Top 5 Places to Visit (with and w/o our kids)

Santorini, Greece (our honeymoon)

Great Wall, Beijing, China

Bangkok, Thailand

St. Martin

Stan and I travel well together and our motto is not to visit the same place twice.  Do not get me wrong we have visited some places more than once but we always try to pick somewhere new to visit each time.  The world is big and we want to see it all.  We like to soak in culture/history, take some pictures, and then we are off to the next place.  We have roughed it across Europe and parts of Southeast Asia and believe a bed is a bed (as long as there is no bugs).  We just need someone to rest our feet at the end of a grueling but rewarding site-seeing day.  We have tried tour groups but they go incredibly too slow for us.  We are very fast paced and sometimes joke we should be on Amazing Race.  We will not have the opportunity to travel like we have in the past due to having wonderful Maksim. When you have kids it changes your whole travel outlook.  I confirmed this when we recently took a trip to St. Martin with Maksim.  It was a great vacation but it had its challenges like the flight (yes, I was that mom on the plane!), all the stuff we had to bring for one little man, his sleeping schedule, etc.  Gone are the days of sleeping in on vacation and going anywhere on a whim. I have come to the realization that there are trips we will take with our kid(s) and trips we will not take our kid(s).  I was inspired to make a top 5 list of places I want to go with Maksim (once he gets to about 5 years old) and without Maksim as cruel as that sounds.  Maksim has plenty of time to see the world on his own and some places he will visit in the future I am sure he will not want Mom and Dad tagging around.

Top 5 Places I want to Visit with Kids

1. Moscow, Russian (should be easy because we have relatives, know the language, and we can explore our culture)
2. Disney Caribbean Cruise (I know its cliche but I imagine how happy I would make Maksim)
3. Montreal and Quebec City (I really love Canada; its has a Euro-feel to it without crossing the Atlantic)
4. Australia & New Zealand (live out my Lord or the Rings and Xena Warrior Princess fantasy with my kid(s))
5. Safari in Africa (how cool of parents would we be if we did this?)

Top 5 Places I want to Visit Selfishly without Kids

1. Istanbul, Turkey (for the marketplace alone!)
2. Bora Bora, French Polynesia (I want my own private over the water bungalow....maybe a 10 year wedding anniversary???)
3. South America (all the major sites in Brazil, Peru, Chile)
4. Cooking/Food Tour in Southern regions of France and Italy
5. Southeast Asia (Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia)

Love,

First Gen Fam