Where and with who would I like to travel and for how long (given a blank check)...

My goals would be to eat new foods, view other cultures, talk to other people about their ideas on life, and see how things are done in other lands.

With that goal in mind, I would like to travel with a group of people with ideas of travel like mine to visit the major countries of the world. In each country, I would like to have a few guides that speak English, to travel through that country. There would be about one guide for every three other persons. They could tell use about that country's culture and customs and foods.

In particular, I would like to see the things that were different from those used in the US for about the same reason or job. I would be more interested in the why and the way that things are done, and the people behind why it happened that way.

The size of the group should be about nine people, of about my age and energy level and having interests something like mine but different enough that we would have plenty to talk about and make comparisons to. That way we could break into groups of four in each country, three travelers and a guide. The nine of us and the three guides would eat together each evening, mixing the groups so that we could have somethng to talk about.

Most travel between countries would be by plane and within the country by train where possible, bus if not possible by train. Basically bus or train trips should be not more than six hours and preferably less than two if possible. There would be lots of short outtings that allowed us to walk around and plenty of time to relax. Finally, we would have someone to take care of the suitcases and packages reservations etc. so that we could all relax.

This is my ideal of a trip and vacation, and is too difficult to arrange and extravigant to pay for, but it would be nice if it could happen.