Five Great Trips That Don't Require a Travel Voucher

For years, travel meant orders. A TDY to somewhere with a decent hotel gym if you were lucky. A PCS with the kids, a cat and a minivan that started making a noise somewhere around the state line. Leave, when you could get it, usually spent visiting family, which is lovely but is not technically a vacation.

So when I finally planned a trip that was just for me, I had a moment of panic. Who approves this? Where do I file the paperwork? Then I remembered: nobody. I'm the approving authority now.

Here are five trips worth taking, picked for women who have already done plenty of hurrying up and waiting and would now like to simply enjoy themselves.

1. A national park, slowly

Grand Canyon, Zion, Acadia, Glacier, the Great Smoky Mountains. Pick one and give it more time than you think you need. The mistake people make is treating parks like a checklist: drive in, take the photo, drive out.

Instead, stay nearby, get up early for a sunrise walk, and leave the afternoon open. Many parks have popular areas that require advance reservations or timed entry during busy seasons, so check the official National Park Service site (NPS.gov) before you go. It's also worth asking about the free lifetime pass the park service has offered to veterans; check the current eligibility rules on the NPS site.

2. A girls' trip to a food city

New Orleans, Charleston, Santa Fe, Chicago. Gather the women you served with, or the friends who have been there through every move, and go eat your way through a city.

Rent a house or apartment so there's a kitchen and a big table for late-night talking. Plan one or two reservations that matter and leave the rest flexible. You'll learn very quickly who in the group is the logistics officer. Let her do it. She wants to.

The best trips are the ones where nobody needs you to sign for anything.

3. The Pacific Coast Highway

Driving California's coast between San Francisco and Los Angeles, with stops in places like Big Sur, Carmel and Santa Barbara, is one of those trips that lives up to the hype. The cliffs, the fog, the turnouts where you pull over just to stare.

Take it in pieces. Give yourself several days instead of one long haul. Stretches of the route sometimes close for landslides or repairs, so look up current road conditions with Caltrans before you set out and have a backup plan for detours.

4. A walking trip in Europe

If you've always wanted to see Europe without spending every day on a tour bus, look into a walking holiday. England's Lake District, the Cotswolds, the Camino de Santiago in Spain, the Amalfi Coast or the Dolomites in Italy. There are self-guided options where a company books your inns and moves your luggage, so you just walk from village to village with a daypack.

Yes, it's a little like a ruck march. The difference is that this one ends with a glass of wine and a real bed, and nobody yells at you.

Check passport validity well ahead of time, and look up current entry requirements for the countries you'll visit on the State Department's travel site (travel.state.gov). Those rules have been changing, so don't rely on what a friend told you last year.

5. The solo retreat

This is the one many of us never let ourselves take. A few days somewhere quiet, completely alone. A cabin in the mountains, a small beach town in the off-season, a lake house with a porch and a stack of books you've been meaning to read since your last move.

The best trips are the ones where nobody needs you to sign for anything. No schedule, no one asking what's for dinner, no group chat that needs an answer. If being alone sounds uncomfortable at first, that's normal. Give it a day. You might find you're excellent company.

Before you go

A few practical notes that apply to all of the above. Ask about military and veteran discounts when you book hotels, rental cars and attractions; many places offer them, but the details vary, so it never hurts to ask. If you're eligible for Space-A flights or military lodging, those can be worth exploring too, with the understanding that Space-A is the purest form of hurry up and wait ever invented.

Buy travel insurance for anything with big nonrefundable costs. Pack less than you think. And leave one day completely unplanned, because that's usually the one you'll remember.