We seem to have fallen into a routine in our blogs where we talk about what is happening now or has just happened. I thought I would take time to give you some insights into how we decide to go places, why we pick them and how much effort we (read mostly Sue) spends figuring where to stay and what to do.

We are currently in Buenos Aires, a place we picked for three reasons:

1. First, we liked it here last time. It is a big city with lots to do and a reasonable amount to see. We are walkers, so a city with large parks and that is not too spread out suits us well. Buenos Aires has all those things. It also helps that we have friends here, so we knew we would have a social life outside of each other.
2. Second, it is relatively cost effective. Not super cheap like last time (the $17 steak I had last time is now about $30, but in the US, that same steak is $75. We have had a bit of price shock on some things, but that always seems to happen.
3. Third — and this was really important — it is summer here, and we love the warm weather.

When we leave here, we are going on a quick visit to Costa Rica with Sue’s brother and our sister-in-law (Sue’s brother is my brother in law, so I while I didn’t say our brother, he certainly feels like one). We chose Costa Rica not only because it is sort of halfway between, but because our long-suffering Spanish tutor lives there. Then back to the US for a bit of medical stuff for Sue.

After that, we are heading to Panama City, Panama — I list the country here, because there is a city in Florida called Panama City. We are NOT going there. My sister spends the winter there, but that isn’t our destination. We are spending about 6 weeks there just to see if we like it. There seem to be lots of short-term rentals available, it has a tropical climate, is in the Eastern time zone (although it doesn’t have daylight savings time), a relatively short travel time back to the US, and looks to be inexpensive. We are thinking we might like having a place that we can use as a base for our travels, and wondering if this might be a good choice.

Our next stop is back to the US to visit our friends and family in Chicago. Sue has a major birthday and I am throwing her a surprise party — well it isn’t really a surprise, because I needed a lot of help from her to organize it — so it is now being called the Not Surprise Party. She can tell you how old she wishes, let me just say she is 39 plus some indeterminate number of years. You’re all invited!

Once we have partied ourselves out, we will start our next round of travels. We tend to think about these things in 6 month(ish) tranches. Summers are ideal for the US or Europe and winters are ideal for Central or South America. Springs and autumns are negotiable.

Since we spent such a long time in the US last year, we decided that this year would be a European trip. We also have come to the conclusion that a month or six weeks seems like the right amount of time to stay somewhere. As you may recall from our last adventure in Spain, I can only stay in the Schengen Zone for 90 days of any 180 day period.

Sue suggested Helsinki for no other reason that it looks interesting and we haven’t spent much time in Scandinavia. Also because Steven has this desire to go to Svarlbard. So we are planning to spend July is Helsinki. During that time I thought we could make a trip above the Arctic Circle. My first thought was to do that for the summer solstice, but that would make our time in Chicago too short so we nixed that idea. Besides, above the Arctic Circle there will be 24 hours of daylight all summer, so no need to be there for the solstice. The northern most place we could find that was reasonable to get to, is Svalbard, a series of islands north of, well, everything. They are shown in the red box (not surprisingly) at the top of the map. They were previously known as Spitsbergen.

If our cat friend Seuss needs us cat sitters, we will head back to Paris (I know! tough job but someone has to take one for the team!); if not, I am trying to convince Sue that Prague might be a fun stop. She seems a little reticent to head to Eastern Europe, so we will see. If not, northern Italy or southern France are both possibilities.

September we are planning to spend in England, because we think we have seen too much sunshine this year ;-). We have lots to do there. First, my daughter (hey, I thought I got to claim her too! I am her belle-mère) lives in London, and it is important to remind her what I look like and to reacquaint her with proper American. Sue “needs” to make a pilgrimage to Liverpool to pray at the many shrines of the Beatles, so of course we will go there. She always wants to visit the Cotswolds — including two villages with my favorite names. Upper and Lower Slaughter. I would also like to go to Cornwall because that’s where Doc Marin had his surgery. Just throwing that out there in case Steven’s reading. Finally, our friends Theresa and Stefanie are hiding somewhere in the south of the country, so we will impose on them for a few days.

That takes us into the fall and at this point, it is as far as we can plan…If, of course, we carry out this plan. You never know what flights of fancy will divert our attention.