Mountains or Beach: It’s a Never-Ending Quandary

Possibly because he had never seen the beach until we got married – don’t even get me started on how unbelievable this is – Tom is not the beach-loving fanatic that I am.

My mom was born in Pensacola, Florida and we spent most vacations there my whole life so to me the proper travel equation is:

perfect travel destination in any scenario = beach

Tom. Not so much. He thinks the beach, any beach, is pretty much just OK. His perfect travel equation is more like:

perfect travel destination anytime = mountains

So, needless to say, we often have to negotiate. Beaches this trip, mountains next time. Stop in the mountains on the way to the beach. A state that has both beaches and mountains. Somehow, we manage to work it out. The next destination we are working on is a perfect example of beaches vs. mountains.

I have recently seen several articles about the rather obscure Hawaiian island of Lanai and I am very intrigued. We loved our visit to the Hawaiian Islands two years ago but there were some things we very much did not like, such as the overwhelmingly urban city of Waikiki and some of the beaches and other locations crowded with tourists.

I realize we are tourists and it’s rather unfair to not like a place with too many tourists but there it is. Apparently we are tourists who want lovely and fabulous destinations all to ourselves. So lovely, quiet and rather deserted Lanai sounds like a paradise. And it’s rather a unique place as well with some desert-like topography and spinner dolphins playing right off the shore.

But then I found out that there are actually Grand Canyon Hotels where you can stay and spend time exploring this marvelous sight.

When we went to Las Vegas last year, we spent some time at the Grand Canyon but it was only one day. We took an incredible helicopter flight with Papillon Helicopters, actually landed in the Grand Canyon, and took a short raft trip down the Colorado River. We even spent some time on the Grand Canyon Skywalk which was truly amazing but the whole experience left us just wanting more time at the Grand Canyon. We felt like we really just saw a very small area and we wanted to come back and spend some time just experiencing the canyon. Hiking, sightseeing, maybe a longer raft trip on the river – which meant we needed to stay someplace close by.

We had a vague idea that there were probably hotels somewhere nearby but we didn’t really want a luxury resort style hotel but something more suited to the locale. Maybe not a cabin but something similar. Then I took a closer look at the information about the Grand Hotel and it looks perfect. Not only does it have like a mountain lodge with exposed beams, stone, and a huge fireplace but some of the seats in the bar are actually made from saddles used by the mule runners who used to transport supplies to the Grand Canyon – how great is that!

So it looks like mountains will trump beaches on our next trip.

And I am absolutely OK with that.

This article was produced in collaboration with Dave Stephenson, Dave is a dedicated internet blogger that loves to write about lifestyle and the world, covering topics including family, health, and pets, all the way through to technology, media and travel.

Follow