Do you want an active vacation or a more lay around somewhere gorgeous type vacation? Beach or no beach? What kind of budget are you looking at (including airfare or after airfare)? What time of year? Does the 10 days include travel days or not (if that's your entire time off then you might lose a day or more on each end, giving you really only 8 days of actual location time)?

What are your interests? Museums, art galleries, plays/musicals/opera, architecture, history, landscapes, wildlife, food, wine? If you want rich food and opera, that's an entirely different destination than for someone who doesn't care much about food and who wants landscapes and wildlife.

You need to tell us a lot more about yourselves, what you're looking for, etc before anyone can even begin to tailor suggestions to you rather than just random great places for 10 days that are different from where you've been.


I really loved China and 10 days gives you a good chance to see Beijing and maybe one other city (Xi'an or Shanghai are popular) though that's pretty quick if the 10 days includes travel days.

Baltic Sea region - Stockholm, Bergen, Copenhagen, Helsinki, St Petersburg. Pick one city and have a few day trips or pick two cities.

Greece

Costa Rica

Moscow/St Petersburg

Traveling from... New York? Nairobi? New Delhi?

We have done the beaches thing many times and are looking to do something way out of our comfort zone. We enjoy good food and wine and would enjoy something that includes a little adventure and also a little R&R. We would plan for 10 days of travel not including air. I guess we really dont have a budget right now. We will be traveling from New York. Does this help?

South Africa around the first or second week of September. Stay at a safari lodge in the Kruger Park area for 3 or 4 nights, then a few days in Cape Town, visiting both the vineyard areas near the city and the spring wildflowers along the west coast an hour or two north of Cape Town. Warning, South Africa is very addictive.

You don't have a budget... as in nothing set in stone, or as in I can send you somewhere ridiculously expensive first class? Airfare plus 2-3k each is a lot different from airfare plus 2-20k each.

If you really have no budget and the travel days to your destination don't count, then I'd suggest these as additional options to the ones suggested already.

Antarctica!! 10 days is going to be one of the shortest trips but it's totally worth it. That's a November-March type trip. Icebergs, 24 hour sun, amazing birds, penguins, seals, whales, etc. It's quite simply amazing. It was definitely adventure but there was also lots of time for R&R.

Arctic - summer generally. You just can't beat 24 hour sun, crisp air, icebergs, polar bears, etc.

Africa - I'd suggest Kenya/Tanzania as an option instead of South Africa (NOT saying don't go to SA, just as a similar option). I went over Christmas 2011 and loved it.

Egypt - this one I would suggest a private guide, some flexibility in daily plans and caution, but everything I've seen has said that it's still safe as long as you keep your eyes open and pay attention to your guide.


One thing I do to pick my next destination is to go to google images and/or to photos posted with trip reports and see what catches my eye and makes me say "I want to go there!" I read trip reports here on the forums and again see what makes me think "I want to go there!"

What about Asia trip or specially India.

How about Bali? I think it would fit the bill as something out of your comfort zone, but there is still the opportunity to relax and get pampered.

I believe Southwest has Seattle as a featured destination right currently. fifty percent off fares in/out of Seattle as long as you book by tomorrow I assume it's. Not sure what it'd cost from back east, but fifty% is good.

I went to Argentina/Uruguay in 2011 and highly recommend it. From NYC you can fly overnight. I flew overnight from DC and I think it was a 10 hour flight. We spent most of our time in Buenos Aires and its suburbs, but we also took the ferry over to Colonia del Sacramento/Montevideo in Uruguay for a few of those days. I thought it was a good entree for South America because I have spent so much time in Europe and they say (correctly in my opinion) that Buenos Aires is the Paris of the South. Yet in many ways its vastly different and there was definitely some culture shock. We spent 9 days there and it was just the right amount of time. There is a lot of interesting stuff to do in BA and it is all very reasonably priced. We loved the Palermo area, the Evita Museum, their art museums, the Carlos Gardel museum, and La Boca. We went to a few soccer matches and if you are in any way a fan, that is an experience of a lifetime. They also have great shopping and fun markets, such as the one in San Telmo. The food and coffee in BA is unreal - I gained 7 pounds while I was there. I wasn't as impressed with Uruguay, but I think most of it was the time of the year. We were there in May and it would really have been better to be there in November or December when its warm because there just wasn't that much to do in Uruguay although Colonia was pretty. Have fun picking a destination.

I can advise you India is one of the best country for traveling purpose.