4 Extraordinary Vacation Ideas and Recommendations

Do you enjoy traveling and experiencing new places on vacation? Always on the lookout for extraordinary vacation ideas and recommendations?

Charlottesville, Va
Thousand Islands
Florida Space Coast

Finger Lakes Wineries

If so, keep reading as I will offer four recommendations and vacation ideas for you:

vacation ideas and recommendations
Vacation ideas and recommendations.

Visiting Charlottesville Virginia and Thomas Jefferson

Do you feel that traveling enhances your continuous learning and curiosity? Perhaps visiting Charlottesville, Virginia and Thomas Jefferson will help you with this answer. Let me elaborate.

I am at the end of my third career now, so it has been a few years since my college days. But I spent 8+ years as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

And traveling has always been a favorite thing to do for myself and my family. And we have returned to Charlottesville on several occasions. It is a very special place to visit and learn many interesting things.

Related: 8 Awesome Things to do in the Finger Lakes Region of New York

Yes, it has changed significantly since my college days. And those changes have made it even better as a travel location. Let me tell you the places and things that make Charlottesville and Thomas Jefferson so special.

the Thousand Islands
Recommend the Thousand Islands as a great getaway weekend.

Touring the Thousand Islands of New York and Canada

Are you always on the lookout for a new weekend getaway experience?

My wife and I semi-retired about 4 years ago and weekend getaways, especially places we haven’t seen, are always a priority for us.

Recently we had an excellent long weekend touring the Thousand Islands.

Have you ever visited this area? We totally enjoyed our 3-day visit and highly recommend it to others.

 

Vacation ideas and recommendations … the beaches of Florida’s space coast

 Stretching 72 miles along Florida’s East Coast, the Space Coast continues to enliven, entertain, and inspire more and more visitors each year.

While the Space Coast area of Florida’s East Coast is known as the home of America’s space program, Orlando’s closest beaches, and some of the best surfing in the country, this is only a taste of what this area has to offer.

Whether you dream of excitement and entertainment or simplistic peace and tranquility, the Space Coast has what you’re seeking. And the variety of offered activities is fantastic and sure to have that something for everyone in your family or group.

Take a close look at these ten smashing reasons why we believe this is the best location to plan your Florida vacation.

best Finger Lakes Wineries
Know the best Finger Lakes Wineries?

 

The Best Finger Lakes Wineries to Visit

My family and I have spent 31 of a 35-year career in the upstate New York Finger Lakes Region, and despite growing up in the southeast; I can’t imagine a better place to live.

So you can imagine we are quite familiar with this region and its wine country.

Last few years my career took me to short-term assignments in California, Virginia, Florida, and Colorado, all places with some established wine industry that we visited on several occasions.

At the conclusion of these assignments, it was time to retire … a good time to spend the summer getting reacquainted with the Finger Lakes Region  (to include it’s growing wine industry). As a result, we are writing several articles on our research and resulting in travels.

The bottom line

 

All of these vacation sites were real winners for us. Don’t think you could miss with any of them.

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All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

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Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. 

  

More reading on travel recommendations from Digital Sparks Marketing’s Library:

Build an Effective Team by Being a Talent Hound

Success Enablers of Highly Creative Leaders

Secrets to Becoming a Remarkably Mindful Leader

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+FacebookTwitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

You Will Enjoy Visiting Charlottesville Virginia

Do you feel that traveling enhances your continuous learning and curiosity? Perhaps visiting Charlottesville Virginia and Thomas Jefferson will help you in this answer. Let me elaborate.
Visiting Charlottesville Virginia and Thomas Jefferson
Check out Visiting Charlottesville Virginia and Thomas Jefferson
I am in at the end of my third career now, so it has been a few years since my college days. But I spent 8+ years as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.
And traveling has always been a favorite thing to do for myself and my family. And we have returned to Charlottesville on several occasions. It is a very special place to visit and learn many interesting things.
Yes, it has changed significantly since my college days. And that has made it even better as a travel location. Let me tell you the places and things that make Charlottesville and Thomas Jefferson so special.

