At Myrtle Beach visitors can expect beautiful beaches, wonderful historic sites, plenty of amusement parks, a ton of shopping, and enough restaurants to satisfy everyones taste buds. List your vacation rental where TripAdvisor travelers can find it. Southern Maine is the perfect vacation spot: Not only does it have beautiful, peaceful, and well-maintained beaches, it also has numerous coastal towns filled with shops and restaurants. Members who are knowledgeable about this destination and volunteer their time to answer travelers’ questions.

The Web-savvy among us already know that checking online travel Websites like Travelocity, Expedia, and HotWire before embarking upon a trip is a no-brainer. SQM also has a couple of travel-related mystery shopping hotel gigs that provide a free stay plus a shopper fee.

Deirdre, who planned this trip, sits by my side in the taxi, reenergized, like me, our heads poking out the back seat windows into the humid air to take it all in. Back in our 20s, before husbands and kids, Deirdre and I were travel buddies, road tripping around the United States and visiting Mexico City twice.

The National Park Service typically posts lifeguards here from Memorial Day to Labor Day, along with chair and umbrella rentals (you’ll find a restroom and cold-water showers too). I’ve stayed in spooky old Victorian houses, high-rise super-modern hotels, and in sweet little bungalows with a view of the sea and staying in places like these really made a difference in the vacation.

When psychologists ask people how they feel during a holiday, they find that happiness levels rise rapidly during the first few days, peak around day eight, then plateau or slowly decline. The amount of time she spends planning a trip can vary from a few hours for a domestic, limited-time and -budget vacation to the 15 to 20 hours so far that she has invested in a two-week journey through Turkey.