Ireland/Germany/Alaska....

Skip Alaska.

Alaska is for old people. Germany is probably the most interesting of those places, but damn, if you're going to Europe just go to Italy and enjoy la dolce vita.

I was 15 when I took the trip so specific details have been long flushed out of my memory, but I had a blast in Ireland. It was a tour bus with a wide age-range of people, but our tour guide took us off the beaten path and got us good and drunk at local pubs while also making sure we also hit the touristy things such as ruins/castles and what not. I would love to go back either on my own or even with a tour bus again if I could find one with a similar vibe.

I could only see going to Alaska if you're going there for a set purpose like mountain climbing, camping, skiing/boarding, snow mobiling, fishing, or something else along those lines. No idea if that kind of shit appeals to you.

Eomer_sl said:

I could only see going to Alaska if you're going there for a set purpose like mountain climbing, camping, skiing/boarding, snow mobiling, fishing, or something else along those lines. No idea if that kind of shit appeals to you.

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Alaska sucks for all of those except fishing.

The fishing is magnificent if you have access to the right facilities.

Valdez is pretty epic for skiing/boarding. Expensive though.

Fuck Alaska as a vacation destination. It's far away, desolate, and you can find prettier mountains/woods/etc in the lower 48. The only thing it really has going for it is the wildness, which is fucking awesome, but there's a thousand places that would be better suited for an anniversary trip.

Silence_sl said:

Alaska sucks for all of those except fishing.

The fishing is magnificent if you have access to the right facilities.

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Fair enough, never been myself. Alaska is the be-all, end-all for mechanized skiing/boarding though. And I don't really see how it would suck for mountain climbing since it has most of the highest peaks in North America. Camping yeah I could see it sucking if the bugs are half as bad as they are in the Yukon and NWT in the summer.

Eomer_sl said:

Fair enough, never been myself. Alaska is the be-all, end-all for mechanized skiing/boarding though. And I don't really see how it would suck for mountain climbing since it has most of the highest peaks in North America. Camping yeah I could see it sucking if the bugs are half as bad as they are in the Yukon and NWT in the summer.

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Right. I had to look up mechanized skiing...and it would be epic for that. I thought you were talking about resort skiing.

I grew up there and lived there and thought mountaineering was a pain in the nuts due to the weather and difficulty of just getting to non-rutworn areas. That may be a function of getting older and having done it way too much over the years, though.

Camping via kayak was awesome, but things like rv camping are out due to the sheer numbers of assholes on the road.

Makes sense. A couple friends drove their motorcycles up there and were t-boned by some cunt running a stop sign. They were husband and wife, riding on the same bike back to their hotel after dinner. Both broke their legs, it was ugly.

Friday after work is when all the rednecks piled into their 32-color Fords and Chivvies and clogged the shit out of the Seward/Sterling Highway to do this (combat fishing) :

Adam12_sl said:

Alaska is for old people. Germany is probably the most interesting of those places, but damn, if you're going to Europe just go to Italy and enjoy la dolce vita.

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I have nothing against Germany and have relatives there on my wife's side of the family so we are usually in Hamburg every easter, although there are quite a few romantic places in Germany, I would not go there on any anniversery except maybe if it was in october (to drink a shitload of beer).

So I have to agree with the above somewhat, even though I would probably avoid, Italy, Greece and Spain for awhile, given that their economy is totally shit atm.

If you want to visit cities, Budapest (Hungary) and Prag (Czech Republic) have lots to offer and these countries are also bordering to Germany should you want to go there aswell.

I spent 3 months in Alaska fishing and loved it. I'm not sure it would be great for a tourist if you are not a hardcore fisherman however. My uncle pulled his airstream up there and a local lady who ran the museum had a space on her property he parked it on. So he didn't have to mess with parks etc...I spent the entire summer up there fishing for the different salmon runs, offshore halibut (he had a friend who had a boat), crabbing, digging clams etc...and then sight seeing. However I'm a big fisherman and we didn't have to deal with the tourist operations to go halibut fishing. Another friend of my uncles had a cub airplane who worked for the fish and game department and I spent a lot of time with him flying out to places and hiking/backpacking and just general sight seeing. I loved it but I could see where the hotel/lodge thing would get old really quick and almost 90% of the tourist you see on the tours and areas are over 65.

I'm from Europe but if I was an American doing a two-week trip of Europe I don't think I'd stick to just one country. Plenty of cheap flights/trains or you could rent a car and drive and see stuff along the way. For instance, Berlin to Paris is under 700 miles, and there's plenty of worthwhile stuff in between if you want to split it up a bit (Luxembourg and Cologne are just two cities that come to mind, worth a day or half a day each for sure). Paris to London is under 2.5 hours by high speed train.

I'll second all of the cities already mentioned above and I'll add Istanbul as also very worthwhile, >2000 years of history all in one place. Gets busy and hot in the summer though.

Or you can just go to the city that founded Istanbul and only have to deal with crazy catholics instead of moderate muslims!