STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

lynnie · Chanel

what is the coolest offbeat vacation you've been on?

Maddie · Coach

Defintely India. I could go on and on about it. I know a lot of people go there but it was absolutely lifechanging amazing. I went for five weeks with a Political Science class through my school studying Islam and specific Sufism, a branch referred to as "mystical Islam." We went to Delhi, Ajmer, Pushkar, Alegar, Agra, and Varanasi. We visited monuments from Mughal times and spent time in Sufi shrines. It was amazing because I learned so much about Indian culture and specifically Muslim culture in India. Through readings, lectures with professors at Indian universities, and just talking to people. However, I think the greatest part was just growing comfortable in India. The first few days I couldn't believe that I was supposed to walk down the street by myself and how I could possibly be there for five weeks. By the end I was totally comfortable and loved it. Everyone should go to India, it was incredible and so different from anything I've ever experience and more intense than anything I could've imagined. But in a good way.
Whew. That's the end ofm y raving about India.

Another really cool thing I did was work with turtles in Costa Rica. I went there for a few weeks and spent a week in the town of Parismina patrolling the beaches at night to keep the leather back turtles there safe from poachers. In reality my actual patrolling did very little, but the money I paid to do it actually helped. It was so amazing because I got to see leatherback turtles, touch them, watch them lay their eggs and then collect the eggs to place them in the hatchery. It was also great spending the days in the town. The people were so welcoming and by the end of the week I felt like I knew alll of them. One of my friends went back and spent a couple months there this fall and loved it. Here's the website if anyone's interested in it...
http://www.parismina.com/turtle.htm

erin · Chanel

probably when my best friend and i did a nashville roadtrip.

we stayed in cave city, ky and nashville. in cave city, this is where we stayed:

while exploring the town, we got to see gems like this:

after a night in kentucky, we were on our way to nashville where we stayed for four days. the drive home, we took the bluegrass parkway, instead of a more direct route towards louisville/cincinatti. driving through rural kentucky and west virginia is so beautiful. even though the drive home was 3 hours longer than it should have been, it was surreal.

i prefer smaller cities to vacation in, usually somewhere rural, combined with another city/state i haven't been to.

mckenke · BCBG

Like Maddie I loved India. I spent a month in Calcutta and it was truly eye-opening and life changing. Some of my other favorite vacation trips were Croatia. I know now it is becoming more of a vacation spot, but it is beautiful. In Brazil, I loved Lencois and Fernando de Noronha (sp?). In Japan, I loved Mount Koya about an hour and a half from Kyoto. In Turkey, the Capadocia (sp?) region was really cool with homes carved into limestone. In China, I really liked the old parts of the Great Wall where you can just hike on top and not see anyone for miles. (Obviously, I love to travel and spelling isn't my strong suit

)

kenzie · Chanel

If you can call this a vacation...I used to be in a touring choir and we toured all over the US and Europe. I got to sing in Royal Albert Hall, which was amazing.

And we also went to Cyprus, which I loved! It was beautiful there! And there really isn't anything quite like a choir tour. We stayed mostly in houses, not hotels, so I got to meet so many interesting people. I look back on those days with such fond memories.

ETA: A little more about Cyprus.

When I was there they were having a very extended drought, so we couldn't take full showers or flush the toilets more than one or two times a day (sounds gross, but it wasn't that bad). We had to get in the shower, get wet, turn off the water, lather up our hair, turn on the water, rinse it out. I also got the worst sunburn of my life there. The sun's peak hours are from 8-5 (unlike our 2-10) and it was early June and the first time I had been out in the sun all winter.

But despite all of these incidents, I loved Cyprus. They were having some kind of festival during the time I was there and every night, the whole side of the island that we were on would go to the boardwalk. There was music and dancing and food. It was so much fun. I didn't want to leave.

Now I'm all nostalgic!

-- Edited by NylaBelle at 12:46, 2005-07-26

cc · Marc Jacobs

I did a Kentucky and Nashville road trip too and it was really fun. We went to the races, a distillery, a candy factory, and the original KFC. We also had a goal to hit every regional fast-food/sit-down chain in the area.

When I was in 3rd grade I read Misty of Chincoteague and drove my mom crazy begging to be brought there on vacation. For some reason she thought it was a made-up place but I kept bugging her and she finally called information and got the number of the local tourism office (remember how much harder things were before the internet?!).

We went during the summer when they have Pony Penning Week. Wild ponies are rounded up on the uninhabited island of Assateague and swim over to Chincoteague island to be auctioned. Assateague is beautiful - there are wild horses and little deer everywhere.

Here's a picture of the pony swim:

Metric · Gucci

I really really enjoyed Portugal. It may not be quite as offbeat as you were expecting but it hasn't gotten as popular so it isn't as crowded as Spain or Greece. The Algarve was amazing but my favorite part of the trip was Sagres "the End of The World". The most Western point in Europe, where people thought you would fall of the Earth if you went any further. We had a picnic on the edge and dangled our legs off the cliff. I just thought it was really cool.

cliff.jpg (26719 bytes)

ILoveChoo · Hermes

I was there for work, but agree that Kentucky is a pretty cool place and not one many would think of going to.

splash · Kenneth Cole

Don't know how offbeat it is, but I loved Okinawa. I was there for a homestay, and it turned out to be sooo beuatiful in a Hawaii type way, except better and less touristy. The people were really nice, too, and the culture is slightly different than most of Japan, which is interesting.