How My Summer Went Up, Up and Away In Style

Figuring out where to go on your summer escape can be a bit daunting. So daunting, you may even be tempted to just go back to wherever you went last summer or wherever everyone else is going . or worse, skip the whole excursion all together. But don’t: That would be a terrible waste, especially when there is a whole world’s worth of under-the-radar places out there just waiting for you to discover.

 To help narrow down the options, we asked a few travel experts to share their favorite unexpected summer vacation destinations. From Algarve on Portugal’s south coast to Sumba in Indonesia to the Greek island of Sifnos (all three of which were mentioned by more than one of our experts, by the way), here are 10 glorious ideas for where to go. Best of all? You probably won’t run into anyone you know.

If you’re looking for an adorable beach read, look no further How My Summer Went Up In Flames by Jennifer Salvato Doktorski is a cute, funny story about a girl who goes a bit crazy over love and winds up on a life-changing cross country road trip (so, pretty much, it’s what we all wish our summers were like).

When Rosie’s ex-boyfriend shows up at a party with the girl he cheated on Rosie with, she snaps. A spur of the moment decision to burn everything he gave her in his driveway accidentally turns into setting his car on fire, and before she knows it, Rosie gets served with a temporary restraining order.

When she violates the restraining order and tries to contact her ex, her next door neighbor and best friend, Matty, invites her on a road trip from New Jersey to Arizona to take his friend Spencer’s brother, Logan, to college. Rosie doesn’t want to go, but her parents make her in order to get her out of town and keep her away from her ex. On the trip, she makes new friends, discovers a lot about herself, and learns a few important lessons about love.

I have always wanted to go on a huge road trip, and I loved that reading this book made me feel like I’d been along for the ride with Rosie, Matty, Spencer, and Logan. Rosie is feisty and hilarious. She’s very passionate and relatable and entertaining all at the same time. Her impulsiveness gets her into trouble, but it’s easy to see she has the best intentions at heart.

The guys she’s with are completely sweet and funny. They aren’t afraid to give Rosie a hard time (which she often deserves), and they are responsible for teaching her much of what she learns on her trip.

This book is the perfect summer read, especially if you aren’t able to take a vacation of your own. On their road trip, Rosie and her crew stop at tons of huge tourist destinations (like Nashville, the Grand Canyon, and Roswell, New Mexico a.k.a. Area 51), so you get a taste of many of the sights across the United States. The story is light, entertaining, and full of humor and love.

I also felt like How My Summer Went Up In Flames did a great job of keeping me on my toes. Rosie is famous among her friends for making spur of the moment decisions, so you never really know what she’s going to do. Likewise, you never know what problems or situations the road trip itself will bring. You get to watch Rosie grow and mature over the course of the trip, and you also get to watch her bonds with the boys evolve as they travel. Read More...