Five Places to Visit More Than Once

I’m a slow traveler. There’s no way that I will leave a place after a quick three-day trip feeling like I really know a city. Anything short of moving there and a place will probably make its way back on my travel list. This isn’t to say that my first trips weren’t awesome; this list isn’t of places that I want to re-do. I just don’t feel like I did them justice. They weren’t planned well or I ran out of time or the lines were too long at a site I really wanted to see.

These five places are to be continued.

Number One: Istanbul

Istanbul is one of those cities that feels impossible to know completely. It’s also one of my favorite cities in the world. I spent just five awesome months living in the noise, the color, and the crowds that are Istanbul; those five months were just enough time to scratch the surface and to get me hooked. So naturally, Istanbul is number one on my return-to travel list.

I think I know Istanbul pretty well as a tourist – I can tell you where to go and what to see and I’ve got plenty of tips- but I want to know it better. I want to know it like a local. I realize that outside of moving to the city, this will take a lot of trips…

Even more than just Istanbul, I want to travel all around Turkey. Not exploring more of Turkey is one of my biggest regrets from my semester abroad. That and Amsterdam, but that’s another story.

Number Two: Jerusalem

Oh Al-Aqsa, one day.

Our trip to Israel was thrown together rather hastily. I actually didn’t really want to go at first, but I’m so glad I did. Of the few days we were in the country, my time in Jerusalem was hands-down my favorite (though Tel-Aviv’s beaches weren’t too bad either)! If I remember correctly we were there for two full days – one of which was Shabbat which made eating and getting around pretty difficult – and all of our exploring felt so rushed.

Our last morning there we were running from one place to the next, trying to squeeze everything in before we left for the Dead Sea. Everything I saw was really incredible, but I’ll be forever sad that I didn’t get to see Al-Aqsa up-close. There was one time in the week for non-Muslims to enter the compound (not the mosque) and even though we got up super early to make sure we saw it, the line was already impossibly long.

Jerusalem can’t be crossed off my list until I see Al-Aqsa, at the least.

Number Three: New York City

New York is one of the places I think I’ll have to live at some point in life. How else could you ever have enough time to explore and experience everything?

I’ve spent a grand total of one afternoon in NYC, I think. I was on Long Island to visit my friend Kelly and NYC was just our exciting day trip. Obviously that is a rudely unacceptable amount of time to spend in New York. Forgive me! We really did make the most of our limited time. I couldn’t even begin to explain how much walking we did – from Times Square through Central Park to the Guggenheim and the Shake Shack on Columbus, to Bryant Park to Chinatown and Washington Square Park. I’m pretty sure we took the most roundabout way everywhere, but I loved it.

Number Four: Berlin

Oh, wie schön ist Berlin. I loved my quick weekend trip there last year, but unfortunately for Berlin that trip was all about the Weihnachtsmärkte. Berlin has like a hundred Christmas markets; it felt like if you were to stand anywhere in the city you’d be within sight of at least one of them. For someone disturbingly obsessed with visiting every Christmas market in the city I did manage to see a lot of the most popular Berlin sights: the Reichstag, Brandenburger Tor, the Berliner Dom, Checkpoint Charlie and the Berlin Wall Museum.

With everything Christmas-y it was hard to get the vibe of the different neighborhoods, but if I ever plan on working in politics in Germany then maybe I’ll end up living here, too. I’ll just go ahead and add it to the list.

“Ich bin ein Berliner.”

Number Five: London

I think London is the city most desperate for a re-do. Not because it wasn’t fun, but because it was my first trip abroad and it was with a tour group and we saw (most) everything by chartered bus – that’s just my least favorite way to see a city. This trip was almost seven years ago, and because my memories are foggy and my photographs are terrible, I don’t recall too many details from this trip. I remember all the girls had a crush on our tour guide Tommy, we saw Wicked (which was awesome), and I walked into Wimbledon and didn’t buy the cheap, first-round Federer ticket because not enough people wanted to. Utter heartbreak.

When I’ve saved up enough money to thoroughly enjoy London, it is definitely moving up my list.

Being this close to a Federer match and having to walk away.

This post is part of a collaboration hosted by Booked.net called Top Destinations to Go There. They are giving away an iPhone 6 to one lucky blogger. All you have to do is share a post about the top five destinations you would love to revisit and nominate five other bloggers to take part. I was nominated to take part by (the awesome) Sara and I’m nominating Courtney, Hannah, John, Alex, and Sarah.