The 5 Best Ways to Get Out of a Vacation Rut Are Easily Achievable and Moderately Priced

On the weekly radio program hosted by my daughter and myself, we get countless calls asking us to suggest novel methods of vacationing -- tactics designed to get the listener out of a vacation rut. Our responses, though obvious, are the following earnest suggestions:

Opt for a learning vacation. On the East Coast, consider Cornell's Adult University scheduled for July and early August at the famed school in Ithaca, New York. Its succession of one-week programs, puts you up in university housing and at student dining halls, then places you in your choice of several classrooms exploring topics in the liberal arts, as led by eminent faculty. On the West Coast, consider the same at Santa Fe, New Mexico's St. John's College (also in July and early August), studying your choice of one of the acknowledged masterworks -- the "great books" -- of the Western tradition. For study programs further afield, consider the summer weeklong-and-longer programs at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England.

Book a once-in-a-life-time experience, either an African safari or a trip to ancient Egypt. For about $2,500, including airfare, you can go on safari in Kenya with a company like Lion World Tours ( www.lionworldtravel.com ). Alternatively, you can go to Egypt with an outfit like Misr Travel ( www.misrtravel.org ) and do what every human being should at some point in their lives -- see the pyramids, the sphinx, Cairo's archaeological museum, and the antiquities at Luxor, Aswan and Abu Simbel.

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Photo Caption: Beach chairs on Little Corn Island, Nicaragua. acmorris/Frommers.com Community

Go someplace different like China, Panama or Nicaragua or Cuba. The last-named will be expensive, but China is one of the great values of travel from companies like China Spree ( www.chinaspree.com ) or China Focus ( www.chinafocustravel.com ). And you can also go to Panama or Nicaragua for comparatively little.

Schedule a trip to one of the great American national parks, expecially Yellowstone or Yosemite. If you haven't been to either, you are missing one of the great travel experiences.
 
Engage in a vacation exchange -- swapping use of your own home or apartment for the home or apartment of a person living somewhere overseas -- and thereby enjoying the authentic experience of a foreign country. Here's the single most logical and effective way to eliminate the cost of accommodations and at the same time to enhance the quality of the stay. Try HomeExchange.com ( www.homeexchange.com ), Intervac ( www.intervac-homeexchange.com ), or any one of a number of competitors.

All these are obvious suggestions, but they can never be sufficiently stressed.