Every New Year’s Eve we sit down with the kids, and everyone makes lists of our favorite travel-related memories from the past year. It’s become an elaborate ritual and one of our favorite traditions. Here’s how it goes down: everyone makes their own secret list, and then we enter them into a word document so they can stay anonymous. Then one person reads all the lists and we all say, “oh, yeah! that was fun!” or whatever and also try to guess who made each list. This year, I would like to note, I correctly guessed every single list. And then I use the lists to figure out our collective favorites and write this post. Everything that makes more than one list gets a spot (or at least that’s how it’s worked out the past couple of years). It’s too bad there aren’t 19 such things this year, for 2019 and all, but maybe it’s just as well. 19 things is a lot of things.
This year we hit a bit of a snag because we had a fair amount of travel that only involved some of the family. We solved it by having everyone only include things we were all there for in the top 10, and people could add bonus memories that only involved part of the family. We may have to rethink this later as more kids grow up and the times when we’re all together become less frequent, but I don’t want to think about that right now–too sad! Or at least bittersweet.
There were a lot more ties this year than last, and no one thing made more than four lists, so ranking will be a little tricky. So the order is a little arbitrary. I’ll start with the things that have the fewest votes (but made at least two lists) and work up to the thing that made four lists. And then I’ll throw in a few of the bonuses that made people’s not-all-of-us-were-there lists. And, of course, the main difference between this list and lists past is that most of it is from England and Ireland and didn’t involve RV travel.
14. Our Rental House in Oughterard and Rashers the Cat
(two lists) We weren’t so sure about the Oughterard house when we first saw it, but it grew on us, and now I have very fond memories of sitting in the cozy kitchen there, with a peat fire going in the fireplace, and the neighbor’s cat meowing outside the door. And one night we came across Dirty Dancing on Irish TV and watched it, and that was fun.
13. Inisheer
(two lists) Our somewhat impulse-y trip to the smallest of the Aran Islands made two lists. I didn’t put it on mine probably largely because I found the boat ride there so unpleasant that I wasn’t sure it was worth it in the end. But it was indeed lovely, with some very cool things to see.
12. Rome Braves
(three lists) I was a little surprised that this one was so popular (and I almost put it on my list, too, which would have had it tied for first place). Back in April we went to see the Braves single A affiliate, the Rome Braves play. It’s only about an hour from home, and they have nice RV sites along the edge of their parking lot! I never blogged about it because it ended up being a quick one night stay, and we didn’t get to do much else in the area. I’m hoping to make at least one more game this spring and stay a little longer. But it was a really cool experience being able to walk right back across the parking lot and go to bed. And the bike path that goes into downtown Rome is adjacent to the parking lot, too, so we’re looking forward to bringing bikes and checking that out.
11. Muckross Abbey/Biking in Killarney
(three lists) We saw a lot of ruins in Ireland, but Muckross Abbey was definitely the best one. We rented bikes at our hotel and rode to the Abbey and then on to Muckross Traditional Farms…really the whole day could have made the list, but the Abbey was the highlight.
10. Roman Baths (and really all of Bath)
(three lists) We all found Bath enchanting. The actual Roman baths were a highlight, and the museum was really well done, but we also all loved just wandering around the city (and some of our favorite restaurants from the trip were here, too).
9. Westminster Abbey
(three lists) And in the non-ruined old buildings category, Westminster Abbey is the winner. I guess we like Abbeys. Even Abe really enjoyed Westminster Abbey, thanks to the excellent family audio guide. We liked it so much we went back again another day to hear an organ performance.
8. Jekyll Island
(three lists) We just got back from Jekyll a couple of days ago; our trip lasted until January 2, so our Jekyll trip will be eligible for next year’s list as well. Blog post will be up eventually (we found a lot of new things to do on this trip, even though I felt like we explored pretty thoroughly on our last visit), but to sum up: Jekyll is still pretty great. I really love doing a trip right after Christmas; it takes the edge off that post-holiday letdown feeling. We made these lists sitting around a campfire at the Jekyll Island Campground, so it might have had an unfair advantage.
7. Treasure Trails
(three lists) I’ve kind of felt like I haven’t been able to shut up about Treasure Trails since we got back from England, but I guess I’m not the only one who was a big fan, given how many lists they made. We did Treasure Trails in London, Bath, and Bakewell, and they were all super fun. They’re scavenger hunts that we found to be a great way to explore a city with a bit of structure and guidance on finding cool places we might not have happened across otherwise.
6. Innisfallen
(three lists) Another pick from Killarney. We took a boat one day from Ross Castle to the tiny island of Innisfallen, where the boat guy dropped us off for a couple hours of exploring the uninhabited island on our own.
5. Victoria and Albert Museum
(four lists) The V&A was everything we wanted the British Museum to be…and maybe everything the British Museum would have been if it hadn’t been so crowded. Lots of amazing stuff to see and excellent kid/family programming.
4. Stonehenge
(four lists) Stonehenge was more or less exactly what I expected, which is to say that it was a really cool experience. The new visitors center was great, the walk out to the stone circle was lovely, and seeing the stones themselves was awesome.
3. Dan O’Hara’s Homestead
(4 lists) Another surprise hit. We expected this to be kind of a quick, low key stop, but we ended up spending hours there petting ponies and whatnot, and we all loved it. There was the formal tour with sheepdog demos and peat cutting and all that, and then we were free to wandering around making friends with assorted farm animals.
2. Walking to Chatsworth
(4 lists) …and Chatsworth itself. The walk from Bakewell to Chatsworth was lovely–full of rolling hills and sheep and friendly dogs. Chatsworth was a fascinating and impressive spectacle. And the farm and playground nearby were a great way to finish off a fun day.
1. Inchagoill and Hawk Walk at Ashford Castle
(4 lists) This was the last day of our trip, and it was a fabulous one. We took a boat across Lough Corrib (lake boats are much better than North Atlantic boats, in my opinion), stopping at the little island of Inchagoill on the way for a few more ruins, and then we flew hawks at the falconry school at Ashford Castle.
Bonuses
Milo was at music camp for most of our Greensboro, NC week, so it was not list-eligible, but I’d like to give a shout out to Old Salem
Ari was away at college when we went to Macon, but the concrete slide at Coleman Hill Park was a big hit with everyone else:
And Ari did some Minnesota exploration with his geography class, and he wants to put in a plug for Duluth, MN
Now that we’re finished with our excellent 2019, planning for 2020 is in full swing. And I’ll talk about that in the next post!
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