Chiyuv Trip Planning Master Thread

[Cbs]

Unfortunately this past year has been a slow trip year for me due to me being a chiyuv.
The good news is that im almost done!
I found that trying to plan on trip (without judging...) during these months have been very difficult from many diff aspects. Whether it may be Planning flight times around minyanim, finding flights that have minyanim , or gates that have minyanim... Finding a minyan at the destination , getting a hold of a shul to find the right times, if you are strict then an open Amud to be chazzan and while the same time not letting this overtake your whole trip and so on and so forth

Hopefully there isnt anyone that will need to plan their trip in this thread ever! but if C"V someone has to then there should be a place that is geared towards that need and hopefully people can give guidance from past travel experience about minyanim, suggestions for destinations, flights etc

Back to the point at hand....
I would like to go on a trip for a couple days or a week in august outside the USA. Other then Israel, London or Panama, Does anyone have any suggestions for a spot that would work to not stress to get a minyan 3x a day (and i'd assume that if there was such a place it most probably has kosher food as well)

[Ploni3]

Maybe your question is not specific enough. Obviously,  any major city with a frum Jewish community (e.g. Paris, Rome, Zurich, Melbourne,  Buenos Aires, Santiago, Rio etc etc) have minyan three times a day.

[Cbs]

Ill try to narrow down - im thinking Malaga / Marbella, Gibraltar

the question is basically to help narrow down the details as appose to the general info

For example, i was recently in panama and i can tell you that that is a great place for a Chiyuv to go. there are 3 shuls in town, each one has a 3x day minyan.
the 2 Main shuls youll need pasports to get into as its heavy security but Chabad you dont.
And id suggest not to stay in the Westin there because thats would be a 20 min drive each way which would be annoying

Some good tips like that can be helpful.

[tmendy226]

Gibraltar is the place to go then

[G11600]

Also south of france is fine - I was in Nice as Chiyuv, no problem finding minyan three times/day, several options and minyanim at different times. I didn't always daven from amud though. Also option in other towns in the area if required - Juan Les Pins, Cannes etc

[aygart]

Recommendation: If your question is very specific then include that in the title and at the very least include it in the OP.

[Cbs]

Also south of france is fine - I was in Nice as Chiyuv, no problem finding minyan three times/day, several options and minyanim at different times. I didn't always daven from amud though. Also option in other towns in the area if required - Juan Les Pins, Cannes etc

Thank you very helpful

Recommendation: If your question is very specific then include that in the title and at the very least include it in the OP.

It's not so specific but I was trying to narrow it down. It's more of a general topic

[Yonah]

Having been a chiyuv myself, I think that the biggest challenges are minyan planning on travel days, and making sure your activity schedule doesn't take you away from Mincha - obviously this is harder in the winter than the summer.  As an example - if you go to Disney in California, and are not guaranteed that there will be a minyan in the park, even if the nearest shul is 15-20 minutes away, it's still at least an hour away for you to leave the park, find your car, etc.

My two oddest stories as a Chiyuv:
- I was in a minor league baseball stadium with some friends - but we were only 7. We initially thought that we could make a late ma'ariv minyan, but were worried we wouldn't make it. This is in Florida, 30 min. North of WPB, and not in a very Jewish area. Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw one guy wearing a Yarmulka. He was there with his dad and BIL, just enough to make a minyan.

- My Dad's yahrzeit was the Friday of my Nephew's Bar Mitzvah. Normally NBD. Except I live in NY, and the Bar Mitzvah (which I was driving to) was in Detroit. I davened Maariv in Teaneck, Shachris in Cleveland, and Mincha in Detroit. Saying Kaddish in 3 different states over several hundred miles.

[jj1000]

Never been but Cancun sounds like a good option.

[G11600]

Thank you very helpful

The Chabad in Nice has (at least in summer) several minyanim for each tefilla, including shabbat (I think 3 minyanim for shacharit, including hashkama). For Mincha/Maariv there were several options around Shkia and IIRC a late  maariv. There is also a very good milchig restaurant there. You could contact them for details.

[shaulyaakov]

Never been but Cancun sounds like a good option.

I don't think Chabad has 3x daily minyan all year. Their website lists weekday minyan in "high season".

I think places like that really dpeendsif you are OK with minyan 1x day to day a kaddish or if you need 3x day. If it's the latter, no tourist only place is going to work to have 99.99% certainty of 3x minyan outside of big travel weeks (yeshiva week etc).

[Cbs]

Having been a chiyuv myself, I think that the biggest challenges are minyan planning on travel days, and making sure your activity schedule doesn't take you away from Mincha - obviously this is harder in the winter than the summer.  As an example - if you go to Disney in California, and are not guaranteed that there will be a minyan in the park, even if the nearest shul is 15-20 minutes away, it's still at least an hour away for you to leave the park, find your car, etc.

I agree. and it takes up a nice portion of the evening on trips if u do mincha maariv together.
the problem with relying on websites or Minyan app is that many of them are not up to date and last thing u want to do is scramble around before shkia when u end up in a deserted shul especially in a foreign place

I've had a couple interesting minyan stories too, but one that sticks out was i planned a ski trip to utah with 7 guys and i asked the rabbi to come and i figured ill find 2 more - long story short we landed later and guys didnt want to miss the slope so we had to pull off a late minyan.... when we checked into the hotel in park city we met to yarmulkas hanging around - g-d sent- exactly what we needed !

Never been but Cancun sounds like a good option.

lol it all sounds good to me . but gotta be careful which area u choose bec u dont want to be driving 45 min to a minyan 3x a day...

[Yonah]

I agree. and it takes up a nice portion of the evening on trips if u do mincha maariv together.
the problem with relying on websites or Minyan app is that many of them are not up to date and last thing u want to do is scramble around before shkia when u end up in a deserted shul especially in a foreign place

That's why you need to call ahead, maybe 1-2 weeks in advance if you can. Obviously from the point of the Chiyuv/visiting mispallel it can be scary, but in today's day and age where we've witnessed 3 shul shootings in the last 12 months in the USA Alone - sometimes a stranger showing up at your shul (especially in a small town) might not be the most welcome site.

Related to this - there was a thread I started a while back about not posting minyan times. A lot of security personnel are recommending that shuls not post minyan times on their websites. So it's very possible that more and more we'll see minyan times not be as publicly available.

[shaulyaakov]

An interesting poll would be:

Which best describes how you plan trips regarding Minyan?

a. Only to city with local community 3x daily minyan
b. Vacation destination with Chabad (or the like) 3x day advertised
c. Vacation destination with Chabad (or the like) 1x day advertised
d. OK skipping minyan

[Yonah]

An interesting poll would be:

Which best describes how you plan trips regarding Minyan?

a. Only to city with local community 3x daily minyan
b. Vacation destination with Chabad (or the like) 3x day advertised
c. Vacation destination with Chabad (or the like) 1x day advertised
d. OK skipping minyan
e. All of the above

FTFY