Would you rather go to the beach or to the mountains for vacation?

[idgiehkt]

Poll question: Would you rather go to the beach or to the mountains for vacation?

Are you planning on doing either this summer? I can't decide. I haven't been to the beach in ages, but I enjoy the mountains a bit more, plus the weather is nicer.

[Joe Fields]

1. both.. you make my head hurt having to pick one...

I love both equally well...:bounce:

[idgiehkt]

2. yep, I want to go to the beach-uns, lol

I lived in the mountains for years, but I don't think I've been to the beach since '99. :hi:

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

6. Go to an area that has a beach and mountains. n/t

[idgiehkt]

8. any suggestions?

on the east coast, I mean. :hi:

[dysfunctional press]

23. how about the east coast of the Big Island?

nt

[MichiganVote]

7. Me too.

[reyd reid reed]

3. I'm not planning on either

but, since the mountains are practically in my back yard, I'd rather go to a beach.

[bif]

4. I can't deal with anything over 6000 feet

I have a hard time breathing at high elevations. So I've gotta vote beach.

[SPKrazy]

5. I say the beach

that said, i will prolly go to the mountains

:shrug:

[Richard Steele]

9. Heading west to the mountains in the fall. nm

[Arugula Latte]

10. Oh, the ocean wins hands down.

No contest.

[idgiehkt]

11. hmmm....let me see

maybe let Jane's Addiction hash it out
(in fanvids)

Ocean size
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bB8pNDSAIs

Coming down the mountain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmI_UqUMwIY&mode=related&search=

[Arugula Latte]

13. aaaaand The Waterboys weigh in:

This is the Sea:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=gTTKcrbQog8&mode=related&search=

[idgiehkt]

14. that is really beatiful

thanks for posting it, it's been a while since I've heard that. :)

This is a departure from the songs above but it always makes me crave the beach

A Pirate Looks at 40
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KNmULx6sMo4

[Arugula Latte]

18. Thanks for all those!

I'd never heard the Jane's Addiction song.

The surf one was cool, duuude ...

Here is another fun ocean-related one ... Burning Sensations "Belly of the Whale": http://youtube.com/watch?v=yfw39PEdT58

[idgiehkt]

21. that is a fun song!

Here are the band videos for Ocean Size and Mountain. :hi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC8KPL3G6iI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmI_UqUMwIY&mode=related&search=

[RedCappedBandit]

12. I live on an island.. mountains.

[KamaAina]

15. Come on over...

the distance mauka from Waikiki into the Ko'olau range is maybe three miles. It is even possible to take a public bus between the two.

[idgiehkt]

19. that sounds amazing

I am so envious. :hi:

[femmocrat]

16. I live in the mountains, so I choose "beach."

There is more to do at the beach. What can you do in the mountains?

[Deja Q]

17. Mountains anytime... they're cooler. Besides,

To me, a date is a vacation but that would open up any number of "unintentional" double entendres...

[Kajsa]

20. Hi Idgie,

I'm a bonafide beach bum.

But I love the mountains, too.

If I had to choose, the ocean is my first pick.

:hi: :pals:

[idgiehkt]

22. Hey!

Good to see you. :hug:

Another reason I like the mountains better is the beach is a wrinkle alert zone, which I now have to worry about. :(

[RebelOne]

24. Since I had lived in Miami most of my life until 1989,

I was pretty sick of the beach. I now live in North Georgia and vacation in the mountains in Tennessee. In fact, I am going to Gatlinburg for a week in July. My daughter and I have rented a cabin in the mountains.

[idgiehkt]

26. a cabin in the mountains is the perfect vacation

a weekend at the beach would be nice, and maybe a week long vacation in the mountains.

[taterguy]

25. I just got back from a long weekend in the mountains

I like both but I had a free place to stay there and I wanted a chance to go bike riding in the area where Lance Armstrong trained for his comeback

[idgiehkt]

27. where is that?

It looks like it might be transylvania county in NC, or is it another state? Beautiful pics.

