11 one-way plane tickets, 9 cities, 4 grandparents, 1 turtle, 4 parents, 5 siblings, 2 aunts, 2 uncles, 3 cousins, 1 nephew, 3 nieces, 9 favorite friends.

‘Merica Tour 2014…here goes!!!  

I have a really hard time answering “the dreaded question”: What is/has been your favorite place to travel to?

We have had so many experiences and have so many favorite memories from these past three years, that we think reducing them to just one location (or even one sentence!) would be a disservice to all the fantastic places in this world!

To address this predicament, I have compiled a list of “Wall Superlatives”. My intent was to keep it short and sweet, but as we set adrift on memory bliss (with some German beers keeping us afloat), the list became quite long!

So…scroll and click at your pleasure…and beware when you pose “the dreaded question”!

• Best place to reaffirm your American patriotism: Normandy
• Best €11 ever spent: for a paddle boat on Lake Como, Italy
• Worst place to go to the “beach”: Nice, France
• Best place to realize your friends are totally nuts, but you love them anyways: Hippodrom, Oktoberfest
• Biggest disappointment: Arctic Circle, Finland
• Best place to get cozy with a camel: Schwarzwald, Germany
• Greatest experiences with locals: Russian vodka, Liechtensteiner dogs, Bavarian cows, Italian drinking, Moldovan kids, German vegetables, French survivors, Israeli walls
• Best “sleeper” town: Budapest, Hungary
• Most unexpected places to find ourselves: Russia, Fiji, South Korea
• Best place to hemorrhage Euros: Zermatt, Switzerland
• Best place to stall-out three times in a communist-era vehicle: Dresden, Germany
• Greatest waffles and fries: Bruges, Belgium
• Best place to get the in Christmas spirit: German Weihnachtsmärkte
• Worst place to go if you have a monkey-phobia: Gibraltar
• Best places to eat: Portugal, Spain, Scandinavia
• Most re-told story: MIL in Amsterdam
• Best place to drink away your frustrations over a region’s horrific transportation infrastructure: Cinque Terre, Italy
• Best places to “see the world” with your favorite people: Germany, France, Denmark, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland
• Best place to expand your comfort zone, make friends from around the globe, and change everything you think you know about yourself and the world: Freiburg, Germany