Where would you like to go?

A couple weeks ago I went to the NY Times Travel Show at the Javits Center in NYC. I don't intend to travel anytime soon but it sounded like an interesting event. The show consisted of hundreds of travel vendors representing every part of the world you could imagine (except for maybe Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. I don't think I saw Israel represented either). They were giving away luscious brochures (some quite large-I have one of Africa called Simply Safari which is about 100 pages) filled with beautiful pictures. I would just saunter up to each vendor and quickly take information otherwise, the person at the booth would try sell you a nice little travel package (little did they know that I was the wrong person to sell to!).

There were also talks, demonstrations and dancing (for instance, Puerto Rico had dancers throughout the day). I sat and listened to a woman talk about her cheese travels-OMG talk about boring! but she did give everyone cheese samples (very smelly and rich-i had to throw mine away but the pears were good!). I also listened to Rick Steves talk for a bit. From what I could gather since I arrived after he started talking, his presentation was about terrorism and traveling abroad. A lot of his political views came out and at one point I thought it was more of a political talk than anything else (please Rick, tell us how you really feel!!!). I couldn't help but wonder if some people in the audience were just hoping that he would talk about how to get all their crap in one suitcase!

One funny part was when I was walking through the United States section and this guy forced a big catalogue of New Jersey on me but as soon as I was out of eye shot of him, I left the catalogue on an empty chair. Why the hell would anyone want to go to frigging New Jersey for their vacation!? I picked up catalogues/brochures of Korea, Greece, Lithuania, Zambia, Indonesia, China, Macau, Italy, Alberta, Hudson River Valley, Asia, Russia, India, Grenada and many more. There are some great photos to practice my drawing on too!

I couldn't help but wonder, walking around the Javits Center, that if I had all the money in the world, where would I go? They had a film playing on a big screen TV at the Alberta/Canada area. I never even thought of going to Canada but this film had me literally drooling-it looks like an absolutely gorgeous place.

If I could just take off today for any place in the world it would probably be London because I've been wanting to go there for so long. And now that I'm in NYC, London is closer and cheaper. However, if I could pick someplace farther away or more exotic or adventurous I would have to say Africa. I would love to someday see the gorillas and chimpanzees and also go on a safari. Zambia looks nice. Well, maybe someday!! Maybe I could get a job where I travel around the world buying beautiful fabric for famous designers!

I know you didn't have the privilege of going to a travel show but where would you like to go and why? And try to think of someplace you've never been to. What do you think you would learn by going to this place?