[taterguy]

31. Watauga County, NC

About half an hour west of Boone and ten minutes North of the Mast General Store in Valle Crusis, 45 minutes North if you're pedaling a bike on those hills.

[idgiehkt]

32. I've never been to Boone

I need to go, I have friends from up there. I'm homesick now. :hi:

[Javaman]

28. I go to the foothills. The best of both worlds. :) nt

[LSK]

29. dont make me choose

:cry:

[azmouse]

30. How can anyone afford to travel every summer?

My family never took vacations when I was growing up. We were too poor.
So I never got in the habit of vacationing and I just expect to go somewhere now.

[idgiehkt]

33. I can't

I went to the beach alot when I was with a woman who loved the beach...I think we went like 5 times in a year once. But we had good jobs then, and it was her thing. I haven't been since we broke up.

I lived in the mountains for years so every day felt like a vacation most of the time. Right now I am living in a place where there is just nothing to look at but soybean fields, and I really miss living in a physically beautiful place. I have known single mothers who have saved up to take their kids to the beach for a week...it varies from individual to individual, but I don't think there is anything wrong with taking vacations. I do know a guy whose family took vacations in lieu of Christmas and birthday presents every year. It was a family vote that they held, and the whole family was in agreement they would rather go somewhere than have presents...so he got to go all over the U.S. as a kid.

[Maddy McCall]

56. That's me...single parent, save all year...

So that i can take my son to the mountains in the summer. Sometimes I save a couple of years, and we just blow it all in a couple of weeks in the mountains.

:D

[grace0418]

38. We don't have kids and we live in a small condo near a big airport.

So we don't have to travel at peak times when school's out (nor are we saving for college tuition), we don't have a big mortgage or lots of home maintenance, and flights are cheap(-ish) and plentiful from O'Hare. Traveling is just our thing. Neither of us traveled a lot as kids but we live for it now. If I won the lottery, I would be on a plane the next day. If I could have my dream job, I would probably be a travel writer (I'd have to learn how to write well, first, unfortunately). :)

Oh, and I am the QUEEN of finding good fares and inexpensive ways to travel. We almost never stay in hotels and only eat in restaurants a few times during each trip. We rent apartments, cook several of our own meals, pack picnic lunches, and do lots of research on overpriced tourist traps before we go.

But yeah, folks with kids and big mortgages, I don't know how they manage any summer travel. Especially with gas prices. Yikes.

[idgiehkt]

39. how does the renting apartments thing work?

are they people who are out of town for the week, or are they empty for the time being? That is a novel idea.

[grace0418]

45. Well, there are a number of options. Sometimes we've rented from people

who are going out of town. We rented an AWESOME loft in Portland, OR over Thanksgiving weekend one time. Found it on Craigslist. Other times we've gone through agencies that rent out apartments. The owners of the apartments either own them for investments and don't live there, or they live there part-time and rent it out when they're away. Then sometimes the agencies actually own the apartments. Just google "vacation rental" and the city you're visiting and TONS of different things come up. I only rent from places that will show me extensive pictures of the property and will tell me where the property is located. I don't want to get stuck in a dump in a bad neighborhood. But so far we've had wonderful luck with it, and we've rented in the US and Europe.

It usually turns out to be cheaper than a decent hotel plus you save money on food. When you think about how much breakfast and lunch costs at even a modest restaurant and compare it with buying a few groceries, it really adds up fast. Plus we really enjoy going to local markets. It makes you feel like a local.

When we visited London, I think we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun if we'd stayed in a hotel. We had a blast going to museums and historical places and shops and galleries, but we'd get really tired and quite damp/chilled after a few hours. It was so nice to take a break and go back to our cozy apartment, make some tea, have a little nap, plan our next excursion, then go back out refreshed and warm with dry socks. There were even a couple of nights that we stayed in and watched British telly and made a nice dinner rather than exhausting ourselves every minute.

