Imagine your ideal vacay. Now, quick, what are you doing? How do you feel? What does your room look like? If you’re anything like me, vacation means design-savvy hotel, great food, lots of post-dinner stuffed-to-the-gills walks and nice weather. For you it may entail hiking the Appalachian Trail in Asheville, or standing atop Peak 9 in Breckenridge on a cold, sunny morning. Or maybe it’s just heading down to the white-sand beach at 9 a.m. and not leaving until diner. For all those people out there that travel based on emotion and how a place feels and makes them feel, listen up: You can now book a hotel by surveying those thoughts. Hotels.com now provides a search website that appeals to the senses—it’s called, not so cleverly, “The Visualiser.“ (One word on it though: It’s still in try-out format and was made to be test-driven in the UK, so the hotel prices are in pounds, but you get the idea anyways!)

It would be hard to find a more fitting pair than of sex and travel. Here, one adventurer, who has kissed an uncounted number of men who don’t share her zip code, shares her experience combining the two through more than 30 countries.

We all need girls-only weekends, and not only because groups of women are excellent single-guy bait. A weekend away with your closest friends is a good way to put just about anything in perspective, including a recently ended relationship. Once you decide to embark on a testosterone-free journey, there are a few things you shouldn’t do.

It would be hard to find a more fitting pair than of sex and travel. Here, one adventurer, who has kissed an uncounted number of men who don’t share her zip code, shares her experience combining the two through more than 30 countries.

Having a boyfriend you’ve been on vacation with isn’t the same thing as having a boyfriend. Vacationing together is a serious step, and you need to proceed with caution. It’s kind of like meeting the parents, a move nobody makes on the first date. There’s more to consider than the cost of plane tickets. Of course, a few trial sleepovers can help, but there are other things to consider…

It would be hard to find a more fitting pair than of sex and travel. Here, one adventurer, who has kissed an uncounted number of men who don’t share her zip code, shares her experience combining the two through more than 30 countries.

Three years ago, I spent New Year’s in a Middle Eastern country with lots of Jewish people. While my mother was pressuring me to try and “find a nice Jewish boy” as I traipsed around the desert (looking dehydrated and sweaty), the guy I had started seeing a few weeks earlier was still at home in the States. I spent a significant part of the two-week trip trying to figure out whether I should call—shouldn’t I be allowed to wish him a Happy New Year? My mind was spewing out a ton of reasons to pick up the phone and dial the number I’d written on a slip of paper and kept in my pocket, but I decided against it. I wasn’t ready to give up the power of seeming carefree and only slightly interested. And I didn’t want to scare him off just because I had a serious phone addiction. More importantly, I wanted to prevent myself from being hurt by first learning how he felt about me. So instead of wasting precious vacation time on a long distance conversation, I climbed hills, drank lots, and enjoyed the mud in the Dead Sea. By the end of my trip, I was so distracted that I didn’t even consider sending a one-line text.

But we’re not getting beehives at the beauty salons anymore, and playing hard to get isn’t the only tactic (even though we did date after I returned). For your convenience, I’ve broken down every possible travel scenario for you, because there’s nothing better than taking some real time to over analyze every new move you make with a guy you just started dating.

It would be hard to find a more fitting pair than that of sex and travel. Here, one adventurer, who has kissed an uncounted number of men who don’t share her zip code, shares her experience combining the two through more than 30 countries.

There have been many times I’ve put on way too much makeup only to coyly sip a martini at the bar, chatting with a close girlfriend. Our first goal in meeting for a drink was to talk (there’s always random stuff to catch up on). Our second—the one requiring the lipstick and mascara—was to meet men. It never works; we do way too much talking and remain in an anti-social huddle, sitting on our bar stools the entire time.

With massages, special yoga sessions, and concierge services available to them, being a pregnant lady in this day and age doesn’t seem like it would be that bad. And mothers-to-be are catching on that it’s wise to pamper yourself while you’re pregnant, because once you give birth, there will be no pampering, only sleepless nights. Nearly 60 percent of couples surveyed said they went on a “babymoon” before becoming parents, according to a 2005 online poll sponsored by Liberty Travel and BabyCenter.com, and some food-delivery services bring fresh meals to pregnant women’s doorsteps to ensure they’re getting the nutrients they need without having to weave a cart through a crowded grocery store. However, none of this pre-baby pampering seems to help once the baby comes out: “The arrival of a baby is a shock to anyone’s system, regardless of the amount of pampering they engaged in pre-baby,” psychologist Deborah Roth Ledley said. [CNN]

Planning a vacation this summer? Sometimes travel guidebooks don’t give the really useful information, like how to say, “I’d like to wake up next to you” or “The condom’s split!” Sex in Every City: How to Talk Dirty in Every Language won’t help you order a cappuccino, but it will help you speak to your Swedish or German or French lover. [Sex in Every City, $10.39 @ Amazon.com]

For many couples that’ve been going steady for a while, the first big relationship hurdle occurs when they go on vacation together. Chuck Thompson, author of the fantastically hilarious book Smile When You’re Lying, says that there are five very important breakthroughs that occur when taking a vacay together. “Traveling together is really practice for living together or even being married,” he says. “It’s the first time you’re going to be in each others constant company for, let’s say, a week straight. That is much different than seeing someone three times a week or even seeing them everyday for a few hours. It’s a real test of compatibility.” The five travel-induced hurdles that will make or break your relationship, after the jump.