SLC to MCO to take my son to see the Space shuttle launch, worth every single ****y gripe I have about being a pilot to watch him watch liftoff.:D

Just did a 7 day trip to Tanzania to go hunting and camping in the jungle, followed by some relaxation in Zanzibar. If you love adventure, risking your life against various animals, poachers, villagers, and cops, then this is the trip for you. If you prefer 4 star hotels, clean food, and no malaria pills, then stay away.

heres how to go to Tanzania:

Jumpseat on UAL from IAD to DXB. Buy a roundtrip ticket on Emirates from DXB to DAR. from there, the adventure begins, hikers can fly to Kilimanjaro, relaxers can take a boat to Zanzibar, and hunters can drive to Arusha. Tourist visa is $100 US. Enjoy!

Here,s a short list.
ATH
HER
TPE
ANC
SYD
BNE
AMS
JFK
MIA
DFW
ATL
ORD
LHR
CPT
HNL
SVO
:D

I just returned from my second Buenos Aires trip in 3 months. Summer has just started and the flights are filling up, but between AA, CO, DL, UA, jumpseating in and out is fairly easy. The 10 hour flight goes by quick in those new flatbeds in UA business class :)

Absolutely wonderful city. Best steaks in the world for under $10, delicious wine, beautiful people, and a great party atmosphere. Plenty of hostels available for around $15 per night (dorm accomodations, best way to meet other travellers). Makes for a perfect 4 day trip.

Saw a couple of mentions of Prague. Absolutely the most beautiful city I've ever seen! My wife and I spent three weeks in the Czech Republic this past May. We stayed in a little town in Western Czech called Zlin. We traveled all over the Czech Republic, the Slovak Republic, Austria, and Poland. The people were friendly, the food was AMAZING, and overall costs were mind-numbing cheap! We ate at the best restaurants, getting appetizers, deserts, and the best beer in the world, along with souvenirs for $40/day for both of us!

Far and away, the best trip of my life.

Prague was a little more expensive, but you can get a hostel for under $30/night easily. Hotels there ran around $100/night. But it is easy to fly into, DL has a direct flight from ATL twice a week. And english is common there.

Austria was beautiful to, but even more expensive than Prague. Probably my favorite budget city we found was Krakow, Poland. A beautiful downtown, really reasonable prices, and not crowded at all. And you can see Auschwitz if you're into that kind of thing, too.

All in all, I'd highly recommend easter europe.

You know, I almost said central Europe, but most americans wouldn't know to where I was referring. :)

If you go to san jose go whitewater rafting. Its 95 dollars and they feed you breakfast and lunch and everything else is included, it is amazing. It is the paraqua (sp?) river you want, rated second best by national geographic. If you dont do it you will miss out bigtime.

For inspiration, I either look at the awesome photos on the National Geographic Traveler website, or play on a site called IExplore. It has a cool search function to find adventure activities based on parameters like country, month, kind of tour, etc. Many of the offerings are tours that are WAY too expensive. But, I found a four-day Alaska sea kayaking tour on there, and then called the tour company directly and paid a lot less. I'm not really into the big tour thing, but these adventure ones that include hiking, biking, etc are usually a smaller, physically active crowd.

Other travel highlights for me:

Costa Rica, it is as wonderful as everyone says. A lot of development going on though, so get there before it may get spoiled. We went to the interior, around the Arenal volcano. Walked around the Cloud Forest, then flew over it on a zipline a 1000' feet above the canopy...awesome! Repelled down a waterfall the next day. I would like to return and go to the coast next time to try the surfing.

Rome...spent some time in the city to check out the requisite attractions, but stayed on a farm about an hour north of the city near Anguillara, called I Due Laghi. Dinner included wine and cheese they had made. Experienced a great horseback ride to the top of the hill overlooking the lakes on one side and Rome in the distance. The lady taking us up there said, "this is where the Roman armies would camp and shine their shields and armor before marching back home to Rome"...*****en, huh!

Reykjavic was a three-day stopover for us on a trip to Sweden. Amazing scenery, like driving around on another planet. Great nightlife and place to party, but WHOA, the booze is pricey! I think the ideal way to see it would be 8-10 days and rent a car, and drive the "ring road" the goes all the way around the island, with a few days in 3 or 4 towns on the way around.

On my to-do list:

Santorini...when I used to work in the back, I would always ask passengers what their favorite destination so far was, and this was the #1 response
Prague...I hear Delta may start up from JFK again soon, yay!...this was also passengers #2 response
New Zealand