Now that my travel companion for my upcoming vacation has been determined, the planning process has officially commenced. My travel buddy will once again be my son – YAY! Yes, the trip will cost me twice as much as if I were to travel with friends who would be paying their own way, but I count myself lucky to have a 21 year old son who is still willing (and even sounded excited) to travel with his mommy. I am realistic and understand that international travel may very well (and likely) be the the big draw, but, hey, I will take what I can get – and this could quite possibly be the last opportunity in a long time for me to be able to travel with my son or otherwise have 10 or 11 days of dedicated “together time” with him. I hope not, but for that being the likely case, I am thrilled beyond belief to be planning this trip for my son and me.

That being said, selecting my travel buddy didn’t really help narrow down the destination options all that much, as Devan said he is completely open regarding where we end up going. We both are leaning toward another European venture, and given that he can only travel during his university’s Christmas break, I’m thinking that a metropolitan oriented trip is the way to go due to the limited daylight hours. I had considered taking a driving trip, but given the shorter daylight hours in December, I prefer not to be on the road in a foreign country at night – not because I’m afraid (Europe is fairly safe, and I will be traveling with a tough guy Army ROTC cadet / karate black belt / MMA fighter), but because, so much scenery would be missed if we were to be on the road at night.

So, now I’m back to my original quandary. Do I select our destination and then seek out flight options, or do I compare convenient/reasonable flights and then select the destination based upon the best flight options I find? Devan and I did discuss a few possibilities before he headed off to Fort Knox to start his month of training there (where he will be incommunicado until August). I still keep going back to my Prague/Budapest interest. We also considered a trip to Amsterdam and Brussels combined with potential side stops in Ghent, Bruges or even into somewhere a bit east into Germany. Since we won’t be traveling until December, I have a little bit of time to get the framework of the trip settled and then move on to the fun details associated with where we will ultimately find ourselves…..

Can’t wait to get the planning in place and then take the trip with the best travel buddy ever!