1nterceptor

I always try to ride a bike when I go on vacations.
I rode in Georgia, US and California, the bike rental
place I planned on borrowing a bike from was closed
when I went to Mexico - no riding there. Need to
edit my California vids when I get home, playing online
in San Diego airport at the moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQktfYqaEUo

Sangetsu

My wife and I traveled to southern France for our vacation. As originally planned, we were supposed to spend 10 days in Provence, and get around on rented bicycles. In the 90's I spent a summer in France and an amateur racer, and I thought it was the best place in the world to ride a bike. I still do.

Anyway, my wife decided that getting spa treatments and using the fitness center would be enough to keep her busy, so she decided not to do any riding, but I managed to do quite a bit. We stayed in a rather extravagant 5 star resort on the sea near Cannes, and it was rather interesting to see the look on the faces of the staff when I came into the lobby, sweaty and grimy, and pushing in my rented road bike.

The highway which runs from St Tropez to Nice along the Mediterranean is simply wonderful. Outside the more metro areas, the traffic is light, and the views are spectacular. There are numerous places to enjoy tasty things to eat, and there are cyclists from just about everywhere.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to ride as much as I wanted to, but there were plenty of other things to do. The sea was clean, the water refreshing, and I like swimming almost as much as I like cycling. I hope to go again, but my wife has her heart set on America next year.

bjjoondo 

Our problem is that the wife has "3 weeks vacation" BUT she can only use "1 week at a time" and she can't take vacation in either June or July! So unless we "rent a car" and drive like banshee's to a destination then ride and drive like banshee's back we don't have the time to take a decent tour. Now we've taken a few weekenders and overnighters but IF she could take all 3 weeks at once, we'd be able to put on some serious mileage! Oh well, I'll just hope we can get in a "Banshee Ride" somewhere in 2013!

1nterceptor

Just got back from my California vacation. Spent a lot of
time visiting relatives and sightseeing, did very little riding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUUCaoVUtEI

sparklebot

I hear there are some great breweries in Iowa. Or come up to MN for ours. I am a big fan of the Scenic Byway travel guide.

1nterceptor

Just got back from an overnight stay in Philadelphia,
had a nice time riding around the city:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5Mzmv7hCk

Newspaperguy

For close to a decade, my vacations have involved bicycling. Usually, I'll begin and end a one-week tour from my home, but at times I've also flown to a warmer location for a couple of weeks of cycling in winter. I may choose to rent a bike there, but more often I'll just bring my own with me. My last such vacation, a few weeks ago, was a flight to Las Vegas. From there, I cycled to San Diego, took Amtrak to Los Angeles and flew home from there.

I-Like-To-Bike

Hope you got to visit some of the sights, other than statues, that are on the Streets of Philadelphia between the riverside bike paths at Penns Landing and near the Art Museum.

jerseyJim

Live in the metro NYC area. Biking and sightseeing in Washington DC and northern Va was a lot of fun. Riding and hiking in Shenandoah National Park in VA was awesome. Riding and hiking the White mountains in New Hampshire was great too.

salek

Last November, Squeeze and I drove to Sherwood (Arkansas) to her sister's place. Dougenstein, a cycling buddy from a few thousand years ago took us to Fort Smith and dumped us. We rode the 205 miles back and had a nice "getaway".
In March, Squeeze and I will be taken eastward on (now decommissioned) U.S. 80 to just the wrong side of the Louisiana border. We will be cycling back to Arlington (TX).
It gets away from computers, work, the kids, the back yard, the projects, hell, it gets us feeling GOOD.

gerv 

Decommissioned freeway? Sounds like a great bike trail.

RickBlane

I have a nice little greenway near me I plan to almost live on and get back into shape.

gerv 

Welcome.. but how do you live on a greenway?

RickBlane

You spend more time there than at home. Copme early and pack extra grub.

gerv 

Of course.

Artkansas 

Well, the trip I'm on hasn't had much bicycle riding, but it's been car-free and I've seen plenty of cyclists. I've been at two conferences in 7 days. One on computer graphics, the other on space development. I took the bus for 42 hours to get to the first one in Anaheim, and then another 8 hour bus trip to get to the second one in San Jose.

I didn't see that many cyclists on the trip out, though there was one at the other side of the road doing some adjustments on his touring bike and trailer about half way between Tombstone and New Mexico. The sun was getting low in the sky, so I hoped he was okay.

