I have spent the majority of my free time this past month working on a summer vacation for Jake and me. We will be celebrating several different things:
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Jake completing his residency
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Our one year anniversary
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My 10th anniversary of being in remission from cancer
Those are all pretty big milestones, so we thought they deserved a pretty big trip!
So we are going to be taking a trip to…
England and Scotland!!
P.S. Jake has never been to Europe.
My grandparents live in London, so I’m hoping we can spend some time with them at the start of the trip and I can show Jake around the city for a few days. Then we will head to Scotland for the British Open in Carnoustie (Jake’s dream come true) for a weekend. After that we will meet up with a tour group to fully experience the rest of Scotland with a guide (my favorite way to travel when exploring a new country), and then head home.
The trip is going to take a total of 16 days, one of the longest trips I’ve been on since I studied abroad, and I am so excited!
I’m also insanely anxious about leaving the dogs for that long, but I know our pet sitter will take good care of them. If anyone has any tips for overcoming dog separation anxiety when traveling, I’d love to hear it because I’m usually a wreck for the first few days when we (rarely) have to leave them. Oh yeah – I’m the one with separation anxiety, not my dogs.
While we are there we will be staying in several places as we bounce around, but my most recent excitement has been that we will be staying in a 13th century castle while attending the Open. Yeah, a CASTLE!! Ahh! They may not be able to get me to leave. I wonder what the squatter’s laws in Scotland are…?
I will also be living out my fantasy of being in Outlander while we are there. I’ve watched the series probablyyyy about ten times from start to end as I was waiting for the most recent season to come out. Y’all can just call me “Claire Fraser” while I’m over there, for all intents and purposes. You can find me fruitlessly pressing against the stones at Craigh Na Dun hoping to fall through one of them into the 1700s.
Jake will be living out his own fantasy of being a pro golfer, although I’m only giving him a few days to live that golf life. We have too much to see and explore!
Our itinerary is pretty set, but if anyone has any recommendations on things to see or places to eat, we are all ears! I strongly believe in taking advantage of other people’s experiences when going somewhere new.
If y’all want me to post a more detailed itinerary of our trip, let me know. I’m happy to share where we are going and what we are doing.
Also, where is everyone else traveling to this year? I have a list a mile long of trips I want to take and I love to see everyone else’s trips.
