10 SUMMER HOT SPOTS Favorite Summer Vacations
	JULY/AUGUST 2004

by Karen Mancuso
Photos by Brad Shifflett

I've been a travel agent for 17 years. We've been in three different locations during that time, all of them in the town of Brentwood.

I was raised right here in Brentwood and have always loved traveling. It occurred to me, after taking some big trips, that people in Brentwood were complaining about the absence of a good service-oriented travel agency. So almost on a whim I called up my Mom and said, "Let's think about going into the travel agency business." My neighbor in Stockton was an agent so I spent a couple months lurking in his office to watch how the business was conducted.

The Coliseum in Rome, Italy at night.

I finally came to the conclusion, "If this guy can do it, I can do it." Coincidentally, the night I called my mom to say this, she was attending a travel class at LMC. That was March 1987. We opened the doors to our agency at the end of September.

Mom and I started this business as complete novices. We hired a manager — called a "qualifier," which is an industry term for someone who knows the processes and procedures of the travel business.

We went through a couple different managers and finally realized that we had to do the business on our own. So we just took off with the attitude of sink or swim. We really did learn everything we needed to know in the same way that a person jumping into the deep end of the pool figures out how to swim. My mom has retired, but I'm still going strong in my 17th year in business.

Being a travel agent is a great job for a person who loves to travel! The job requires me to go to many different places and to meet many different people. In the earlier years we would commonly take a trip somewhere every month. We're a lot busier now and it is more difficult to get out of the office, but we still do a lot of little trips. We sell a lot of Disney stuff, for example. I've visited the Magic Kingdom five times in the past 14 months.

I've been on a lot of great trips. I've had wonderful vacations of all kinds — about as varied as they could be: from the Reno Fun Train to Paris. A lot of the fun on vacations has to do with chemistry, of course — being with good people; spending time with people I care about. But the main thing, of course, is the wonderful places visited, the often-amazing things you see, and the sometimes-fantastic things you can find to do.

If you want to take a vacation that a professional travel agent went on, and loved, here are eleven vacation hot spots for you. These are some of the best vacations I ever took:

1. Anniversary Trip to Italy
I think the best vacation I ever took was when my husband and I, together with our two sons, flew to Milan, Italy, to begin a two-week celebration of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. We picked up a rental car and drove to Tuscany. We made a small inn in the Chianti region our home base for a week. We made day trips to Siena, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, and San Gimignano. We spent a second week in Rome.

The people in Italy all seemed to be marvelous human beings. So many interesting sights! Such delicious food! We enjoyed the whole experience, from the majestic mountains to the charming-looking hookers sitting under the trees by the side of the road.

We fell in love with the country! I would love to go back there!

2. Antique Shopping in Brimfield
The largest antique markets in the United States — possibly in the world — are in Brimfield, Massachusetts. Three of us flew into Boston and took in the sights. In particular we had a great amount of fun on the Duck Tour. This was a real hoot! (I can't for the life of me think of a better word for describing this.)

We rented a car and drove to Brimfield, which was about an hour away. We spent three days having one of the most fantastic antique shopping experiences of my entire life.

The stores and market places in Brimfield offer an unimaginable variety of wonderful opportunities for a shopper like myself. We faced a real challenge in getting our treasures back to East County. We took some boxes to the post office for mailing, took the larger items to shipping companies, packed smaller items in our suitcases, and hand carried some of the most valuable pieces on the plane during the ride back.

Antique shopping is a thrill. Some of you know what I'm talking about. This was one of the greatest vacations I ever took. If you are interested, come by my office. I can tell you what hotels are best, and give you some inside tips about the greatest places in Brimfield to find the treasures you are seeking.

3. England International Quilt Show
I spent a week in London with seven other ladies, all of us interested in quilting.

The Tower Bridge in London.

Next to San Francisco, London must be the greatest city in the world for sightseeing. And it is probably the greatest city in the world for shopping.

While in London we had perfectly wonderful experiences of sightseeing, shopping — antique shopping at Portobello Market and Camden Passage, in particular. We had a merry time hopping on and off our double-deck tour bus. It was a great adventure for us mastering the intricacies of the London “tube.”

Later we rendezvoused with ten other people to take in the amazing quilt show together. This was followed by more sightseeing — museums, shopping in Stoke-on-Trent, the potteries, and the Spode Factory and Tour.

I had so much fun that I had to return before the end of the year. Three months later my husband and I were back. It was really cold, but I have happy memories of the two of us riding on the open top of the two-decker bus laughing at our foolishness in sitting out there in the cold. But you couldn't see well from the heated inside — and there was so much to see.

Now is the time to go see London. The weather is often perfect during the summer.

If you are interested in history, shopping, or just hanging out in a perfectly charming and interesting place, you might consider a trip to England. After all, England provides one of the few places in the world where you can visit a foreign country and everyone speaks English. Come by and I'll show you how this experience may not be nearly as expensive as you think.

4. Birthday in Paris
My husband took me to Paris for my birthday! This was an unimaginably better gift than the normal cards and roses from Albertsons.

The birthday gift was a quick trip, but sometimes those are the best. We got in a lot of sightseeing, including the Eiffel Tower, of course, the Lourdes, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

We included time for a stop at a Paris flea market. Took in a show, did some shopping, ate some great food, and saw a lot of interesting people.

This was not a cheap birthday present. Paris is not a good place for people with a limited budget. But it is a great place in every other way.

It was surely the greatest birthday present of my life, and probably the greatest four-day vacation I ever took.

5. Family Reunion Cruise
I've had a lot of great vacations onboard cruise ships. The growth of the cruising industry over the past decade or so has been beyond explosive. And for good reason. These floating pleasure palaces offer some of the greatest opportunities for people who are looking for unqualified good times.

