29 Your Dream Vacation

CHAPTER 1 Time to Play SO YOU'RE READY FOR A VACATION. WHERE SHOULD YOU GO, AND WHAT SHOULD YOU DO? Put a check (V) next to things that are important to you. traveling far away being near water seeing something new going back to a favorite place being with friends being with family having "me time" doing lots of activities going somewhere warm learning something new Let's look at a few dream vacations. Raül is on an airplane. Where is he going? Home! He lives in Chile, far away from his family in New York. The last time he saw them was more than a year ago. He can't wait to be with them. Sabine is on a tour with a group of people. They are at the Louvre Museum in Paris. A guide is telling them about the paintings. This is one stop on Sabine's vacation to learn about art in Europe. Carmen is in the middle of a river in fast water. What is she doing? White water rafting in Turkey! Carmen goes somewhere new each year where she can get better at her favorite sport. Maybe these aren't your dream vacations. But dream vacations aren't the same for everyone. It's time to find your dream vacation!

CHAPTER 2 Relaxing Vacations WANT TO RELAX AND HAVE A QUIET TIME? MAYBE THESE VACATIONS ARE FOR YOU. You need to leave your computer at home and your cell phone off for this vacation in Thailand. Koh Lipe is a small island in the Andaman Sea. You can only get there by boat. There aren't any cars on the island. There aren't any banks, either, so bring money. But you don't need to bring much. It's not expensive. You can stay in some places for only $20 a night. There are four beautiful beaches with white sand. You can go snorkeling in beautiful blue water. The Vigilius Mountain Resort is in Lana, Italy. Here, at 1,500 meters, you're in your own "island" in the mountains. There aren't any roads, so you need to take a cable car to get there. There is a lot of peace and quiet, and a beautiful view of the Dolomite Mountains. You can get a massage at the spa, swim in the pool, and take yoga classes. In the winter, you can also go skiing.

In the Canadian Rocky Mountains, you can stay at the Fairmont Chateau Hotel. This beautiful hotel has great views of Lake Louise and the mountains. It has a relaxing spa, too. But there are also lots of activities you can do, including hiking, skiing, and snowmobiling. These places are relaxing, but traveling can be a lot of work. Sometimes when you're stressed from school and work, you don't want to plan a vacation. You don't want to pack and travel. Sometimes, the most relaxing vacation is staying at home— a "staycation." Get comfortable on the couch. Watch movies and read books. Or maybe you want to relax doing a favorite hobby. On your staycation, maybe you want to take short trips to places near you, enjoy the beach, have a picnic in the park, or visit your favorite museum. It's nice to spend time with family and friends, too. Maybe the best staycation is to give yourself a gift. Pay someone to clean your house, wash your clothes, and cook for you. Or call your favorite restaurants and pay them to send food to your house. It's like being in a hotel.

CHAPTER 3 Active Vacations SOME VACATIONS ARE ALL ABOUT ACTIVITIES- DO YOUR FAVORITE THINGS OR TRY NEW THINGS. They're cooking dinner over a campfire. Someone says, "Come and get it!" Where are you? On vacation at a dude ranch in Colorado! If you want to ride horses and feel like a cowboy, then this is your dream vacation. There's no better way to see the American West than riding a horse along a trail. At dude ranches you can also be in a rodeo! Or you can get off the horse and do other activities, like hiking or fishing. And in some places you can go white water rafting or skiing, too. Maybe the life of a rock star, not a cowboy, is for you. If so, you can go on vacation to a Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp. There are camps in the USA, England, and the Bahamas. You play, write, and record music in a studio with famous musicians like Steven Tyler of Aerosmith or Nick Mason of Pink Floyd. At the end, you play on stage. And you can get on TV. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp is now a TV show.

Peace and love. It's the Love Parade! This festival began in East Berlin just months before the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. It was a festival for world peace and understanding and to enjoy electronic music. Now many cities in different places in the world have Love Parade festivals: Budapest, Hungary; Sydney, Australia; Santiago, Chile. What happens at a Love Parade? There's a lot of dancing. DJs from around the world travel on floats and play electronic music. People at the festival dance all day and night. It's great fun, but you can get really tired. Or take a vacation to the beautiful South American city of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil— the home of the 2016 Olympics. It's the first South American city to have the Olympics. It's also the home of the biggest Carnival festival in the world. People from many countries go there for Carnival. It's a four-day national holiday with street parties, parades with colorful floats, and people wearing wonderful costumes. And lots of Brazilian samba: music, singing, and dancing!

CHAPTER 4 Exotic Vacations MAYBE YOU PREFER BEAUTIFUL AND UNUSUAL VACATIONS IN INTERESTING, FARAWAY PLACES. Do you want to visit exotic places? Why not take a vacation at the end of the world? Ushuaia, in Argentina, is the world's most southern city. It's closer to Antarctica than it is to Buenos Aires. Ushuaia has lakes, forests, glaciers, beautiful rainbows, and the Andes Mountains. So you can fish, hike, and ski. And if you take a boat ride, you can see penguins up close. There are many wonderful places in nature, but there are only seven Natural Wonders of the World. Victoria Falls in southern Africa, on the Zambezi River, is one of them. It's the largest waterfall in the world. You can hear it long before you see it— 935 cubic meters of water fall every second! It's really noisy! Be sure to visit the Falls between late November and late April, when it doesn't rain so much. You can see and do more then. You can swim in "The Devil's Swimming Pool" on the edge of the Falls. Or you can see a beautiful moonbow— a rainbow made by the light of a full moon through the water of the Falls.