Prague was amazing. Our favorite city in the world (and we're not much for having "favorites"--couldn't pick between a favorite book, movie, food, etc.). Lots to see/do, and it's just beautiful.
We generally use AirBnB, I think we've done just a handful of nights in hotels (mainly for single day side trips, or layovers) over the last 8 months. Having a whole apartment rented is the way to go--washing machine, kitchen, and just much more room. Not a fan of hotels, despite them being nearly free (via travel hacking).
We'd definitely be traveling more like you, at times, if not for the kid. As it is, we may get an RV to tour Canada at some point. The Canadian dollar falling so much versus the US dollar, combined with how much oil has fallen (so gas prices are cheap) seems like the perfect storm for spending six months touring across Canada. Some day. :)
Nice, thanks for sharing! Since I've never been to Europe yet, I'm excited to fit in into our future travel plans (maybe summer 2017). Great to know that you've enjoyed Prague so much!
As a Canadian, here are my my favorites in Canada, going from West to East: Victoria, Vancouver Island, Vancouver, Whistler, Rocky Mountains (Banff), Ottawa (Capital), Montreal (Jazz Festival is good), Quebec City, Cute Fishing Villages/Towns in Nova Scotia & Newfoundland.
Love reading your blog and catching up on your travels. I know you have mentioned here and there how you guys decided on Asheville, NC as your 'home-base'. Do you mind elaborating more on your decision(s) for choosing this place over the others on your list?
We are in the process of doing something similar to the both of you - I don't know if we will travel around for a whole year or not - a little more work with two dogs and a toddler. We are thinking of the Mid-Atlantic area to 'settle down' in. My main two factors are moderate climate and close-ish to family (Southern Ontario). Close-ish = within 16 hour drive. Specifically we are looking at Richmond, VA, Raleigh-Durham, NC, Asheville, NC and others in the area as options. We lived in Baltimore, MD for some time and not opposed to MD but would like to avoid the DC suburbs. I have been following the various threads on the forums that talk about re-locating, but wanted to read your thoughts on this as well.
Thanks, it sounds like your FI journey so far has been similar to ours!
We picked Asheville, NC for a number of reasons. For starters we were hunting for "good weather" and used Brian B's "Picture Perfect Weather Days" map here:
http://us-climate.blogspot.ca/2015/03/picture-perfect-weather-days.htmlAlso, we were mainly looking at cities that have a low Consumer Price Index (CPI) from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For my personal research, I built a spreadsheet listing the lowest cost cities based on CPI data here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UMA6vMMZVRYuASluqZssOL5H8ZU4MzKjIKUfJ61h6S0/edit#gid=0Also, we wanted to live somewhere that had lots of trees, somewhere that doesn't get too hot in the summer, not too cold in the winter, somewhere that has somewhat of a freethinking/liberal culture, and somewhere that is close to nature/mountains.
Last but not least, not to get too deep into details, but we also wanted to live somewhere that has enough of a tourism draw that it would be easy for us to short-term rent out our house and travel for a few months each year. Asheville seems to be booming with tourists in the summer/fall, so it should be easy to rent out our place if we want to travel then. Furthermore, if we get a house that easily accommodates it, we may occasionally Airbnb for some easy $$ on the side.
We made a short-list of cities, and drove through a number of them and felt that Asheville was the best fit for us. Our #2 backup city was Chattanooga, TN.
We drove from Asheville to Toronto a few months ago, and it took us roughly 13 hours... not terrible!
Hope that helps!