There were a lot more bicycles in Anaheim than in Little Rock. It's been years since I've been in Anaheim. The mouse is out of control. The motel I stayed in the last time was in the midst of being torn down. It was one of the last '50s style two story motels near Disneyland. Disney filled in their old parking lots with something called Downtown Disney and packed it full of restaurants and other things and uses a fleet of buses to move people from the new parking lots over half a mile away. Anaheim has a flock of buses devoted solely to moving people from one attraction to the other, and they vie with the regular transit buses for passengers. I even saw one transit driver pull over and offer a free ride to Disneyland to three tourists who were sitting on a bench. But he insisted they had to hop on immediately. There was a tourist bus right behind him. There are also light rail going up and down Orange county.

I stayed at a hostel 8 miles north of Disneyland in Fullerton. It was small, and strange, just at the top of a golf driving range, but homey. The walk was about half a mile from the end of the bus line, up a steep road in terrible condition, so bad that I carried my big suitcase rather than ruin the wheels.

The second convention had even more bicycles. It was in San Jose, but I stayed 35 miles away at a hostel in Santa Cruz. I took an express bus from Santa Cruz to San Jose and then went the rest of the way on the light rail. It was cheaper than any hotel in San Of course bikes are very numerous in Santa Cruz, but I was surprised at how integrated the bikes and light rail are in San Jose. You can bring your bike on board and hang it up on hooks for the journey. You can also take your bike on the front of the express bus.

Roody

Sounds like fun. Did you take the bus home also? Or are you still out there?

I have done a few transcontinental bus trips, and a few by car. I had some very good experiences on all the trips, along with some stressful moments. I feel safer on the bus and more relaxed. The car is nice because you can be more spontaneous. One thing I don't like about the bus is the inability to shower every day, which is my habit. The bus was difficult for me when I was a smoker, but that's no longer an issue.

Artkansas 

I'm still on the road. This is my "free" day and I'm in Santa Cruz. So I'll be heading out to play soon.

Buses can be good and bad. Going across Texas I had two seats to myself and I spread out and got a lot of work done. After El Paso then I had only one seat and it got a lot less comfortable. From Los Angeles to San Jose I shared with a mother, her child and a large print of a painting. That was a bit too crowded.

Tomorrow is the trip home from Santa Cruz to Little Rock. I have no idea what it holds. It will be on the weekdays, so I'm hoping to be able to spread out and get work done. Fingers crossed.

Roody

Something special to read on the bus (if there is wi-fi):

https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16657

1nterceptor

Last year I visited some relatives in California. I was at my brother's place near San Diego and had to get to my aunt's place near San Jose. Didn't have enough time to bike, so looked at my options. Flying was 2 hours with a stopover in LA, $175. Bus was 12 hours, $120. Train was also 12 hours, $80. I never took Amtrak before and since it was the cheapest, that's the way I went. The train hit something on the tracks, so the crew had to stop and check/repair the under carriage of the train. It added another 2 hours to the trip. But for me it was still worth it. The seat was very wide and it had the thing for your legs(like a Lazyboy's) to lift them up. The seatback would recline much farther than those on a bus or plane. All the seats had an outlet, 2 row seat/2 outlets. Food/snacks weren't included in the ticket but there was a place to buy hot(microwaved) food, chips, drinks, etc. There was also a sit down dining car if you prefer, I didn't eat there but I recall the prices were not outrageous. Instead of one bathroom for the whole bus or 2/3 for a whole plane, each individual car had 4 toilets. Some with changing areas. The San Diego to LA train had free wifi, the LA to San Jose didn't.

Roody

You were so lucky to get Amtrak cheaper than Greyhound! Usually Amtrak is MUCH pricier--often as much as flying. From Lansing, where I live, to Chicago is $34 on greyhound and $60 on Amtrak.

Artkansas 

Yep, he's ridden Greyhound.

