Ireland would be at the top of my list of places to travel outside the USA. Most anywhere in Ireland! My neice & I were talking just last week of "wouldn't it be wonderful if we could go to Ireland someday?" One of my aunts & a cousin have told us of their many visits. When my mother was a child, she can remember when an aunt came over from Ireland & visited them out in the Oklahoma sticks, speaking with "such a brogue only Mama could understand her." (I thought it was a "Lilt") I'm not sure if any of my mother's generation would remember from what part of Ireland the aunt came. Granny's maiden name was Rains or Raynes (various spellings), but on both sides of the family, the ancestors have been in the USA for several generations--a couple hundered years, so who other than God Himself knows?
I wonder if some lovely Music loving folks would someday do a swap & let my neice, her daughter (now 22 mos old), & myself stay at their place (a short walk from nightly sessions, of course in my dream vacation) in return for letting them stay at our place in San Diego? Of course, we'd need to save quite a while for the plane tickets. That in itself might take a couple of years. (or longer!)
Perhaps we Catters should have our own vacation swap bunch, sort of like when my neice was a teen & they had exchange students live with them at least a couple of different years. She then visited them one summer. Except, of course, it would only be a few days instead of a summer or a school year. I'm sure some Catters already do this with some folks they've met! I think it would even be more fun to have a Catter visit us & show them around & vice versa than to merely swap living quarters. But, that may have to wait till we have something other than a couch to offer them! A Mudcat swap would be much more fun than some travel agent hook-up, due to the obvious Music interest, & being able to get to know each other here.
However, till we save up the $$ for our dream trip, if there's a would-be-surfer (or wanna-watch-the-surfers) Catter wanting to visit San Diego who's brave enough to not only sleep on the couch, but to attempt to navigate across a living room floor covered with toys without breaking your neck, I'll be happy to take you to the beach!