What are some of the "must-see" places for a short (10-day) trip to Southern France?

Thanks for the A2A, Allison! My answer would depend on what you like. If you’re into history and culture (and some of the most extraordinary food in France), I’d suggest a couple of days in Lyon. Although it’s no longer the case, it was for a long time France’s second-largest city. It’s roots go back to Roman rule in Gaul, so you’ll find some amazing Roman ruins (and it’s worth a day trip to Vienne, south of the city, to see the Roman temple that inspired some of Thomas Jefferson’s architecture and the archeological site uncovering a complete Roman trading town).

And the food…Lyon was the cradle of French nouvelle cuisine, but it’s also the home of classic dishes like saurkraut and Lyonnaise sausages. You can find some very high-end restaurants (Michelin 3-star) in the area, but our personal preference is to check out one of the 4 brasseries operated by Paul Bocuse in downtown Lyon. They are named for the 4 compass directions (Le Sud, Le Nord, L’Est, and L’Ouest) — we’ve tried 3 of the 4 and found them all to be great value, fine food, and good wine for a reasonable price.

And if your travel preferences go more in the direction of outdoor activities, let me suggest a stop in Clermont-Ferrand, in the heart of the Auvergne. It’s surround by a chain of extinct volcanoes (and their crater lakes), so it’s a great place for hiking, camping, parasailing, fishing, boating, and cycling. There’s history here, too — the fine church of Notre Dame du Port was where the Pope came to launch the First Crusade, and Blaise Pascal did his experiments on barometric pressure from the tallest peak in the volcano range

What is the best place to travel in Europe (on a budget)?

"Izmir is a place where a life has begun, but it is not finished."

İzmir is one of the most suitable places for an affordable holiday experience. For Izmir, where historical buildings integrated with modern constructions and uniqueness of natural beauties take place, I can offer you a few beautiful places.

Let's start with "Çeşme"

Çeşme is a great holiday town with medicinal thermal waters and beautiful sands. It is believed that Çeşme, which is known as Cyssus in antiquity, is now called "fountains" from which marines supply water. Because the most important features of Çeşme are drinking water and port. You may want to wake up to a wonderful sea in the morning and spend the evening eating delicious seafood in a "raki restaurant." The average hotel cost per person in Cesme is around $ 30.

Our next stop is Foça

Foça is located on a peninsula surrounded by the sea on three sides in the north of İzmir. Fig, Orak and Fener Islands, which are opposite to each other, have brought Foça to a natural harbor condition. It is enough to separate Foça for two days.

Take a day to swim in the sea. Staying in the "Mersinaki" bay will be efficient. So on the 2nd day, you can escape the beach early in the morning.

Discover the ancient Foça on foot and come to the front of the "5 Doors" at the end of the day and watch the sunset from there.

On average, you can stay in the hotel for around $ 20- $ 30.

"Şirince Village" is indispensable!

Şirince Village is connected to the Selçuk district of İzmir. It is one of the places that come to mind first when it comes to places to visit in Izmir. It is set amongst the green hills covered with olive trees, and it has done a great deal to protect the original historic architecture. Half a day is a good time to see the magnificently restored streets and get into the madness of selfie!

You will also remember that in 2012, the whole world was shaken by the rumors of the future of the Day of Judgment on December 21, precisely according to the calendar of the Mayas, which is from ancient civilizations and has advanced knowledge of astronomy according to the period.

Commenting on the Mayan calendar and calling them "Blue Energy Group," the group claimed that on the 21st of December 2012 only two places would be saved in the world when the judgment came. Here is such a sensational village of Şirince! Excellent wines and warm people will embrace you!

Your average daily hotel cost is $ 20- $ 25.

The Ancient City of Ephesus!

The ancient city of Ephesus, located in the Selçuk district of Izmir, contains the inspiration of different civilizations such as Rome, Greek, and Turkish. In the ancient city of Ephesus, which is quite large, there are libraries, temples, long roads and buildings that provide accommodation. If there are still those who have not seen this excellent construction built before Christian era, you should visit. You can go to Ephesus from Izmir city center.

