easy on your own and worth several days at least. Distances are long and land travel is slow, so flights are the best option to get to other areas. I'm not sure I'd want to drive there - once you get out of the big city, very few people speak English. Even in Istanbul, it surprised me how little English was spoken in places that cater to tourists. I don't know how good the road signage is and it is may be only in Turkish.

You could split your time, half in Poland and half in Hungary, fly between them. Or by train, Gdansk - Warsaw - Krakow - Prague - Vienna - Budapest.

Istanbul is amazing, but take care visiting Turkey (check the State department warnings).

Consider Israel, as long as you are in the neighborhood.

Portugal is great, loved Porto and the Douro River Valley.

Cyn - I think we'd just want to stay in Portugal since it would only be 8-10 nights and we just got back from Spain in March. Do you think that's too long for Lisbon, Porto, and maybe a few beachy days? We are pretty active people and generally stay 2-3 nights in each place.

Chani - Our plans are Istanbul, Izmir/Ephesus, and Cappadocia. We plan on flying in between cities (the driving distances are just too far) and maybe getting a car for Cappadocia, but not 100% on that. So far knock on wood we've had good luck navigating ourselves around the globe. I don't think anyone can match the drivers in Jordan.. holy cow, it was insane (the only time we got FULL coverage insurance with $0 deductible). We know it will be hot, but unfortunately we can only do July/Aug or Dec/Jan while I'm in school. We've done SE Asia in April (with days at 113 and 80%+ humidity) and survived, so we feel invincible now :)

Geo - We did consider Israel and Lebanon, but hubby loved it when we did Jordan/Greece/Italy a few years ago with the contrast of cultures and has said he'd like to do the same. I originally voted for Turkey/Egypt/Lebanon, but that's been taken off the table (partly due to airline miles as well). We understand the State Dept warnings as we were planning Turkey a few years ago (in between Jordan and Greece) and after the airport attack, cancelled our trip there. We lost a small chunk of money, so we're definitely not going into this blind.

It's so hard to choose.. there are so many great places that we haven't been to yet!

Difference in cultures? Consider Bulgaria and Ukraine. I drove from Sofia to Istanbul over a 5 day period a few years ago and it was one of the more memorable trips. Ukraine always tops my list. Of course nothing beats Budapest. Never hurts to read the posts on the forum for the various countries you are interested in.

James - That must have been an incredible trip! Was the drop fee outrageous? Also, what makes Budapest unbeatable to you?

Hi again Jennifer-compared with 15-20 years ago, we’re going fewer places per trip, and spending more time on that place (country or region in a country). I only mentioned Spain along with Portugal because we did that, in a jam-packed 3 weeks. We actually had thought Spain + bit of Morocco in 2002, but Rick Steves himself, less than 2 months after 9/11, told us personally at an appearance in Denver, that he’d wait a while before going to Morocco. We did just that, and only just got to Morocco January of this year. Big 20th Anniversary was last Thursday, and our “anniversary trip” is in 3 weeks, to Crete -just Crete- with a connection in London.

But for Portugal, we tacked a week onto our Spain trip. We were in Lisbon for a few days and nights, then drove up to Obidos and Evora, then past hundreds of cork trees - wine bottle stoppers being grown. We didn’t get any beach time, and missed the north part of the country. But if you’re not in a rush, 3 weeks seems like not too much time to see more of Portugal than we did that trip. Elvira was a surprising highlight, and merits 3 days itself.

Regarding James E’s suggestions, back in 2005, we were in Bulgaria for a week (was supposed to be longer, but got delayed and shortened) and had a rental car. We picked the Drenikov car rental car rental company out of Sophia, online. Their “slightly used” cars were much cheaper than anything else we could find. It turns out we got a very used VW station wagon, with old tires and inner tubes that had been pathed again and again. We found all this after one tire went flat. Then a plastic underside panel came loose, and never broke off completely, but scraped as we drove. We turned on our ”Scrapey Car” back in Sofia, then took a train to Bucharest, Romania, then a cheap plane to Venice. Now in a nicer, decent car, we drove on to Slovenia and Croatia for several days, on then-new highways. Turned car in in Venice. Great trip.

So Portugal alone would be great, and maybe we’ll do that sometime, but along the Adriatic and inland a bit would be a rewarding trip, full of interesting places, and not an art museum on every corner.

Jennifer, the Sofia - Istanbul trip. Welllllllll ...... everyone travels differently. One of the beauties of Eastern Europe is its so inexpensive that I can do things in there that I cant do in the West. Soooooo. Well about 7 years ago we hired a guide for a 6 day tour around Bulgaria. Cost was about $200 a day for the guide (with a car) hotels (pretty nice at that), entrance fees (when there were any). Beautiful country and an amazing guide. So, about 3 years ago we decided to return to Bulgaria, this time, since we had seen so much already, we planned it around the Rose Festival and Fly Fishing. To do it we returned to the gude we used before. Inflation was pretty good in the four years we had been away and the price was now about $275 a day (today I would count on $350). We started in Sofia at the home of the guide where her mother cooked dinner and we took off the next day. We explored and drove and found all sorts of off the path places. Each time we reached water we pulled over and fished while the guide read a book or just watched. It was a pretty amazing trip. At the end we discovered that Istanbul has highway traffic jams that make anything in the states look like childs play. So, Jennifer, no car drop charge. BUT, the last time i checked a drop charge (Slovenia to Budapest) it was about $800. Add to that maybe $100 a day for car and gas and tolls and I dont think we paid much of a premium to just ride. I'll send you some pictures.

Budapest: That will take a couple of posts, how about I just PM you.