Regional Weekend Getaways

Me and the family (including my parents and sister's clan--unfortunately) are heading to the Wisconsin Dells this weekend.

It's about a 3.5 hours drive from Chicago. If you live around here, you know about the Dells. Kinda campy, kinda deep woodsy, Vegas for the family. In recent years it has become better known as the hotel/water-park HQ of the area.

I doubt that people much beyond Illinois and Wisconsin know about the Dells. Which brings me to my question:

Where do folks in your area go to for the weekend?

Let's limit this to, say 3-4 hours of driving.

:tgif:


(Pretend this says Wisconsin instead of Friday and we're cool.)

Well in my area which is really a weekend getaway location for many, it would be roadtrips to NYC, Baltimore or Philly or maybe down to Wildwood, Cape May or Atlantic City. As it is the Jersey Shore is about a 25 minute drive for me tops.

http://www.thepostcard.com/walt/llpics3/llwi818.gif

Indianapolis or cities beginning with "C" (Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati).

Greater Boston Area:

Well, there's Cape Cod and the islands (Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket) but those are known outside the immediate area. The lesser known cape north of Boston is Cape Ann.

There's also the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the entire state of Maine but again I think there is some level of awareness outside this immediate area.

There's two casinos in Connecticut that a lot of people I know go to for the weekend, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, those probably aren't as well known.

Oh, the Berkshires. Small, sleepy hills in Western MA but people do go there, especially in the summer.

http://www.evesmaster.com/VirginiaStateSeal.jpg
Hmm, for beaches we drive farther south normally. Virginia Beach is nice and all but the outer banks is normally nicer. For cities I live close enough to DC (or Richmond) to hang out there for the day and then drive back, it has very many kinds of cool things to do. Locally we have a lot of wilderness, hiking, farming, leaves changing colors.. you know that shit that morons pay to see in their BMW SUV's. I wish you'd all stay home personally, but whatever floats your boat. You keep our water park/ski resort alive I guess. Ummm... I guess that's it.

Oh and right, we have a shit ton of historic sites and Civil War battlefields which of course we all visited as kids in school but for which you poor bastards will occasionally come to tour. ;p

Our most recent weekend getaways have all been within Texas: we've done San Antonio (stopping by the Shiner brewery on the way), Dallas, and the beach at Galveston.

Next up, I want to try a weekend jaunt across the border to Lake Charles, LA, where there are casinos and other such diversions.

Wisconsin is packed with Indian casinos, so lots of the oldsters head up their from Chicago in tour buses.

http://www.wisconsin-dells-attractio...ChunkSign1.jpg

From here, we could do the Thousand Islands area. (Barely) More probable would be going to the Finger Lakes, and either hitting the various wineries, or some of the craft works areas. For a bit of culture, during the summer, there's always the Shaw Festival centered around Niagara-on-the-Lake. Year-round there's Toronto's theatre district. There's also the casinos, either at Turning Stone, or Niagara Falls. There's also the Falls. (I really don't get why you'd want to see them more than once, personally.)

Oliveloaf and I are from the northwest suburbs, and there everyone does tend to go various places in Wisconsin. I lived and worked on the south side for a long time, and the folks down there tend to go to Michigan (no one wants to drive through the city, so they tend to drive in the opposite direction from it). Lots of good public beaches and state parks to visit up there, it's really really nice. In Wisconsin, the Lake Michigan beaches aren't as nice (the sand all drifts Michigan way for some reason), so people tend to go to a the little lakes that are dotted around the state.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sarahfeena

Oliveloaf and I are from the northwest suburbs, and there everyone does tend to go various places in Wisconsin. I lived and worked on the south side for a long time, and the folks down there tend to go to Michigan (no one wants to drive through the city, so they tend to drive in the opposite direction from it). Lots of good public beaches and state parks to visit up there, it's really really nice. In Wisconsin, the Lake Michigan beaches aren't as nice (the sand all drifts Michigan way for some reason), so people tend to go to a the little lakes that are dotted around the state.

---

Funny that it works that way in the Chicago area. It sounds like Long Island and Jersey. If you live beyond The City (Brooklyn and Queens) you generally don't drive to New Jersey and if you live in New Jersey you generally don't drive to Long Island. NYC acts as a major obstructions to traffic flow in the region.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by What Exit?

