Travel Ideas for Jul/Aug 2008

[pacman99]

Hey,

I've been browsing through the posts here but haven't found an interesting place to visit within the budget we've allowed and was hoping for some advice.
We're a group of three (2 adults & a 14yr old) who have a budget of $2000 (for travel purposes only, hotels etc can be extra). We're located in Toronto and would like to go somewhere for 3-5 days within this budget either at the end of July or in early/mid August.
We've seen most of Canada except for the Northern provinces/territories (Yukon/NWT/Nunavut) & the Maritimes. We've never been to the states.

Things we enjoy:
-natural beauty (i.e. caves, mountains, canyons etc). One of us can't hike for several hours though so they need to be relatively accessible by car or by a short walk/hike.
-architecture (although we're a bit bored of North American architecture. Things like temples, skyline, etc come to mind here)
-something "different" like http://www.soaringtreetopadventures.com/ but this is a bit too expensive for now if we include the flight etc to get to this location.
-we're willing to rent a car etc to drive around if need be.
-the best deal we were able to find was $1700 roundtrip from Toronto to London, UK but unfortunately the special was only for Jul 18 - Jul 22, which is too early for us.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[fortunekitty500]

Are you up for a driving trip? You can drive down to Virginia's Shenandoah National Park (part of the Appalachians). You'll get to see caves, mountains and along the way even see a canyon! If you use your own car, then you're just paying for gas.

Shenandoah park is incredibly beautiful. The drive though the park is called Skyline Drive with lots of overlooks, short and long hiking trails with waterfalls, etc. The area is dotted with caverns.

I've done this trip over 4 days by car. If you have 5 days, you'll feel less rushed and may be able to squeeze in Washington.

If you want to go overseas, how about Paris?

[pacman99]

Are you up for a driving trip? You can drive down to Virginia's Shenandoah National Park (part of the Appalachians). You'll get to see caves, mountains and along the way even see a canyon! If you use your own car, then you're just paying for gas.
Doesn't sound like a bad idea although we'd probably want to take a flight out of buffalo to virginia, rent a car, then start the trip, rather than drive the 10 hours from toronto to avoid wasting a day.


Shenandoah park is incredibly beautiful. The drive though the park is called Skyline Drive with lots of overlooks, short and long hiking trails with waterfalls, etc. The area is dotted with caverns.
I looked at the map and it's reminding me of the canadian rockies. We weren't able to see any mention of caves or caverns on the map though. Are there any specific names we should be looking for?


If you want to go overseas, how about Paris?
We'd love to go to Paris. It's just that the price to get there is too much. We haven't been able to get anything lower than ~$1500/person for a round trip. Considering there's 3 of us + taxes etc, that will end up being a lot.
We wanted to pay a max of $2000 total on plane tickets to get to our destination so Europe seems to be out of the question...unless we're looking at the wrong airlines.

[billdozer]

did you try Zoom Airlines? www.flyzoom.com

[pacman99]

did you try Zoom Airlines? www.flyzoom.com
Yes:
Final Amount $3,385.02 for 3 people including taxes etc to Paris.

[fortunekitty500]

Shenandoah/Appalachians are really different than the rockies. The mountains are softer, more hills than sharp mountain peaks, no snow. The area is pocketed with caves. Luray Caverns is the largest in the Eastern US and most famous in the area, Shenandoah Caverns is less busy. These are in the "mid" section of the park.

It's tough finding a good deal to Europe right now as it's high season. The caribbean is cheap except it's really hot, otherwise I'd recommend Costa Rica. Zip lines, rappelling, cloud forest, live volcanoes, etc.