A new month means a new @yourtop3 contest over on the Hive platform. This time Q (the Top 3 mascot) decided to help ease our wanderlust longings by choosing the topic, your Top 3 Favorite Travel Destinations!

And since time to enter is fast running out (how is it already the 9th of September?) I’m going to make this (relatively) short and (hopefully) sweet!

My Top 3 Favorite Travel Destinations

Nomination 1 – Paris, France

Favorite Travel Destinations - Notre Dame, Paris — My friend Janine (left) and myself in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, December 1985 (taken with a tripod and a timer). Janine made some joke about height (neither of us are tall, but I had a few inches on her) so at the last second, I scooched down. I scanned this years ago to share on Facebook and it’s still one of the only photos from the trip on my hard drive.

REASON

I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Paris twice – one, with my high school theater group in 1983, then again with my Hammond Castle boss-turned-friend two years later. She’d made friends with some Parisians who’d visited our area a year earlier, and thought I’d be the perfect traveling companion since I’d been there before. I thought she’d be the perfect traveling companion because she’d traveled so much. Turns out neither of us really knew what we were doing, but figured that since the other one did we’d be all set… and it ended up being an awesome time! Especially since we had a pair of the aforementioned natives showing us the sights, as well as having us over to dinner with their families.

And speaking of families, I’ve daydreamed for years about showing my husband and kids those same sights (and I’m trying not to think about what the view in this photo looks like now), so hopefully one day in the not too distant future, I’ll be able to make it a reality. I mean, the only thing really standing in our way is money…. and Covid… and other health issues in the family… and money… and 2020… okay, maybe it’s a bit more distant than I want, but I’m not giving up hope!

Nomination 2 – Pennsylvania, US

Favorite Travel Destinations - Pennsylvania — Along the road heading to the Poconos in Pennsylvania, October 1989. This is not the picture I had in mind to share – somewhere I have some shots of me & my (then new) hubby posing with the fall foliage as our background. However, I couldn’t find it on my computer and didn’t have time to dig through all my photo boxes, and of the three I found (the two others were of the interior of the condo we stayed in), it was the most scenic.

REASON

And now, speaking of hubby, one of the first road trips we took as a couple (even before we were married) was to Pennsylvania to visit (and for me to meet) his father and step mother. A little more than a year later and we took almost the same road trip to the Poconos in Pennsylvania for our honeymoon (his father gave us his timeshare condo week that year as a wedding gift). Then four years ago, we took our first family road trip vacation to York, Pennsylvania (no, not because of the name – our boy has friends in the area), and it was one of my favorite trips ever (granted, not that I’ve had many, even though two trips to Paris in the 80s certainly sounds like I’m a jet setter…lol). There’s still a number of places we’d love to return and explore, and we’d hoped to make it a yearly jaunt – however, finances & other issues have made it difficult, but I’m still hopeful that by the time travel is practical again, we might be able to manage it.

Nomination 3 – Magnolia, MA

Favorite Travel Destinations - Magnolia MA — The view from one of my favorite spots on the Magnolia, MA coastline, circa 1983 – I’m standing on some rocks, a short walk from the road, looking in the direction of the end of Shore Road. This is maybe a five minute walk from the house I grew up in.

REASON

Yes, I know this sounds a bit cheesy, but since I was also lucky enough to grow up in a town that many people have as a vacation destination, it makes a certain sense that I’d want to vacation there now that we’re living a state away. Although technically I grew up in Magnoila, MA which is a suburb of the aforementioned tourist favorite, Gloucester, MA – yes, the one featured in the, “Are we not Gloucestermen” movie The Perfect Storm. Granted, it’s only a little over an hour away from where we live now, and we’ve made multiple day trips over the years (after we moved, as we actually lived in the area when our three were young, in the late 90s/early 2000s), but I always thought it would be awesome to take a family vacation there, and spend a week or two visiting with my mom, and doing all the touristy things I never thought to do (or didn’t do enough of) when it was right outside my front door, so to speak.

There are my choices for Favorite Travel Destinations! And while the contest prizes are limited to bloggers on the Hive blockchain, I figure there are lots of other bloggers out there who might want to share their faves too. Instead of offering crypto prizes like the @yourtop3 crew, I thought I’d offer a little social media exposure instead.

So if anyone wants to jump aboard and write a post about your Top 3 Favorite Travel Destinations, please feel free to drop a link to it (no time limit) in my comment section, along with your Twitter handle, if you have one, and I’ll do my best to take a peek and give it a tweet!

One last thing – a big thank you to the awesomesauce peeps behind this monthly crypto contest (now with the wicked awesomesauce addition of a Champions League!) @plantstoplanks, @nickyhavey, @foxyspirit, and @cheese4ead – you guys and gals ROCK!

Thanks for stopping by!

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