I'm at home now. The trip started out well. I got the front seat from Santa Cruz to L.A. Our first meal break was at Salinas, a few minutes down the road. I wasn't hungry yet, so I passed on eating. Big mistake. On the schedule, our next long break was Santa Barbara. But I've discovered the published breaks are actually how drivers stay on schedule. Get behind, shorten the break. Another thing I noticed was that Greyhound stations have generally collapsed. What used to be purpose-built locations, often with a full brand name restaurant inside are now often just a space at a transit center, or the parking lot of a gas station/convenience store. Santa Barbara used to have a nice station. I went there many times in my youth. Now its a room across from the train station. Inside, there was one unisex bathroom, a barren rack of chips, and a cooler with drinks. No benches in the room. The drivers were changing and confused. So the outcome was that in a 25 minute stop, only one person succeeded in using the bathroom. The bus was very worn, the door rattled, the thermostat was broken so the bus was freezing and the brakes squealed and there was a high spot in them.

when we got to L.A. things were madness. I got into the building and through the security guard as fast as I could, but even so, with an hour to wait, I was at the back end of a very long line. I got lucky and was so far back that I was on the second bus. I was midway back, and my seat-mate had a resemblance to Morgan Freeman. The two behind us turned out to be very into religion and conversed in the call and respond style for quite a while as we headed east into the dark. The first stop was Indio, a station I knew well and was disappointed to see that it had become a space at the transit center. My seat mate and I had both dropped off to sleep.

When I awoke, I looked down at my feet and was shocked to see a baby's hand on my shoelaces and his face and inch from my toe. I tapped on my seat-mate's shoulder and pointed it out to him. Then I lit into the mother in the seat ahead of us. She put a bag down under the seat to prevent tragedy.

It turned out that the bus was the same one I came down the coast on. I could tell by the brake squeal. lol.

Dawn rose in Phoenix, we changed buses. For liquids, I had one of my bicycle water bottles along. It seemed to be leaking a bit as it lay on its side, which it never did before. It took me a while to figure out that it was because we were going up in altitude. lol.

In Lordsburg NM, there is a McDonalds that seems to specialize in Greyhound buses. It's the highlight of that part of the trip.

In both directions, the stop at El Paso was followed by two Immigration/Drug inspections. The first one was at a fixed location, the second one happened seemingly at random at a rural stop further down the route.

The best part of the whole trip is that the bus managed to arrive in Little Rock 45 minutes early because it skipped two small stops immediately preceding Little Rock.

Roody

Yes, Art, Greyhound is a trip, in more ways than one. They have gone downhill in so many ways, but more people ride than ever before. The feeder bus line here in Michigan (Indian Trailways) is a far superior service--shiny new buses, courteous drivers, wi-fi and outlets, free bottled water, and other amenities. They show how nice it could be if the grey dog only cared a little bit.

A couple years ago, two ICE (immigration) agents boarded a bus I was on while we were at a stop in northern Michigan, about as far from the border as you can get. They took a Guatemalan kid off the bus. I was surprised because he had told me earlier that he was a student on his way back to college in the UP. One passenger said good, they caught one. Most of us were sad, though, because he seemed like a good kid. The girl he was traveling with started crying softly. A couple hours down the highway, the ICE cops got on the bus again. They had the Guatemalan kid and left him on the bus with the girl. I guess they had made a mistake.

wahoonc

Greyhound used to have competition with Trailways back in the day. Some where along the way, IIRC it was during the Regan administration the Justice Department allowed Greyhound and Trailways to merge and it went to hell in a hand basket. There is some competition from MegaBus but very little on many of the routes. When I first went away to college there was a bus station about 8 blocks from the college with 2 express buses a day that traveled through the town I lived in. It took maybe half an hour longer than driving door to door. Now that same trip takes almost 9 hours because the buses go in a circuitous route. It can be driven in about 2 hours.

I had a bunch of crew members take Greyhound between Raleigh, NC and Iowa City, IA a couple of years ago. The trip took about 24-28 hours by bus, driving is around 16 hours. Not too bad, but one of the guys was on 3 buses that broke down on the side of the road. Others had nicer buses with wi-fi and power outlets. I have not used Greyhound in several years because they seldom go where I need to go. I used Amtrak for a fair bit on the East Coast until their prices went through the roof. The cost of a ticket between my regular two stops has nearly doubled in price over the last 4 years. My pay hasn't...

Aaron

ngateguy

This year I am doing a bunch of long weekends. The end of August going to Whistler BC for some mountain biking. at the end of September its off to Vancouver BC for a road bike ride to Point Roberts and back on Saturday. Then on Sunday a 20 mile spin around the Vancouver area. The first weekend in October its off to Portland and a ride through the Columbia River George. Next years plans include the Trail of the Coeur D'alene and the Route of the Hiawatha's. The second one will be a round trip from San Fransisco to Monterey. And Next Winter Maui.