Background

Named in honor of Princess Charlotte, the wife of George III, Charlottesville was settled in the 18th century on a hill overlooking the Rivanna River. Today the city proper has a population of more than 42,000 with a metropolitan population nearing 200,000.
Charlottesville offers a unique combination of natural beauty, rich historical and cultural attractions, close proximity to both a national park and the nation’s capital, and a beautiful university.
University grounds
Don’t miss the University grounds.

The legacy of Thomas Jefferson

Jefferson’s legacy—while rightfully a point of pride—is invoked so frequently at the University, and in such a range of contexts, that the term “Jeffersonian” has lost clear meaning. Often guides use the word “Jeffersonian” as a synonym for “traditional.” Jefferson, of course, was no traditionalist.
At other times, University professors and officials cite “Jeffersonian ideals” to support trendy higher-education initiatives in news releases. Many such initiatives—interdisciplinary seminars held in pavilions, efforts to increase undergraduate students’ exposure to study and international internships—are worthwhile.
But it is not as if other schools, those unlucky enough to be founded by someone other than America’s third president, are not thinking about interdisciplinary programs and global studies.
Rather, Jefferson is enmeshed in the way University people talk about things at the University. People call on Jefferson to argue for the old, the traditional, and also the new and cutting-edge.
Images of his statue (located on the Rotunda’s north side) appear prominently on numerous University websites. Frozen in bronze, parchment in hand, Jefferson embodies the part we want him to play: the semi-divine figure who conjured up democracy, America and the University in a few pen strokes.
Jefferson the man was more complex. Sandy-haired and gangly, fearful of public speaking, Jefferson was, like many gifted people, consistently inconsistent. Pick a quote from his voluminous correspondence. What he says in one letter he will contradict in another.
Given his complexity as a thinker and the range of causes to which the term “Jeffersonian” is applied, does appeal to Jefferson’s legacy. It often sounds nice but does not mean much. But those at The University try, in their own way, to follow in his footsteps—to be inspired by the best of his thoughts.
 

 

University grounds

Early morning is the best time to appreciate Jefferson’s architectural genius. Walking through the university campus at this hour, you’ll find it nearly deserted. You can sit on the main lawn alone and marvel at the perfect symmetry of the Rotunda, a United Nations World Heritage site.
The Rotunda sits at the north end of ‘the lawn’, surrounded by other pavilions, and the morning light makes the neo-Classical whites shine like a polished Army shoe.
Jefferson’s most important legacy, however, lies in the heart of the University. One for which the architecture is merely the outer trappings to underlying ideals: The Rotunda and adjoining Pavilions that form The Lawn at the University of Virginia founded what is today one of the top universities in the nation. The University fulfills Jefferson’s vision of creating a “bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere.”
Free one-hour tours of the Rotunda are available five times a day (434-924-3239; www.uvaguides.org. ours: Admission tours are available through the Office of Admission and offered year-round, while classes are in session.
Monticello
Monticello.

Visiting Charlottesville Virginia and Thomas Jefferson … Monticello

Monticello is hands down the most popular historical site in a region of many such sites. Certainly so for our family, as we have visited more than a half dozen times. Each time we learned many new facts.
Of course, Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, who, after inheriting quite a large amount of land from his father, started building Monticello when he was 26 years old. Located just outside CharlottesvilleVirginia the plantation was originally 5,000 acres, used for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, with labor by slaves. Like other planters, Jefferson shifted from tobacco cultivation to a wheat plantation to respond to changing markets.
The house, which Jefferson designed, was based on the neoclassical principles described in the books of the Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. He reworked it through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late 18th-century Europe. It contains many of his own design solutions, which makes it the most fascinating location. The house is situated on the summit of an 850-foot (260 m)-high peak in the Southwest south of the Rivanna Gap.
At Jefferson’s direction, he was buried on the grounds; an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery, which is owned by the Monticello Association, a lineage society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson.
 
