Where to go? Deciding Where to Travel Next

How do you decide where you want to travel? I am pretty much open to going anywhere it is safe and where there will be no health issues for me. Those are my only two criteria. In the US I intend to see all 50 states (only a handful left ...yay!!), but for international destinations, safety and health calls it. I wanted to go to Peru, but had to pass on Macchu Pichu because I get altitude sickness at about 9200 feet and would not be able to leave the higher attitudes to acclimate. So since I didn’t feel like dealing with an extreme headache, I took an Amazon River trip instead. I would love to return to the Middle East, but well, safety and political factors keep putting that trip on hold. Fortunately there is a whole world out there, so I try to see what I can when the country becomes available to visit if it was not before. Some Latin and Asian countries are now open for travel where they were not before, and are getting safer all the time. As for the rest of the US...I am a presidential library buff, and as luck would have it, the states I have not yet seen, and which have little else to draw me, have a presidential library or some other form of presidential history I have not yet seen. 

Photo by Jann Segal

The only other criteria I have is opportunity.  On one trip I joined to Central Europe, Poland was going to be included. I would have never considered Poland all by myself, so that was the calling card for me. Some friends of mine in Southampton, England invited me to visit them in Southampton and also go to Guernsey with them in the Channel Islands. How many Americans get that invitation? I said yes in a second and flew to Marrakech after my week with them, since the budget carriers in the UK make it cheap and easy. Opportunity to travel and see things that would have never occurred to me to see will always draw me in. Travel companies and tour operators are great about providing those opportunities too!!