Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez

Our trip to Spain is not for a couple months, but we're already looking ahead to our next trip.

I was--and still am--considering London and Dublin. Visiting countries that speak English would be a nice break (even though non-English speakers speaking English are frequently easier for me to understand than English people speaking English).

There are other considerations. B and I were wondering if we ought instead to spend our tourist dollars in the US. It's a difficult situation--the United States is in a recession, but much of the rest of the world isn't in better shape, and some countries are in worse shape. Also to be considered is that we don't leave behind too many of our dollars while on vacation, so our ability to impact the economies of the places that we visit is questionable.

But assuming that spending our dollars stateside could do some good, we've identified a couple of destinations that we might want to visit.

First off is Washington, D.C. We considered going a few years ago but instead ended up going to Quebec and Montreal. I've actually been to DC twice, but both times were for work, and I didn't have much time for sightseeing (and one time brought no shoes other than heels, not ideal for trekking through the Smithsonian). Watching the inauguration today made me want to reconsider my decision to postpone the DC vacation indefinitely, especially since it's relatively close to us. It's cheap to fly to and easy to drive to--definitely a vacation to consider.

Next on the list is New Orleans. New Orleans needs tourist dollars more than most cities in the US to continue with its recovery. A New Orleans vacation would also allow us to continue an interesting vacation trend--we visited Montreal and Quebec in 2005 and France in 2007, and another French-speaking area in 2009 might make for a fun tradition.

No decisions yet, I keep reminding myself, but the list of options continues to grow.