Your daily accommodation costs in the city center will not exceed $ 35.

A peaceful country in the Aegean: Urla

What is done in Urla? Of course, there are plenty of swimming, surfing, wine drinking, eating fish,trying olive oil dishes one by one, watching the stars, visiting villages, and visiting the village markets. When you come to Urla, you must go to the pier! If you like wine, there are wine houses where all of Urla people are guided you, definitely go here. Urla is a paradise with nature, sea, and wine!

Your average accommodation costs will be between $ 25- $ 30.

And finally, the city center of Izmir, where you should not leave without visiting.

Alsancak, Karşıyaka, Bostanlı, Konak, İnciraltı and after seeing many beautiful places you will not want to leave İzmir.

Where are the most affordable places to travel in Europe?

• Budget is on the ultra-dirt cheap, so let’s remove the usual suspects like Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Ireland. As of late 2018 Spain and Portugal are just on the cusp of getting pricey, with cheaper food and transport but rental prices close to that of Germany. Consider couchsurfing or visiting these places for short stays like festivals to keep the costs down. You can always come back and enjoy them when you’re a well-heeled older traveller.
• Focusing on cheaper, less-explored European destinations means an emphasis on central and eastern Europe. Turkey[1] is a great bet (as of Sept. 2018). Heavy devaluation of the Turkish lira against foreign currencies means your money goes much further than it would have previously. Just give the Turkish provinces[2] shared with Syria and Iraq a wide berth for safety’s sake.
• Places have been partially selected for beautiful landscapes with biking, hiking, climbing, kayaking, and swimming, places to find an outdoor adventure on the fly.
• Festivals and guided tours are great because of the interactions with locals. My opinion on guides has flipped over time. I used to avoid them, but now I see a good local guide as my ethnographic bridge to the outlook of the people.
• Sections include destinations for architecture, design, history, and museums, but not all the time. A monument had better be pretty epic to go out of my way for it.

Here are some off-the-cuff alternative ideas based on budget, research, and my own personal favorites. These would be the places that pop up for me:

Albania:

• Lake Bovilles
• Tirana: BunkArt 1 Museum
• Tirana: BunKart 2 Museum
• Saranda: Butrint
• Muzine: The Blue Eye - Syri i Kalter
• Priske e Vogel
• Shiroka: Shkodra Lake
• Rozafa Castle
• Gjirokaster Castle
• Kruje: National Ethnographic Museum

Bosnia and Herzegovina:

• Šćit
• Medjugorje: Apparition Hill
• Bihac: Una National Park
• Studenci: Kravice Falls
• Prijedor: National Park Kozara
• Neretva River canoeing tour

Bulgaria:

• Ravadinovo: In Love with the Wind castle
• Sofia: : has problems with civil unrest, corruption
• Sofia: Food Tasting, Walking Tour
• Brestnica: Saeva dupka Caves
• Rila National Park
• Plovdiv Old Town
• Belogradchik Fortress

Croatia:

• Brac island and Zlatni Rat beach
• Omiš: Klapa music festival
• Hvar Island
• Dubrovnik
• Zadar: Plitvice Lakes
• Zadar: Karlovac near Plitvice
• Rosijevo Velebit
• Prozor-Rama: Ramsko Lake
• Jablanica Lake
• Potoci

Czech Republic:

• Prague: Charles Bridge, Old Town Square
• Prague: NaFilM (National film museum)
• Prague: National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror
• Unetice, near Prague: Ukulele festival
• Near Prague: Castle Karlstejn
• Český Krumlov: walking tour
• Kutná Hora: Sedlec Ossuary
• Brno: cafes
• Near Brno: Kroměříž Garden Park
• Karlovy Vary: try a spa
• Lipno: cycling, hiking
• Krkonose National Park
• Bohemian and Saxon Switzerland National Park

If doing a USA road trip, what are the pros and cons of staying at Motels vs B and B's?

If you mean traditional B&B’s, there are cons that would be a deal-breaker for me. Many or most have fairly limited check-in hours, and if you can’t make it in those hours, you’re interrupting the often very limited private/non-working time the proprietor may have.

