Seeing Plitviče Lakes has been incredibly high on my “must do” list while we are living in Europe. This is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site in Croatia that is, truly, one of a kind. It is made of a series of connecting lakes, tufa caves, and waterfalls. We visited in early October when the leaves were changing. I was doing an Earth Day Peloton ride the other day and Camila, the instructor, said to close your eyes and think of your favorite place on Earth — the most beautiful place you’ve seen. I closed my eyes and went to these waterfalls.

I tend to be a pendulum that swings between planning far in advance and planning about 2-4 weeks before a trip. It usually depends on what I can convince my partner to do, if we’re being honest. This trip was something we halfway planned months in advance (flights booked in December for an end of May trip). For probably 90% of our trips, we have let SkyScanner decide where we go. Because of our military-decided long weekends, we know for an entire fiscal year when we are going to have “free weekends” to travel. As we drove to Puglia for Christmas 2023, I got on SkyScanner and planned out our holidays for spring 2024. I found wildly affordable flights on EasyJet to Geneva for Memorial Day Weekend and booked them. Then came the fun part of planning what we would use the city of Geneva as our jumping off point for.

Annecy was a spontaneous day trip and I am so glad that we did it. If you put me near water and mountains together, chances are you will see my entire personality change. We spent the day in Annecy on our way home from a weekend on Làc Leman (or Lake Geneva) in France and Switzerland. Annecy is absolutely stunning. It’s often called the Venice of the Alps because it is built on canals, but unlike Venice, here you will find incredible mountain views.