On Travelling Alone

Be warned, what follows is firmly in the realm of First World Problems!

So I've got ten days of vacation time I have to use by the end of the financial year (March 31st). I don't really know what to do with them.

Here's the problem: I'm likely going to be by myself. However, being by myself means I have to keep myself occupied, lest I drop into depression. Oh, and I'd like to go somewhere warm.

My first option is to simply grab go to an all-inclusive beach resort somewhere. I enjoy those occasionally, but so far I've always gone as part of a large group. Cuba was when garething and stephtopia got married. Mexico was when thekillerb69 and naughtynat07 got married.

These sorts of trips are almost always for a week. A week by myself would have me climbing the walls about halfway through if I didn't have anyone to talk to. There's only so much reading on the beach I can do.

I've done a lot of trips to Las Vegas. The reason being it has so much going on, all of the time, and you can drink your fill. Two days? Three? Five? You can go for exactly as long as you'd like (and I find three/four nights is just about perfect for a trip to Vegas). The problem is I'm kind of burned out on Vegas at the moment. Despite a more recent trip with lots of fun folks, the bad taste of my 45th birthday remains.

What draws me to Vegas is a combination of:

• close enough to allow for a short-duration trip.
  
• Far enough to be exotic.
  
• Has enough going on to be keep me distracted.

It is not alone in this distinction, but if we combine it with someplace warm, it suddenly becomes much more rare. Most places close enough will be in the middle of winter, same as home.

That pretty much leaves places that are on the west coast, or far south. Vancouver isn't exactly warm right now, but it's still much better than Calgary. It remains an option, but for later - mid to late March for example.

I dunno. I'd like to go to a sun spot, but I'd also like to not be bored.

Damn I wish I had a partner - that would make it so much easier. At that point I wouldn't need to worry about my short duration limit, and we could go lots of places. I'm thinking romantic partner of course, but that's not likely in the long term, and flat-out impossible in the next ten weeks. A travel buddy is more likely, but a travel buddy is someone I'd like to know that I can deal with for a week. Not going to risk that except on people I've already travelled with currently. Also, potential travel buddies either have time, but no money; or they have money, but no time.

I'm rambling now because I'm tired and don't have any easy solutions. Again, First World Problems - I realize that having a surplus of vacation time is a problem most people would love to have.