Adventure and relaxation. . . I need vacation ideas!

[thinhorn_AK]

Me and the wife are doing Hawaii this year, I'll go shoot a goat and catch some fish in the ocean, then there will be a bunch of beach stuff to do.

 

[Crghss]

If you’re on the east coast I’d do the Bahamas.

 

[brerud2]

You are on the right track. Kenai Fjords cruise, walking on a glacier, fishing of some sort, and bear viewing are can't miss things. I would also add in finding mountain goats, moose, dall sheep, whales, etc...... but not everyone adds those. I did the cruise quite a few years ago and from what I have seen you will get most of the same experience in Kenai Fjords. We did the cruise from Vancouver to Anchorage - the closer we got to Anchorage the cooler everything got for us with the exception of Glacier Bay - seeing big glaciers calving was pretty epic. We then flew to Fairbanks, rode the train from Fairbanks to Denali, then to Anchorage. Then went out to Kenai Peninsula for a few days, back to Anchorage and flew home.

Katmai National Park is a place I have always wanted to go to for the bear viewing - a coworker was there last year and he had some awesome photos to share after and he loved it.
Fairbanks - the Riverboat on the Tanana River, seeing and learning about the Alaska pipeline, tour a gold mine and pan for gold, and jump on a bush plane and fly north of the arctic circle to catch a grayling. Those are all neat but not sure they are can't miss things.
Denali National Park - probably one of the highlights for me - take the morning bus ride as far as you can go - we had Dall Sheep within about 15 feet of my window on the edge of the road. Saw a grizzly sow with 3 cubs walk down a chute right in front of our bus, saw a couple moose, a few caribou further away, saw one wolf trotting across the tundra, saw ptarmigan on a short hike, didn't see the top of Denali that day but saw it in full view the next day while riding the train to Anchorage.
Anchorage is like any other city - not much excited me there.
Kenai Peninsula is packed with cool things to do and see. Hike Exit Glacier, Seward is a cool town, rivers full of fish depending on timing, Russian River Falls hike was loaded with salmon in early July when I was there. We flew across the bay for a bear viewing/fishing trip with Talon Air out of Soldotna and had a great time. Halibut fishing out of Homer! You can't really go wrong in that area at all - just get out and do it. We had a rental car for part of our trip and it was nice not having a big RV so we could get around much quicker and easier.

Have a great trip - you won't be disappointed!

 

[izzyb55]

Maui is a great trip. Do the Maui downhill if you go. 38 mile bike trip down an extinct volcano, you thru 7 ecosysmtems

 

[Border hunter]

Join a cheap airfare website like scottscheapflights.com and go where the flights are cheap. We picked up flights to Puerto Rico for 180 round trip.

 

[FLAK]

I always try to incorporate fishing or hunting in family vacations.
AK was one of the best during the summer. Highly recommended.

 

[Tiltovich]

I can't give you an exact suggestion since I don't know your favorite activities and how you love to spend the time while on vacation. However, there are a lot of websites that can help you with this subject. Usually, when I want to plan a new trip, I use https://www.freetour.com/valletta. Here I can buy an online tour for free, so I understand a little bit about every city before making any decisions. Every time I applied this method, I didn't have any regret regarding the trip, so I think you should apply this method as well.

 

[Fitzwho]

Panama City, Panama. You can be catching Marlin and Tuna one day and fishing for Peacock bass in the Canal/Lake Gatun the next (technically could be done in one day). You're 30 minutes either way from full fledged jungle to parts of the city that are hundreds of years old, to the "new city" that looks like Dubai. Couple resorts to choose from or there's a Hard Rock, or rent an apartment in the old city and hang out.

Lots of other stuff to do with a little extra travel. Call this guy: panamacanalfishing.com - Rich Cahill. He's got one of the only spots you can catch Atlantic Tarpon on the Pacific side as well. I want to go and do the San Blas Archipelago with him. Wife and I did a canal trip with him and had a blast catching peacock bass and snook.

Costa Rica has some cool stuff to do as well. Coast, jungle, zip-lines, fish for Rainbow Bass (Guapote) in Lake Arenal.

 

[Lionhound1975]

Some great ideas above. Like everyone says, it really decides on what your interests are. One option that I didn't see mentioned was doing a photo safari in Kruger National Park in South Africa. I lived for 3 years in Swaziland, 2 hours from Kruger and went there at least 20 times. You could do a week there on less than that budget. Depending on where you are in the US, you can get airfare to Johannesburg for under $1000. Rent a car and drive 4 hours to Kruger. Kruger is a DIY drive area so you don't have to hire a guide or driver to explore the region.

The southern part of Kruger can look like parts of Yellowstone during school breaks but the park is the size of Israel and we spent 5 days camping in the northern part of the park and driving around every day would only see another vehicle every few hours. If you are confident reading maps, driving on sand and dirt roads, and know how to glass wide open country you can see all of the Big 5 and others like hyenas and wild dogs in good week in Kruger. There are some hilly and mountainous areas where you can get out of your car and glass the valleys below for game. Another thing we would do was drive the dirt roads early in the morning until we hit tracks of whatever we wanted to see that day. Lions especially would parallel dirt roads a lot and you could often catch up with them by following their tracks in the dirt until they left the road. Then if it was late morning, start glassing shade areas near that spot.

Lots of people do the open land rover tour thing and pay stupid amounts of money to sleep in pricy lodges inside the park where they can have their luxury spa experience, etc for $500+ per night. But you can stay every night at one of the nice lodges that border the park for a lot cheaper and then do day trips inside the park every day. You just have to be out by a certain hour every night. Some of the lodges border the park on the river on the southern boundary and you can spot game coming down to the river in the evening to drink from your lodge.

You can do several days self-drive in Kruger and then do a 2 or 3 day tracking course with some of the PHs that live around Hoedspruit. When they are not out with hunting clients, they often give tracking classes with their staff. The tracking classes are usually all-day on foot inside the greater Kruger area so you are on foot inside the park and it is cheaper to do a full day tracking course with them than a 2 hour guided walk from the park headquarters. Great opportunity to improve your tracking skills from the Shangaan trackers that they PHs hire although some of the PHs I met were just as good as an Shangaan on their staff. Plus you will see elephant, buffalo, lion, etc. on foot instead of just from a vehicle. I did a 7 day animal tracking class and a 10 day man tracking class while i was there and it greatly improved my ability to read and follow sign even though i already considered myself a pretty good tracker before that. The Africans don't do the tracking stick, step-by-step SAR tracking popular here since being on your knees and staring constantly on the ground in front of you in Big 5 country is not a great idea.

Some of the nature tracking courses run by the non-PHs are just like this is a leopard track type class but the courses that they refer to as trailing course run by PHs will be more like here is a fresh kudu track, lets track it until we catch up to it. Or tracking a pack of hyenas for several miles and getting up close with elephant, lion, and buffalo on foot. I watched PH Colin Patrick and a Shangaan track a leopard at the Mholoholo reserve over rocky, brushy ground for almost a mile until we caught up with it and got some photos.

Good luck on whatever trip you and your wife decide.