Thanksgiving week Vacation Ideas
 

If you were going to take a vacation during the week containing Thanksgiving, and you lived where we live, and you were a family of 4 with kids 9 and 11 yrs old and were jinx and I......


and you had a TOTAL vacation budget of $3K......where would you go? We're considering the outer banks again......but I just wanted to see if anyone had any other i deers.



thx

oh....the place has to have a kitchen where we can cook T-day dinner...and cable TV so I can watch the Cowboys game.

our place. :)

Rent a place on Cape Cod instead, just for a change. And spend a day in Plymouth touring the Mayflower and Plimoth Plantation just so you can get into the whole Thanksgiving spirit. Tour the grist mill there, and the Howland house (only house left standing where an actual pilgrim lived.) The cemetery on the hill is kind of cool too. Very old grave stones and some famous historical figures. It will be colder than N.C. but there's more to see and the beach in N.C. will be too cold to enjoy anyway.

You could also do a trip into Boston and see all the tons of historical sights there too. But maybe Plymouth is enough history and you might just want to park yourself in a beach house for the rest of the week.

Camp at Warwick Woods Campground.

Glatts idea is great, except for the timing - It'll be really cold and windy up there in November. then again maybe not with the whole global warming ...


Me - Go south, as far as you can get.

Santa Fe, New Mexico? Kinda cold, but probably pretty unusual and different.

California.

Mexico. Uh, no, wait . . . . scratch that.

Ah, I don't have any good ideas! Except one: look for condos to rent; probably much cheaper, and with kitchens.

In November, the average high in Plymouth MA is 52 and in Avon N.C. it's 64. That's peak temperature, so you gotta figure for most of the day it will be in the upper 40s in MA and around 60 in NC. That's jacket weather in both places. What's the difference between wearing a light jacket and a medium jacket? It's only 8 degrees difference between the two.

You gotta head down to Florida before it gets to be bathing suit weather. There's not enough $$ for airfare for 4 and lodging, so it's got to be driving distance. And everything in driving distance will be cool/cold.

I think Plymouth would be too crowded at Thanksgiving anyway. Alternatively, if you're into cold and crowds, why not go to New York and watch the parade in person?

- There's a big indoor water park in the Poconos. I've never been to it, but I know there are lots of house rentals in the Poconos. Not sure the water park would be worth a week but it would be water and fun for the kids.

- Hudson River valley is pretty neat. It's so scenic it spawned a whole school of American painting. Lots of little villages along there and nice hiking areas. The Gunks are pretty. You can go mountain biking on the old carriage trails there. Bear Mountian is nice. Breakneck Ridge is spectacular but a difficult hike with lots of rock scrambling. Visiting the Hudson River valley is more of an active vacation and less of a parking your butt in one spot for a week.

- The same distance as the Outer Banks, but in the opposite direction, is Montreal. It's like taking the kids to France, except you can drive there in a day. Walking around foreign cities and checking out museums and sights can be pretty fun. I've never been there, but feel like I should go some time.

- Niagra Falls. I'm just throwing this out there. I doubt it's worth spending a week there, and it's a long drive.

In that case ... nevermiiiiind.

<Gilda Radner>

thanks for the ideas. It seemed to me like there should be someplace new we could go to....

I think we'll still end up at OBX this year......we like it, and there's lots of stuff at the southern end we haven't really looked at yet.

I looked at an OBX website. It has everything and everything you guys seem to like. Me thinks you are a thoughtful genius.

Glatt, I've been thinking about the Cape Cod/Plymouth idea more and more... talked it over with the kids and we're gonna plan that out for next year.

Thanks for the idea!

Cool! We spent a full day in Plymouth last summer and we all loved it. Very educational for the kids. My mom is into geneology and had traced back my wife's family and mine, so our kids knew which 4 or 5 pilgrims were their ancestors on each side. They looked at everything they saw that day through that lens, and helped them really imagine what it would be like to live back then.

Check our picassa pictures if you like. Around 30 pictures there. At the end is a low res video of Pilgrim's Progress, which is a parade they do on some schedule like once a month or something. We just happened to be there one of the days they were doing it. People dressed as specific pilgrims parade silently behind a drummer up from the Mayflower area to Burial Hill, where they do a few readings from the bible in the old cemetery. Then they march back down. It was pretty cool.

I don't know a lot about Cape Cod. I've been there before, but was always just staying at friends beach houses and didn't venture out much. It's your typical beach community, but with older houses than you will find in NC.