Oh and we've rented two different houses in California. One was a secluded little house in Sonoma County. It was surrounded by trees and had a wonderful deck and bbq grill. Every night we'd grill dinner, have some nice wine, then sit in the hot tub and look at the stars. And every morning we'd make hot coffee, sit on the deck and watch the trees emerge from the fog before heading out to whatever we were going to do that day. The other house was right on the ocean in Monterey. We went with my husband's whole family and had a blast. His family had never done anything like it before so we did the research and found the house. It was gorgeous and so affordable. Eating breakfast on the deck while watching dolphins swim by was pretty amazing for this city girl. Sigh...

Lastly, you can do house swaps as well. My sister does that all the time and it's free. I'm a little too private about my house to do that personally, but for her it's worked out great and she's never had any problems.

Okay, sorry, that was probably more info than you wanted. Can you tell I just love to travel?!

[Chan790]

34. Neither

I live in the mountains and hate the beach. I'd rather go to Manhattan.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

35. I can't stand crowds...

So unless there's still a patch of beach where you can walk without stepping on someone, or being subjected to their boomboxes, I'd go with the mountains.

[taterguy]

42. Sorry, don't know of any uncrowded beaches

[GoddessOfGuinness]

52. And where might those be?

Reminds me of Assateague in the off-season.

When I was a kid, we'd visit my grandparents on the east coast of Florida. There were so many nice spots where you wouldn't see more than a handful of people. The turtles would come up on the shore and lay their eggs. It was so beautiful...so peaceful.

[grace0418]

36. Ideally, both. If I can go tide-pooling and hiking in the mountains on the same day,

I'm in heaven. Unfortunately, I live in Chicago and can do neither. :(

[idgiehkt]

37. what is tide-pooling?

I can relate to living somewhere that has neither. :(

[grace0418]

41. We've done it a few times in N. California. During low tide, if you go to a beach that has a lot

of big rocky outcroppings, you'll find all these little tide-pools where cool creatures get caught. They're trapped until the tide gets high again, so you can scramble around and get close-up views of tiny little marine ecosystems. I have some awesome pictures from our tide-pooling excursions. It's like a treasure hunt!

[elehhhhna]

40. Everyone's problems solved here: I give you St. Lucia!

[anarch]

43. a mountainous beach

[bigwillq]

44. Mountains

but beaches are nice too..I just wouldn't want it to be too crowded. I would want my peace and quiet so a mountain it is.

[XOKCowboy]

46. I live and work out of Denver and was born in Oklahoma but.....

I LOVE THE OCEAN! I don't know how it happened but a white sand beach on a turquoise ocean is heaven to me. I'll end up down there one day.

Give me Rum Runners, sea breezes and conch and lobster dinners any time. :)

[CTyankee]

48. You need to go to Maine. Lots of seafood, esp. lobstahs

but beware the accent Mainers have. I couldn't understand when the ice cream parlor lady kept asking me if I wanted "saaaft" or "haaad". Mainers have more of an accent that Bostonians, IMHO. My son in law is a native Bostonian and we used to make fun of his accent. Now we understand everything he says and Ijust love the Boston accent...

[FloridaJudy]

47. Mountains

The beach is crowded and too damned hot. Plus I'm the kind who burn just walking by the tanning parlor, so I have to slather on factor 80 sunscreen. Then I sweat, and it drips into my eyes. Ick.

So what am I doing in Florida? Darned if I know.

[idgiehkt]

49. lol

my parents lived in Orlando for like five years and almost never went to the beach. I went to Clearwater beach when I went to see them once and there were sting-rays everywhere. I think if I could have a vacation at the beach AND the mountains that would be cool and if not I would choose the mountains, if I only had one choice.

:hi: :hug: :loveya:

[Evoman]

50. Gee....I wonder

This....





Or this

[DS1]

51. Both

I've done the beach. A LOT. But it would have to be a pretty special set of mountains.

[LeftyMom]

53. This is why I vacation near Santa Cruz.

Both within minutes of each other, and it's not hot.

[Jamastiene]

54. I like both, but every time I go to the mountains,

I end up with ticks. The beach is better for me, so I choose the beach when I have a choice. Half nekked women walking around doesn't hurt the beach's cause one bit. :evilgrin:

[WinkyDink]

55. Love shells; pretty much hate pine needles and muggy mountain air.