2015 Travel Wish List

It’s back to school, and I’m already feeling the itch to travel again. I started the year off strong with weekends in Princeton and Killington but am starting to look towards February and trying to figure out where the Take 12 Trips Challenge will take me next. While I’m still not sure where I’ll get to at that point, I have a couple of tentative weekend trips for future months that I’ve been getting excited about and am using to pull through the January doldrums.

“Ville de Québec01” by Bernard Gagnon – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Quebec City, QC–I made it up to Quebec during my spring break freshman year of college, and I’d love to venture back to Canada’s deeply French-influenced province this year, but instead to Quebec City. From what I’ve heard, Quebec City is more charming and European feeling on the whole than Montreal, its larger counterpart. The city is famous for its winter carnival and is a great spot to indulge in some poutine. Château Frontenac is supposedly the most photographed hotel in the world, so I’ll be sure to make my contribution when I, hopefully, visit the city in March.

 

 

 

“New-orleans10” by Falkue at the German language Wikipedia. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

New Orleans, LA–Another place I’ve been itching to visit is New Orleans. I’ve been south before to Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, but Louisiana seems like a different type of southern than these places, and it seems like an interesting and unique city that’s too good to pass up with its French Quarter and Creole influence. It’s famous for Bourbon Street, but I’ve also been intrigued by brunch in NOLA for some reason. For TV junkies, it was also the backdrop for the third season of American Horror Story.

 

 

 

“Bluffs along the coast of Nomans island nantucket” by Gore Lamar, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket–Though I grew up in Massachusetts, I’ve never been to either of the two famous islands off Cape Cod: Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. Last summer I made it to Block Island, Rhody’s more laid-back answer, and really enjoyed it with the island’s spectacular views and incredible biking. Given all the hype that these two Massachusetts islands enjoy, though, I think it’s finally time I take the ferry out to visit at least one of them. And with views like this, I think they’re a must.

 

 

 

View of Manhattan from the ferry

New York–I’ve been to New York a fair number of times at this point, but there are still some things that I have yet to do, which makes sense in a city of its size. I’m hoping to make a trip into the city to see MoMA and the Guggenheim, neither of which I’ve been to, and would like to tag a game at Yankee Stadium onto that with stops for coffee at Blue Bottle and Cafe Grumpy. From the city, I’d like to day trip out to also see the Cropsey Museum in Hastings and the Union Church of Pocantico Hills where there are some original Chagall windows.