Funny that it works that way in the Chicago area. It sounds like Long Island and Jersey. If you live beyond The City (Brooklyn and Queens) you generally don't drive to New Jersey and if you live in New Jersey you generally don't drive to Long Island. NYC acts as a major obstructions to traffic flow in the region.

---

Here it also has to do with the configuration of the city on the west shore of the lake. Northsiders have to drive south through the city, down around the tip of the lake, and north again into Michigan...it's a long trip for a weekend, and city traffic just makes it worse. Southsiders are already down near the tip of the lake, so it doesn't take them so far out of the way. Where I grew up we were about an hour from the Wisconsin state line, so getting up there to lake country was a breeze.

When I was at Great Lakes Naval base, we often went to Chicago or Wisconsin but never Michigan. Even spent a weekend in Milwaukee.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Sarahfeena

Here it also has to do with the configuration of the city on the west shore of the lake. Northsiders have to drive south through the city, down around the tip of the lake, and north again into Michigan...it's a long trip for a weekend, and city traffic just makes it worse. Southsiders are already down near the tip of the lake, so it doesn't take them so far out of the way. Where I grew up we were about an hour from the Wisconsin state line, so getting up there to lake country was a breeze.

---

Yeah, we used to dash up to Wisconsin for the day. A couple of nice small-lake beaches just over the border.

We never went to Michigan. As Sarah mentioned, it looks close on a map, but getting through Chicago cuts into your time too much.

I need to drive to Mass next month, near Boston. I will either leave early Sunday morning or avoid using RT95 even though it is by far the shortest route. The Cross Bronx Expressway is one of the worst Highways in the country. It is notorious. I would not be surprised if many not from the area have heard of it with dread.

I end up going up to Tarrytown to swing North of NYC and across into Connecticut.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Laughing Lagomorph

Oh, the Berkshires. Small, sleepy hills in Western MA but people do go there, especially in the summer.

---

:roll: There's plenty to do out here, and we gets lots of tourists, thanks.

Anyway..

Boston, Hartford, and Albany are all within a 3-hour drive, and a lot of people visit Pioneer Valley towns for weekend daytrips (ie, Northampton/Amherst, Springfield, etc).

Ouray, CO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DowntownOurayCO.jpg

Glenwood Canyon, CO
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DS...ians_e_600.jpg

Arches National Park, UT
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:De...rch_sunset.jpg

Sorry; I'm having problems with embedding pictures.

:emb:

My very first vacation was in Wisconsin Dells. I drove a duck.

I'm a little over an hour from New Orleans, so that's a good day trip. In the other direction, there's Dauphine Island and Orange Beach (with more beaches farther east). There are some historical sites locally, like the Jefferson Davis home and some other Civil War stuff that I've never been to, and we're also fairly close to some Native American ceremonial mounds that I'm pretty interested in seeing. The Biloxi/Gulfport coast also has several casinos, if that's your thing.

Possibly the only good thing about my hometown is it's closeness to things that aren't it. Within 4 hours or less we have access to...

http://blog.beliefnet.com/prayerplai...o-yosemite.jpg

http://www.unionstreetinn.com/images/sanfrancisco3.jpg

http://www.cosmos.com/Common/Images/...y-aquarium.jpg

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ad...ismo-beach.jpg

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/daily.../hollywood.jpg

http://resources.tourcorp.com/images..._fireworks.jpg

among other things. :smug:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Orual

My very first vacation was in Wisconsin Dells. I drove a duck.

---

Ducks rule!

http://www.tourcart.net/tourmate/img/tours/4268-1.jpg

Just went to a tourism website and found the following - it made me smile: http://www.exploregeorgia.org/Event/...reens-Festival

I haven't done much vacationing in Georgia - I try to visit friends and family, but there are some great spots for weekend trips that are just a few hours away from Atlanta.

Callaway Gardens was highly recommended to me by a good friend.

I've gone to http://www.tunicatravel.com/casinos about 5 times since I moved here. My former landlord runs bus trips a couple of times per year.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Taumpy

:roll: There's plenty to do out here, and we gets lots of tourists, thanks.
...

---

Yes, I know. I've been one of those tourists myself, on many occasions...that was more or less the point of my post.

I've funyaked the Deerfield River, visited Mass MOCA, spent a beautiful summer evening on the lawn at Tanglewood, and skied Butternut, Catamount and Otis Ridge many times.

Is it the "sleepy" part you object to? I hate to break it to you but people from the Boston area don't go to places like West Stockbridge or Lenox for the fast-paced hedonistic debauchery...they go for the quiet.