#indie30 Day 26: Dream Trip – My Dilemma thanks to Switchfly!

Today’s prompt is : What is your idea of the perfect trip?

There is a bit of irony in today’s prompt because two days ago this happened:

I entered the Switchfly #Dream Destination Contest. AND I WON!!!! EEEEK! EEEEK and EEEEK!

Switchfly is a company that offers a technology platform that powers travel shopping and loyalty redemption websites for various global brands. Entrants were directed to “tweet your dream destination with all the details in 140 characters or less along with @Switchfly #Dream.” They asked for creativity. You could enter as many times as you like as long as each Tweet was unique and you didn’t list a destination more than once. I tweeted twenty limericks over the course of a week, and I put a lot of thought into each one. The hubs can attest to that! Trying to fit narwhal, Aurora Borealis and iceberg into one rhyming tweet was no easy feat! The Grand Prize: A trip anywhere in the world as long as the value does not exceed $7,500.

Last week my hand got itchy and the hubs said, “That means you’re getting money!” I had never heard that before. Well, I won a dream trip! Close enough, right?! 😉

I want to quickly address something before I go on. Switchfly has not asked me for any publicity. Zilch. Nada. Zip. They even asked permission if it was okay to post the winning Tweet on their website first! There are those who feel the runners up and I didn’t deserve to win. One person went so far as to write she felt “average people” stood a chance, sent me nasty tweets about whatever “lets me sleep at night” then later deleted them (I guess she built a bridge and got over it). Well I think everyone is pretty kick-ass in his or her own way, but the implication I somehow had an edge because I’m a blogger is baseless. Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way let’s move on.

The winning tweet: @switchfly Between the seas of Red & Dead is a breathtaking spread. Send me to Petra so I can see the ancient city they call rose red #Dream 

I’ve always been enthralled with Petra, the Ancient Rose Red City! The history, the beauty…not to mention the idea of being in close enough proximity to dive in the Red Sea?! WOAH! That’s stuff dreams really are made of! I mean seriously:

How STUNNING is this?! (Mark Kirchner photograph, all copyrights reserved)

I couldn’t choose just one – collage from Google Image search. I mean REALLY?!

After the excitement, my heart sank a little because I know that going to Jordan might be difficult with the hubs being in the military. They probably wouldn’t issue that chit so easily – not that any chit is ever easy. Given its location in the Middle-East, it’s highly unlikely he’d be given the go ahead to travel there.

BUT THEN…

Switchfly notified me we could choose to go anywhere and well what a problem to have – deciding where in the world to go on a dream trip! We’re still figuring it out! There are some ideas, but I’m going to save those for another entry. Check back to see what we have up our sleeves!

Okay back to regularly scheduled programming:

To get back to today’s topic, it’s really hard to top what an amazing opportunity Switchfly has bestowed upon us. So what I’d call the ultimate bucket-list trip, for me, would be a trip around the world.

Courtesy of Owl Mommy

I’m not talking just any trip. If money were no object at all, the hubs and I would embark upon a Silversea World Cruise for 115 days stopping at 50 ports in 30 countries with nine overnight stays.

Funny how two days in a row I’m writing about something I didn’t enjoy at all – cruising! For me, I have to get out of the mindset that all cruises will end up like the one I was on. I think somehow this would top that week-long spring break cruise I went on years ago and I admit, it took a little coaxing with the hubs, too since he still equates being on a ship with being on his Destroyer. After thorough examination of the website, he got over it haha.

It is on our ten-year bucket list. This is one trip where the focus will be on each other as husband and wife exploring the world together. I’ve done the solo travel thing many years, for pleasure and business. Now the universe thinks so highly of me to have gifted me with the most amazing man with whom to share my life, my Love and the world.  What a way to do it! And the idea of the hubs getting some pampering for that long – it just makes me so happy. The girls will be grown up and we will be working toward getting ourselves in the financial position to do it. Since I’m a believer in not just dreaming dreams, but living them, in ten years or less I’ll be writing about that trip!

What an inspiring post BootsnAll gave us for today! Now off to make plans…

What about you? What’s YOUR dream trip?

Have a great weekend everyone,
H.