"Places I've Been To" Nor_Cal_Brad's Profile

I currently live in San Luis Obispo, CA, but I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, in Fremont, California. Back in the summer of 2006, during my first trip to Europe, I realized how much I love to travel - if I had the means I would probably travel the world for half of each year. I've traveled a bit before: most of the western U.S., the East Coast from Virginia up through Quebec, Hawaii, Tijuana Mexico, and southern British Columbia and Alberta in Canada. My trip to Europe in the summer of 2006 was the first vacation that I had planned on my own, and I had the time of my life.

View of Downtown San Francisco from Portrero Hill

Growing up, we always went on day trips to different places that were local to us: San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, Napa, etc... Even Sacramento and Lake Tahoe were close enough to make a day trip to. There were tons of places to go that were just a short drive away. If you wanted to go to the big city, San Francisco was about 45 minutes away. The baseball game was just a half hour north, up in Oakland. You could see the strangeness of Berkeley about 45 minutes north, or go to the huge San Jose flea market 15 minutes to the south. The famous Napa Valley wine country is just over an hour north, or the state capitol, Sacramento is about an hour and a half north east. Snowboarding and skiing up in Lake Tahoe is about 3.5 hours north east.

I had been on a bunch of smaller trips: going to LA and Disneyland, San Diego and Sea World, Lake Tahoe to relax in the summer, Mount Shasta in Northern California, Yosemite, and up to Oregon to visit friends. But the first time that I got a lot of traveling done on one trip was when I was about 14. My parents, my brother, and I rented a minivan and drove north through Oregon and Washington state, stopped at Mount Ranier, went through Seattle, up across the Canadian border into Vancouver, British Columbia. We took the ferry over to Vancouver Island and to Victoria. Next we went north east through Kamloops and on to see Jasper and Banff. We drove back south into the United States and went through Montana and on to Wyoming and to Yellowstone National Park. We continued through Idaho, on south into Utah, and then back west through Nevada and back home to Fremont, CA. This trip took over 2 weeks and I was so tired of traveling at that point that I couldn't wait to get home.

East Coast, from Virginia to Quebec, Canada
The summer after I finished high school my parents, my grandma, my brother, and I went to the East Coast of the United States. We flew into Baltimore (BWI), and went to stay in Virginia next, just outside of Washington D.C. After a few days in the nation's capital, we went south to Williamsburg, VA. After a couple of days in the old colonial town of Williamsburg we went back up north, stopping next in New Jersey, across the river from Philadelphia, PA. Our next stop was in West Haven, CT, and we took a commuter train from New Haven in to New York City. We stopped at Cape Cod, in Vermont, Maine, and crossed into Canada to see Quebec. Next, we went back south and back into the U.S. We went through Wilks Barre, PA and stayed in Amish country. Eventually we made our way back to Baltimore and flew back to California, finishing a great trip to the East coast.

Big Ben, with the London Eye in the background

My Europe trip began in London in the morning on June 11, 2006. This is the first trip to Europe, and I'm all by myself for a couple of days until I meet up with my friends in Amsterdam. I walked around for the entire day, only taking a short break to finally check in to a hostel at Picadilly Circus around 4 pm. I am convinced that I walked through most of the city of Westminster, and I know I crossed the Thames countless times. It got to the point that I considered Picadilly Circus to Victoria Station a short walk. It would have been a lot easier if I had been smart enough to check into a hostel early and put my backpack away, but now I know for next time. I had transportation problems on my way to Luton airport, and I thought I was going to miss my flight to Amsterdam, but luckily for me my plane was delayed 30 minutes and I made the flight. I was so relieved.

I arrived in Amsterdam at Schipol Airport and took a train into Centraal Station. Once off of the train, I just started walking. I didn't have any map, but I also didn't have any reservations for the night, so it's not like I had an address that I was trying to find. After walking for about an hour or so, I saw a coffeeshop that I had seen reviewed online. I stopped in, had a smoke and a coffee, then noticed they had white beer and ordered two of those, then went on my way in search of food now that I had coffee and beer in my empty stomach. I ended up finding a hostel around 1 AM, and as I was walking down the street the next morning after checking out, I happened to run into my friends that I thought weren't going to arrive until the afternoon. Everything was working out great so far on my European vacation, and at this point I was convinced that the entire continent loved me.

Vittoriano in Rome, Italy

Rome is a beautiful city, but it can be hot and crowded in the summer. It seemed so amazing to me that I was in the spot where so much history had taken place. Standing outside the Coliseum, I tried to imagine how magnificent it must have been in it's prime. Vatican City is also very impressive; you can tell that riches from all over the world have been brought here for centuries.

Tyn Church in Prague, Czech Republic

Prague is a city with lots of preserved architecture that is still very affordable. There's plenty of things for young people with disposable income to do in Prague. Everything is cheaper here that it was anywhere else I went on my Europe trip, since they had not yet switched to the Euro.

I finished my much too brief European tour with a couple of days in Munich. The round of 16 match between Germany and Sweden was being played in Munich, and the place was wild! There were soccer fans from all over the globe, but mainly there were a bunch of Sweden fans, and then about 100 times as many Germany fans. There were soccer chants going when I went to sleep on Friday night, and they were still going when I woke up on Saturday morning. The match was on Saturday, and since we didn't have any reservations and there weren't any available rooms left in Munich, we (along with about 1000 other people) ended up sleeping on the floor or on benches in Hauptbahnhof train station. I'm pretty sure that this is not normal to allow this many people sleep in the train station, but it was the World Cup.

Downtown Phoenix, next to US Airways Arena

I went to Phoenix to visit my brother for the second Thanksgiving in a row. The winter time is so beautiful in Arizona. I was enjoying the 75 degree F (24 C) weather so much; it was quite a difference from the cold, foggy Northern California weather that I'm used to at Thanksgiving. Phoenix is a very spread out, sprawling city without any good public transportation. The light rail system that is under construction should help ease traffic congestion a bit, but if you can get over the bad traffic and ungodly hot summer temperatures (think 120 F = 48 C), then you might be able to live in Phoenix. Otherwise, just visit anytime from about October through March.

Kua Bay, Big Island, Hawaii

I recently took an 13 day trip to the Big Island of Hawaii. This was my third time in Hawaii, and my 2nd trip to the Big Island. We stayed on the Kona coast in Keahou and I highly recommend this area to anybody planning on visiting the Big Island! The Kohala Coast is beautiful as well, though it's mainly resorts and beaches. though there's nothing wrong with that! With so many things to see on this island, I still haven't seen everything I want to see, even after 2 trips and 21 days here in all. Although I was returning to a beautiful part of Southern California (SLO) after my trip to Hawaii, it was still tough for me to leave this island paradise.

New York, New York casino in Las Vegas, Nevada

I'm not really sure where or when I'll travel next, but I look forward to my next trip no matter where it is. Las Vegas would be and easy, close vacation. Hawaii or New York City would be fun to visit again, each are about a 5 hour plane ride from where I live. And of course I would LOVE to take another trip to Europe. Barcelona, Dubrovnik and Berlin are calling...