My mom, aunt, and some cousins went cruising together in Baja. This was an incredible five days of relaxing and fun, when we could spend all day together talking, reveling in each other's company, and enjoying the amenities that are typical of the service you usually get on these big cruise ships — truly fit for a king.

We took the Royal Caribbean ship, Viking Serenade, from Los Angeles to Catalina, San Diego, and Ensenada.

I think we laughed from the time we all met at the ship until we said goodbye. By the time we docked at the end of the journey a number of our fellow passengers had become adopted members of our family and were laughing right along with us.

If you have a big family reunion coming up, come by my office and let's work out some numbers together. You will pay more than if the whole family gets together at Aunt Myrtle's again — with the old RV and pole barn out back where family members can put their blankets and sleeping bags. But “you get what you pay for.”

I believe a good cruise experience can give you more than you pay for. Cruising can sometimes be a remarkably good value. And the quality of the experience might create happy memories for you, as it did for me, that you will be talking about and laughing over decades after the trip was ended. (And nobody has to cook or clean-up afterwards.)

6. Fun Friends Cruise
I had another remarkable experience with a Baja cruise, going together in a party of thirty friends, on a Carnival Cruse Line ship. We went out of Los Angeles and did the Catalina and Ensenada five-day cruise adventure.

They call the line “Carnival” for good reasons. The experience isn't advisable for people who are shy and retiring — unless they want to do something that really will help them lose their inhibitions. We spent five totally wild, exuberant days of celebrating, dancing, and generally enjoying each other's company. Those people were my friends at the beginning of the cruise, but they were much dearer friends at the end.

If you have a group of people from your office or club and want to do something to raise the level of love and comradeship, come and see me and let's talk about the possibility of a Carnival Cruise. There's nothing I can think of to raise the esprit de corp of a group better than five days of the kind of frolicking that my friends and I had on that beautiful ship.

7. The Magic Kingdom
I discovered again that Disneyland is the perfect place to take your kids. And I rediscovered this truth when I did this with my two children, who were 20 & 25 years old.

We gathered in that magical place with 70,000 other people and enjoyed the wonderful sights and the fun places that the theme park offers. The happy day concluded with an enormous and perfectly satisfying fireworks display.

It sounds trite to say that Disneyland is for the young and for the young-at-heart, but the fact is, the park really is an almost perfect place for people like us, no matter what our age. My two 20-something kids had a wonderful time. And it was one of the greatest days I ever spent in my life, and I'm 39 years old (or so).

If you and your family haven't been to Disneyland yet, come by my office. We have a relationship with Disney and I can get you some good prices.

8. Panama Canal Cruise
A number of cruise lines offer Panama Canal trips. Lines will use the same ships for cruising in Alaska in the summer that they use for the Caribbean winter cruises. That means that twice a year all those ships have to go through the Panama Canal and, of course, they offer these as special cruising opportunities.

Princess Cruises

Some lines offer regular cruise opportunities through the Panama Canal, affording passengers an incomparable opportunity of journeying between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through history's second most famous public works project, after the Pyramids.

I took this cruise with a group of about 40 other people and we rode the palatial Princess Cruise ship called the Royal Princess, from San Juan to Acapulco, making the transit of the Panama Canal in lavish style and comfort.

The cruise included marvelous tropical experiences on beautiful Caribbean Islands. We rode mopeds on Aruba, went snorkeling on St. Johns, shopped for emeralds in Cartagena. Laughed everywhere. Ate everywhere and everything, of course. Enjoyed lots of good food, good drinks, good friends, and good times.

I was sorry to go ashore when it was over.

Here are two more vacations that may be destined to become future favorites of mine.

9. Disney Cruises in Southern California
Disneyland turns 50 next year. As part of the celebration, Disney is planning to bring one of their two cruise ships to operate cruises out of Los Angeles. This is a great opportunity for those of us who live on this coast.

Clients of mine who formerly wanted to go on Disney tours were required to purchase airplane tickets to the Florida cities that Disney cruises left from. For a family of five, for example, that could amount to a couple thousand dollars.

For this next season only, we can go on one of these Disney cruises out of Los Angeles for a Mexican cruise, and only pay $74, or whatever it is, for a ticket on one of the Southwest shuttle flights.

10. Vienna in the Summer
One location that's on my gotta-go-there-sometime list is Austria. This beautiful little country, nestled at the foot of the Alps, is a great place to spend a week, a month, or a lifetime. The whole country is not as large as the State of Maine.

The Belvedere palace in Vienna, Austria.

Vienna is the sparkling capital city, and has the most incredibly rich musical history of any city in the world. Someday I hope to walk down the streets where Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Strauss walked when they were alive.

I'm going to visit the Imperial Palace, walk through the Vienna Woods, and take a boat-ride down the beautiful blue Danube. The country is so small that not only are day-trips to lovely Salzburg and Innsbruck, possible, but incredibly Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, and Slovakia are all only a couple hours away by car.

I'm going to do this! I can't wait!

By the way, Richard Kosher, Publisher of 110 Degrees magazine, and a native-born Austrian, has given me the inside tip that when I go to Vienna I must stop at the Würstelstand (Sausage Stand) and buy a käsekrainer (cheddar sausage). He says that this is near the Südtiroler Platz subway station. I have no reason to doubt Richy's confident assertion that these käsekrainers are the world's greatest sausages.

I love to travel! These ten vacations were only some of the great times I've had visiting and seeing new sights, meeting new people, eating new foods — just broadening my participation in this beautiful world we live in.

I also love my job, assisting others in having the experiences that I enjoy so much myself. Come on by. Let me assist you.