Other cons: Good B&B’s tend to book up far in advance with not much flexibility. This is terrible for road-tripping, and can be outright dangerous if you try to force yourself to drive when overtired or through bad weather, simply to avoid losing a reservation/deposit. They also vastly ratchet up the planning time and effort required.

The pros of course, include a good solid breakfast, personalized surroundings, vastly increased opportunities for meeting interesting people and making connections with the area you’re visiting. Also, generally, much nice surroundings. Finally, you can escape the over-corporatized sameness of so much of American culture, of which hotels/motels are one of the more appallingly dreary examples.

Motels are more available and require almost no planning. When I’m going to stay in a motel or hotel, I tend to check Hotwire a time or three and get something that’s a good deal. I rarely stay in anything under three stars with good recommendations, and I often stay at really nice hotels for the cost of a motel.

Pros? Generally, one can check in anytime without inconveniencing a proprietor or getting someone out of bed. Spontaneous changes in plan are less costly. They’re generally cheaper. Cons? Boring, boring, and boring. You can wake up in the morning and have no idea if you’re in Boston or Tulsa or Minneapolis, which kind of defeats the purpose of road-tripping, doesn’t it?

I feel compelled to add another option to the mix: AirBnB. As a good lefty, I probably oughtn’t mention it at all. Their model is problematic in various ways. That said, the lower-end ABnB’s which are spare rooms or apartments within a person’s home can afford some of the benefits of a BnB—the opportunity to meet locals, the escape from stultifying sameness—with greater convenience and at lower cost than traditional BnBs.

Personally, if I weren’t a camping person, I’d probably mix motels/hotels and B&Bs, reserving B&Bs for specific destinations, for which I had a few fixed dates and plans, and keep things more fluid in between, relying on last-minute booking apps to find something at a convenient location without wedding my wallet to a particular time-frame for every single day of my trip.

• In the winter the air was horrible because many people were burning trash to keep warm. I understand the reasoning behind it, but I had to wear a mask when I walked to school, and recess was canceled because they didn't want us running around in that. Guess what we did in place of recess…math time.
• At the market, there were some really nice shops sandwiched in between some really not nice ones. They would sell luxury items, but the shop was narrow and small. I found it bizarre.
• Sometimes when I was walking to school or a place near the embassy, I would see a motorcycle that had a whole family in it. I made a game out of how many people I could see on one motorcycle. My highest was seven people, two adults and five children.
• Wow, it was hot in the summers.
• Real beef was not common. At ACSA (a big gathering place in the embassy with a restaurant, pool, bowling alley, etc.), they made “beef” but everyone knew it was water buffalo. The first year I only had it once when we get to a very fancy restaurant for my mom’s birthday. I know it's for religious reasons so I didn't mind.
• Another thing was that like beef, ice cream was rare in the commissary, so we had to make our own. It was fun but it took an hour to chill before we ate it, and because we always made chocolate ice-cream and our mixer wasn't very good, cocoa clumps were abundant. The cocoa clumps were super bitter and unpleasant to eat, because they were unsweetened.
• Most of the people we encountered spoke some English. It wasn't hard communicating with people in India as I had thought it would be. I think it's because when the British ruled India, they made people learn English. Also, English is so widespread that people might think it's a good language to know.

• The Taj Mahal. We drove about two hours to go and see it, and it was totally worth it. From our hotel room you could see a small bit of it from the distance, which was cool. It was very grand and beautiful.
• My school. I attended AES, the American Embassy School. The teachers were great and the way the curriculum was presented made it easy to learn. A+ school.
• The holidays and festivals. While I didn't religiously celebrate any of them, I still enjoyed celebrating them because they were colorful and cheerful. Everyone was spreading their joy and it was fun to be a part of it.
• The monsoon season! While there were some downsides of this, I loved dancing in the rain! Rain also makes everything cozier.
• Train travel. In the United States I've never travelled by long distance trains, just the ones where you only board it to ride a train and sometimes I ride the subway.
• Good music. I couldn't understand it but the beat was fantastic and Jai Ho was always playing.