A little bit about me

Starting this blog is actually something that is quite scary for me. I’ve got a professional blog covering my life as a secondary school teacher in Auckland, New Zealand. That blog is chugging along nicely. However while I am a passionate teacher who actually enjoys writing about my professional life, I have wanted to write about what drives and motivates me for a long time. For me, that is travel. I regularly follow other people’s travel blogs and continue to be inspired by them. And intimidated by them. Their photos are so professional; their prose so fanciful that I nearly pack my bags and follow in their footsteps. This blog here is but a humble collection of my thoughts where I hope I could emulate something close to those amazing people’s blogs.

I love to travel. And I’ve been really fortunate to be able to get a lot of travelling in over the last 10 years or so. I travel with my lovely husband Darryl and my son Caleb (who is 17 years old). One of the things that I am really happy with is that we manage to afford to explore the world and also have a well-balanced lifestyle here in New Zealand (which is quite impressive considering that we live in a very expensive city). While we are not super-extravagant with our lifestyle we have not sacrificed running cars, eating out, buying a wide range of beautiful yet impractical shoes, socialising or other mini holidays in order to explore the great wide world. This is no mean feat considering that our beloved Aotearoa (New Zealand) is an island nation at the “bottom” of the world – which means that flying in or out is always quite costly for us.

Where have we been?

I got my first passport at 24. My family was not in a position for us to go travelling when I was growing up but I always had the wanderlust in me! Darryl had already done quite a bit of travelling in his time in the Royal New Zealand Navy (although these were definitely not relaxing trips). Since my first passport we have traveled to and through the following places (with more to go still!)

In our backyard

• Australia – Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Toowoomba
• Pacific Islands
  • Fiji
  • Vanuatu

And far away

• Europe
  • United Kingdom: England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales
  • Southern Europe: Turkey, France, Italy (Rome, Turin, Milan, Verona, Venice, Florence, Naples, Sorrento, Bologna), Greece, Croatia, Spain, Andorra, Vatican City
  • Central Europe: Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany – Leipzig, Berlin, Munich, Austria, Switzerland
  • Eastern Europe: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary
  • Baltic states: Finland, Russia – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark
• Middle East – Dubai
• Americas
  • United States of America – Chicago, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New Orleans, Las Vegas, San Francisco
  • Canada – Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal

In 2015, it looks as if I’ll be back in Greece and Italy (this is a perk of the job) and potentially the Cook Islands over Christmas.

So what is the point of this blog then?

Firstly, it is to share our travel stories, how we fund our trips, the tips and tricks that we have picked up over time, what it is like travelling with our son at different ages, information about the locations.

Secondly, this is motivation for me to keep going, to keep developing our adventures. Darryl and I are gearing up for a year long travel adventure in a few years time and this blog is also going to chronicle how we plan and prepare for this.