It’s hard to believe that 2017 is almost over and the holidays are right around the corner.  Steve and I always take a trip over the week of Thanksgiving.  It saves us precious PTO time due to the holiday (I get 2 days off, he gets only 1 day).  We typically take a full week which works well because that’s always a slow week at work for both of us with many people traveling for the holidays.  I feel like I can actually put my phone down and stop checking email for at least 2 days.

This year we are spending 6 days in Mexico at the Viceroy Hotel, which is about 45 minutes south of Cancun.  We stayed at this hotel in May 2016 for a 3 day weekend trip and fell in love with it.  The rooms are all individual palapas with private plunge pools, outdoor living areas, and indoor-outdoor bathroom and are nestled into a jungle like setting for ultimate privacy.  They also have 2 great restaurants, a lovely spa and a great beach and pool set-up.  We found that 3 days was far too short so we doubled the trip for this stay.

We mostly plan to relax during this trip and will be reading by the pool or beach, hitting the spa one morning and chilling out.  We will probably head into the town of Playa del Carmen one day for a little shopping and lunch and we would also like to visit the Mayan Ruins at Tulum one morning as well.  Can’t wait for some sunshine and margaritas.

We will be home over the Xmas holidays but leave shortly thereafter for a few days in California.  We’ll be visiting the Santa Ynez wine valley again, which is an area we love.  We’re members for a few wine clubs out there (actually, I really need to drop one) so we always visit our favorite wineries for a few tastings and picnic lunches though it may be a little too chilly in Dec/Jan for a picnic but we’ll see.  We will also spend one final night in the town of Santa Barbara and have splurged on the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel.  Actually, if you book that hotel in the winter months, you can get a very reasonable rate.  During the high season in summer, the rates are crazy high.

I’m currently in planning mode for the back half of 2018 as well.  I’m looking at an early summer weekend trip to Big Sur, California and perhaps a Labor Day weekend trip to Maine or maybe Colorado again.  We’d like to do a big trip next November and the places high on my list are Japan, Italy, Costa Rica or maybe Hawaii.  It really depends on whether I can use miles to get a business class ticket to Japan during that month…I won’t know until early January when they open up the seating so stay tuned!  I should have some good trip reports coming up following the Mexico and California trips in November and December.