 The biggest change at Monticello over the last decade or so has been the creation of the Thomas Jefferson Visitor Center and Smith Education Center. They serve as the 21st-century gateway to Jefferson’s timeless Monticello, with multiple components that transform the visitor experience by preparing guests for their trips to the historic mountaintop.
They accomplish this through dynamic content presenting fresh perspectives on Monticello and the enduring significance of Jefferson’s life and ideas. Lots of stimuli for learning and discovery.
See this useful guide: 100 Best Things to Do in Virginia
Here is a short video to tell you more about Charlottesville.

It has four innovative exhibitions to visit:
 
Liberty ‘illustrates is the development and ongoing influence of Jefferson’s core ideas about liberty on a wall of 21 flat-panel LCD screens, including seven interactive touch screens.
Here is a much more detailed guide on Virginia: You can find it here: https://www.your-rv-lifestyle.com/best-things-to-do-in-virginia.html
Monticello as Experiment: ‘To Try All Things’ explores Jefferson’s use of Monticello as a laboratory for his belief that “useful knowledge” could make life more efficient and convenient.
 
Architecture’ showcases the architectural origins, construction and four-decade evolution of the Monticello house, widely regarded as one of the icons of American architecture.
The Words of Thomas Jefferson brings Jefferson’s thoughts to light through projection in an innovative display
 
 

Montpelier

James and Dolley regularly welcomed guests to Montpelier and the centerpiece of the Montpelier experience is its mansion. The guided first-floor tour takes visitors through the Drawing Room, filled with art and conversation pieces and the dining room where they hosted dinner parties for distinguished guests, friends, and family. Also included is the Presidential Library, which is filled with books and maps that reveal the brilliant mind of James Madison.
Montpelier offers 2,650 acres of rolling hills, spacious horse pastures, and spectacular views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Don’t miss the opportunity to spend some time enjoying the gardens and grounds. Just behind the Mount Pleasant site lies the Madison Family Cemetery—the final resting place of James and Dolley Madison.

Central Virginia wineries

No wonder Thomas Jefferson started making wine at his Monticello home in the 1770s. The eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge and the rolling countryside to the east offer excellent topography, fertile granite-based clay soil, and a growing season of better than 200 days.
Enjoy tours and tastings at more than 20 vineyards along the Monticello Wine Trail, and hops-lovers taste still another side of the area’s award-winning small-batch breweries that make up the Brew Ridge Trail.
Virginia has 11 wine trails to explore and 136 wineries, many focusing on cabernet francs, which seem to adapt best to the local climate.  For more information on Virginia vineyards, see www.virginiawines.org.

Ash Lawn-Highland

Ash Lawn-Highland offers house tours year-round. In the restored house, the rich collection of period and Monroe-family furnishings perfectly exemplifies James and Elizabeth Monroe’s international style, while also demonstrating their strong American connections.
The house tour emphasizes Monroe’s many and varied contributions to our nation’s early history. Known for his two-term presidency, James Monroe held many political offices, including roles in the Continental Congress and the U.S. Senate, and multiple terms as Governor of Virginia.
The story of James Monroe’s life features the American Revolution, southern and western expansion, international diplomacy, and of course his eight years as President of the United States.
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Need some help in finding more interesting places to visit? Creative ideas in running or facilitating a team workshop?
Do you like to blog? If you are looking for additional resources on blogging, one of my favorite experts is Amy Lynn Andrews. You’ll find lots of good stories and examples to learn from her blog.
 
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?
Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
 
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+Twitter, and LinkedIn.  
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.
  
More reading on travel recommendations from Digital Sparks Marketing’s Library:
4 Extraordinary Vacation Ideas and Recommendations
4 Awesome Activities Touring the Thousand Islands
8 Awesome Things to Do in the Finger Lakes Region
12 Amazing Finger Lakes Resorts for Getaway Celebrations
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of the small business. Find him on G+FacebookTwitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.