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Hi, friends! Today’s post is different from the posts I’ve shared so far, but I wanted to ask this question.
Are you interested in traveling with me on an EF Go Ahead group tour?
I know it may sound strange, but if you love to travel (and I do!), it might be something a group of us can do together. It sounds like fun and I hope you do too. Mark and I are going to Italy in April less than a month from now. We paid for this trip and it wasn’t sponsored, but the trip was EF Go ahead (affiliate link), a leader in the travel industry. For over 55 years, EF Go Ahead Tours has been committed to making safe, authentic and life-changing travel experiences accessible to all. I’ve heard about the student tours they’ve been doing for years, and now they’re working with bloggers and influencers on group travel, so I thought it would be a fun opportunity to open up travel to my community. That means all of you who follow me. We will return to this topic below, but first I will tell you about my first visit to Italy.
I haven’t shared much about this time in my life because this blog started when I was 50 and I had a lifetime of experiences before I started blogging. Back in 1990, I was married for the first time to an ex-professional baseball player (pitcher) and he had the opportunity to go to Italy that year and play in the Italian baseball league. We have not even been married for 2 years. At that time, each team had 2 American players that they recruited to play for them in the upcoming baseball season. I’ve never told you this part of my story, but the summer of 1990 was exciting and life-changing. I was 33 that summer and working for a real estate development company. I asked if they would allow me to take leave for the months of June, July and August and met my husband who was already there. Someone picked me up at the Rome airport and I will never forget the culture shock of being in Italy for the first time. It was crazy driving from Rome to where we were going to stay in a small town on the beach called Nettuno and wow. That was the first thing I discovered about Italy!
I didn’t know what to expect, but what I found was a warm, hospitable people, unlike Americans in their friendliness and passion for life and family. Italians know how to live, they know how to eat, and they slow down their pace of life a lot more than we do. They are very warm people and I love getting to know them, being invited to their homes for dinner and getting to know the Italian way of life. How priceless was that experience?! From the delicious food to the almost daily consumption of gelato, I loved every minute. Spending a summer in Italy was an experience of a lifetime that I will always treasure!
Now, that was 30 years ago, so it’s interesting to see how much has changed since then. It was before cellphones, before the internet, so it was a different world than the one we live in now. That summer was one of the most enriching times of my life and I will never forget the experience. I traveled around Italy as the baseball team played in tournaments throughout Italy and France. What fun! We traveled quite a bit that summer and the following summer, he went again and I went for 3 weeks at that time and we traveled to Paris and Switzerland in those short weeks. What a memory! I never got over Italy and the country has been in my heart ever since. I wanted to go back many times and never got or took the opportunity to go, and I didn’t have the extra money to go to Europe all these years.
So as these pictures show, I had a blast in Italy. We visited Rome several times and visited Pisa, Florence and Venice, as well as many other small towns in the country.
Italy will always have a special place in my heart. The marriage didn’t work out, but I certainly loved the experience of spending the first time in Italy in the summer of 1990. So Mark and I are going together and I am very excited for him to share Italy with me. I know he will enjoy it very much. I’ve never been to the Amalfi Coast, so when I started planning this trip, that was the place I most wanted to go. On this 7 night tour we start in Naples, then head to the Amalfi Coast for 3 nights and then on to Rome to end our trip. However, I will share the trip with you all when I return. Like I said, we are paying for the trip, but I wanted to do the trip with Go Ahead before planning a group trip and I’m sure we’ll love going on this trip.
On another note, while I’m talking about travel, I’m happy to say that we’re also going on another Viking River Cruise in September. We did a sponsored Viking river cruise with them 5 years ago and loved that trip so much we had another one planned for 2020 but it all got stuck for a few years, but now we’re finally getting to take that river cruise on the Rhone River in France. It was an Avignon to Lyon trip and we were very excited. I will share them all again. It’s been a journey year for us, but we’re ready for it.
Return to group travel with EF Go Ahead tours. They plan group trips around the world and I want to plan a trip next year and invite you all to go with me! I plan a trip for 20 to 25 people, so let’s see how it goes. If I hadn’t signed up enough, we wouldn’t have done it, but I think it would be fun to travel with a group of my readers and a girls’ trip is always fun.
So, my question for you is, would you be interested in going on a vacation with me next year, 2025? It will probably be spring 2025: yes/ no / maybe
If yes, are you more likely to go domestic or international?
Do you want to bring a friend or alone?
Are you willing to pay more for a single room?
Let’s talk about destinations. My first choice would probably be Italy again, but let’s open the conversation to other destinations, these are some of my favorites, but I’m open to traveling in the US if most of you are interested. If it’s a workout, who knows what the possibilities are?! I love to travel!
- Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain)
- British Isles (Great Britain, Ireland)
- Western Europe (Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland)
- Other international destinations
Tours are usually longer than 7 nights and the price varies depending on where we travel, but if we go internationally, it’s roughly $3K to $5K for this type of tour, plus airfare. I shoot for 20 to 25 max as the more people join the tour, the better the price. A good number for me to travel with and not too big. What I love about planning a trip like this is that Go Ahead does all the planning and we just have to show up. They get all the excursions arranged for us as well as most of the meals. Tours do not include all meals, so be aware of that. There are also additional costs for upgraded excursions.
Here are all Italytours, these are definitely the ones I lean towards and you can get an idea of what is included in the tours. You can see Go to payment options For more details.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this idea and see how many of you are interested in a trip like this. I think some of you may be solo and want to do a group trip, others may have husbands who don’t like travel so much and you may want to do an all ladies trip, so I’m throwing it out there to see what kind of reaction I get to this idea! I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and I’d love for you to join me! You might even have a good friend you want to bring along. I know most of you feel like you already know me, so it won’t be strange. Disclosure: I earn commissions on any group trip I organize and put together.
Let me know your thoughts below and feel free to add any thoughts, ideas or destinations you’d like to contribute. Let’s see how it all pans out and how many are interested after this post. I’ll do a poll on Instagram to see how many people from that group are interested. If you are interested in this travel group with me be sure and comment on this post. The response here and on Instagram will determine whether we can move forward.
Thanks so much for stopping by and I can’t wait to read what you all have to say about a possible group trip!
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