I love to travel and see how the rest of the world lives!  While it is probably true that traveling to some parts of the U.S. is as different as traveling to some foreign countries, I will only list foreign travel here.  For the record, California is almost certainly the "best" single state in the U.S. (a matter of the great variation of experiences and environments there), though I put Colorado second, and probably Arizona third.  University towns seem to be the best towns in any particular state (e.g. Madison, WI, Austin, TX, Boulder, CO, Tucson, AZ, etc.).  The neat thing, though, is that any foreign country that you visit always brings you back with a new take on your own country.  Travel history (may forget something!) and brief notes:

• 1974--England, but mostly France, with some Belgium and Luxembourg.  Did it fancy, blowing my entire retirement fund from Arizona State University in just over three weeks!  Mostly one and two star Michelin Guide restaurants, but ate at Les Freres Troigros which was purported to be the world's best restaurant at the time.  Many cool late gothic cathedrals.  Gained 10 pounds in 21 days...very hard to do, one would think!  :)
• 1976--England, with some Scotland (Edinburgh).  Driest year on record (Hyde Park was yellow), but great for the tourist!  "English" food is truly bad (even touted Simpsons-on-the-Strand), but great for Indian, Chinese for obvious historical reasons.  Nice lake district and, as an academic, enjoyed visits to Oxford and Cambridge.
• 1978--Germany, with some Austria, Hungary.  Tried out my German from undergrad years--rusty, but still worked.  Great beer (got mug at Hofbrauhaus) and rieslings, schnitzel, etc.  Budapest was interesting, with Buda on one side of the river and Pest on the other; compared to later '93 visit, it was interesting to see how seriously they took their borders!
• 1978--Hawaii (not really "foreign," but sometimes seems that way due to distance).  Oahu, Hawaii (big island), Maui.  Snorkeling, but these islands get boring fairly quickly; prefer more exotic culture and I'm not one to lie on beaches for days reading books without something interesting to break the monotony (hence the recent interest in scuba!).
• 1980--Cancun, Mexico.  Veggin' on the beach, drinking cervesa.  Chichen Itsa very interesting and worth the hot trip to the interior.
• 1982--Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  Whole family converged on my brother and sister-in-law's plush pad in Guadalajara (he was running a Kodak film plant there for several years).  Good time, little to report.
• 1982--Jamaica.  Montego Bay, Ocho Rios, etc.  Nice, but be careful.
• 1984--Germany, Switzerland, (mostly) Italy, Greece.  The "hippie" trip to Europe that I never had, Eurailpass and all!  Great time.  Loved Italy (esp. Florence).  Didn't really do Greece right, but saw Corfu and Athens--so am ready to head straight to the Aegean Islands next time.  Visited friends, Ulrich and Kristie, in Switzerland (Zurich then, now in Geneva) where I had my "home base."
• 1990--Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda.  Wonderful, but pricey, three week safari with mostly relatives on the trip.  Masai mara, ngorongoro crater, gorillas in Rwanda.  Three of us got lung virus; got back and local specialist said, "you have a UAV."  I thought, "Great!, he knows what it is and can probably tell me something about it."  But, then he said UAV stands for "unidentified African virus," of which there are evidently a great many!  Eventually got better.
• 1992--Australia.  Just Sydney and surrounding area for two weeks; visiting colleague.  I must return to see Uluru (Ayer's Rock), Great Barrier Reef, etc.  Sydney is one of the world's best cities--certainly among the very best in February!  Beautiful, functional harbor, Opera House, great beaches--inexpensive, yet great food from many cultures.
• 1992--Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong.  About five + days each, except for Vietnam where I spent six weeks teaching for the National Academy of Sciences (Ford Foundation funded).  Extremely interesting all.  Tokyo unbelievably expensive, Bangkok a bustling, noisy, hot, polluted--but very interesting--place, Hong Kong great on many levels--but the best was Hanoi.  Vietnamese people were wonderful, in my experience.
• 1993--Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary.  Post-communist Prague, Brataslava, and Budapest were very different; Prague particularly was really bustling--full of the youth of Europe and compared to the Paris of many decades ago.  Great architecture (and the food's getting better!).  Best beer in world in Prague...and cheap.  Wonderful architecture...Old Town superb.
• 1999--Bonaire.  Scuba diving in tropical warmth (see scuba/snorkeling).
• 1999--Bahamas.  Scuba again--sharks galore.  I've never eaten so much conch so many ways (soup, fritters, sandwiches, fried, stewed...).  (See scuba/snorkeling for more).
• 2000--French Polynesia (Tahiti, Rangiroa, Moorea).  Great diving with clear water, fish, and food.  The food, with the French influence and the fresh local ingredients, was really quite the surprise, though perhaps it shouldn't have been.  Beautiful scenery and warm weather.  (See scuba/snorkeling for more).
• 2000--Prague (mostly, 12 days) and Innsbruck.  What a beautiful city!  World's best beer for $.50-.70 for a half-liter...and the quality of the restaurants are improving, too!  Had wonderful time exploring Prague, doing a mix of "touristy" things (climbing Clock Tower, "Eifel" Tower) and relaxing "like being at home" sorts of things.  Stayed at a condo owned by an acquaintance, always better than hotels--not just being "free" (subsidized!) but also the warmth difference.  In Innsbruck I had what is probably the most beautiful hike I've ever been on--views down three mountain valleys of lake, river, small cities, farms, giving way to forests and then gray granite above treeline.
• 2002--Little Cayman.  Nice diving with a particularly large number of turtles, lobsters, and southern rays...plus all of the usual stuff (morays, various angelfish, tangs, parrotfish, et al.).  A little "light" on sharks with only one seen...but this was fine, as I've seen plenty of sharks!  Food was pretty good--ate too much--at the Little Cayman Resort Beach Hotel (See scuba/snorkeling for more).