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Published: August 19th 2010
Greece
Ruin, ruins everywhereThe Results are in!
Seeing as verbally conversing with young males is akin to walking through plate glass, I thought I would try to elicit their views of some of the favorite things on our tour with a survey. I locked them in a room until they were done and, combined with Nadine and my surveys, the results are below.
Even this quick survey, brought some surprises. So without further adieu…ladies and gentlemen…the results of the favorite things from the Xploringcoopers world tour are:
Best Weather 1. Australia
2. Everywhere else!
* we hit a couple of 40 degree days…’but it’s a dry heat’
Best Beaches Of the 8 countries we visited 5 were in the running…and the surprise winner is…
1. Spain
2. Australia
3. Thailand
* we spent a lot of time on beaches in Spain. Our first was the Barcelona beach where we had a blast body surfing, then gorgeous locations in Northern Spain, before hitting the resort in Southern Spain…I say surprising because our life in Australia was a ‘beach’!
Best Food 1. France
2. Thailand
3. Greece
* a very close race amongst
Greece
this is not ancient...these are REALLYancient! these 3 countries but we all loved the boulangeries in France…only Greece received a vote by everyone… …I wonder which Nicolas voted for the chicken and fries of Burkina Faso!
Best Airline 1. Corsair
2. Royal Air Maroc
3. Air Canada
* we experienced nine different airlines on our trip…it turns out our favorite airline was the first one we took…
all votes for Air Canada came from the kids, as they had the best electronic set-up (and haven’t had the time to be frustrated by them yet!)…the worst airline was not voted on but I give it to Hawaiian Airlines…they had a lot of flight attendants (which made you think it was going to be great service), but the entire nine hour flight they were busy trying to sell one thing or another (credit cards, duty free, etc.)
Best Hikes & Walks 1. Spain
2. Australia
3. Egypt
* even though they complained they still remembered…best rainforest walk was in Australia…walking the hillsides in Spain was beautiful
Best Accommodations T1. Spain
T1. Thailand
* no surprise here as our accommodations in Northern Spain was at Ingrid’s family’s place, which
was fantastic and in Northern Thailand we had a great house. We really enjoyed staying in the apartments we found along the way and would highly recommend it…it was great to stay in the neighborhoods and not in the tourist sections. There are some good websites we used.
Most Educational Location 1. Egypt
2. Burkina Faso
3. Greece
* Egypt was the handsdown winner in this category…not only was it educational, but it was fascinating as well. Surprisingly, not making the top three was France where we hit all of the famous landmarks. Certainly, Jacques Charron played a large role in our education in Burkina Faso.
Most Different 1. Burkina Faso
T2. Tunisia
T2. Thailand
* cannot argue with these choices…Burkina Faso received all first place votes from all of us…Egypt was just squeezed out by a couple of points. Each of these locations offered decidedly different everything!
Best Sights 1. Egypt
2. France
T3. Thailand
T3. Spain
* Just to give you an idea as to the quality of visits we had, the places that are not in the top four included definite highlights such as the Tunisian desert and
Greece
Island off Nafplion carthage ruins; koalas, dolphins and kookaburras; ancient Olympia; swimming in the cascades of Banfora or scalling the piks of Sandou in Burkina Faso ; castles, ruins and red bull airplane races; and so much more!
Best Public Transportation 1. Thailand
2. Greece
3. France
* Thailand had those cool cabs you just flagged down at the side of the road and trains that can be half a day late and nobody bats an eye. The subways in Greece were immaculate!
Most Surprising 1. Burkina Faso
T2. Thailand
T2. Egypt
* a question to try to measure the difference between reality and expectations…on numerous occasions, I was asked if a country was different than expected…I must say I rarely had any expectations for any place we went (except for barbequing in Australia)…but that does not mean I was never surprised.
Most Want To Return To 1. Australia
T2. Burkina Faso
T2. Greece
* Australia received votes from everyone in this category, of all places it felt like we barely scratched the surface here more than anywhere else (with Greece a close second). Very interesting to see Burkina Faso high on the return
Athens
ruins around Acropolis list…hopefully our tour guide Jacques can contribute his expertise again.
This exercise was very illuminating as it showed that even within a small family as ours we placed different values on what we saw and did. One thing we all agree on is that this tour will always be with us. Who knows…maybe we will have the opportunity to do it again someday. There is so much to visit in this world that we barely dented the list.
Grateful to have had this experience with our children, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat. No regrets!
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