International Trip Planning, help?

[tierasa]

Okay, so my sister and I are trying to plan our summer trip. Well, it's actually more like a fall trip since we can't leave until late Sept. this year.  We've been to Tokyo twice, and I speak and read enough Japanese to get around.  However, this year the exchange rate is really bad, so we're considering going some where else. We'd really like to go to another Asian city, but we have no idea what we'd do there.  I do know some Korean, so we've been thinking about Seoul, but we've also considered Hong Kong.

My question is have any of you been international? And if so where have you been?

[red_uni387]

I've been to several international places on family vacation, and am actually leaving for Hong Kong later this week I'm not too sure what's there as tourist attractions in Hong Kong, but a lot of the people there speak English and the signs usually include english translations as well.

[Ryuukokoro]

I've been to Tokyo/Kyoto for a few weeks and also spent a week in Paris, and a week in London. Ah, the good old days when I was a college student and could shamelessly borrow money to travel....

If you haven't been anywhere in Europe yet I would strongly suggest it. It's completely different from Japan of course, but still great. There's so much history and beauty there. I really loved Paris especially. I think I could have happily moved there and lived there the rest of my days.

Of course if you go to English speaking places in Europe you don't have to worry about a language barrier, but even in France everyone from tour guides to shop keepers spoke English to us. Not like in Japan where no one knew what the heck we poor American students were saying as we stumbled around. XD

[Ravvana]

The best trip I've ever had was to Sydney, Australia I also loved New Zealand (south island, esp. Queenstown). At least when I went last year, they both had favorable exchange rates for people traveling from the US.

[Silvanon]

My family lived in Jerusalem, Israel for a year when I was 15.  In Israel all the signs are in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and a lot of people speak English as well.  Israel is tiny and jam-packed with things to see.  It's also rather dangerous if you go to the wrong places at the wrong times, so you really want a guide who knows what they're doing.

I also spent a year in various parts of Argentina about 10 years ago.  Nothing was in English there, and I was lucky if I ever ran into anyone who could speak much of it.  Mostly if anyone spoke any English it was little kids "showing off" the English swear words they knew.  ^^;;  They do have some beautiful cities that do get a lot of tourists, and it may be different there.  I was mostly in very small rural towns who'd never seen a "Norte Americana" before.

I'm not really sure how just traveling to a foreign country compares to living there.

[bewilderness]

Man, I want to travel the world.   Sounds like soooo much fun!