I've just booked ANOTHER holiday. I am actually embarrased to tell our friends or family as we have pretty much something booked every school holiday break through to and now including january next year! There are huge air sales on so we got return flights to bali for $180 incl tax and when youre buying for 4 people the prices add up...so i cant go past a bargain!
We get 4 weeks annual leave in australia and mine are very much used up....so i tend to organise trips over public holidays so i get an extra day included...so something like wednesday through to monday with little trips here and there. Plus smaller trips are slightly easier with the kids who seem to have gotten a bit 'over it' by the end of week 2 for any bigger trips.
so...we are just back from a 5 day trip to bali, we are off camping in southern Western Australia for 4 nights the long weekend in march, we're going to Cairns in Queensland for 1 week in April, we are going to Ningaloo Reef to see whale sharks for 5 nights in June, we are going to Hong Kong and Thailand in September for 10 days, camping in Moore River in November for 4 nights and now Bali in January for 5 nights.
Who else has lots of plans for 2012? I had really wanted to throw in some more off the beaten track locations but the hubby isnt keen until my youngest can function better by herself...and speak and eat properly loL! So i'll have to move those plans to 2012 😊
tam
Reply to this I again Tam. I remember the days that our travel schedule was dictated by the age of our childer and school holidays. Just like you we had to fill each one with a trip to an approrpriate somewhere as this was the only time we could travel.
Now that the kids are all out of college, and we are retired, we can travel anywhere and any time we want, and be gone for months. Now the only constraining factor is finances. Nevertheless, Linda and I have placed a high priority to budgeting at least $5000 per year for travel, with at least one overseas trip per year.
This year for our 40th anniversary we will break our budget despite using frequent flyer miles to fly to Honolulu and back from Auckland. In between we cruise for 18 days to South Pacific islands and Sydney, and fly to Christchurch, where we will travel for two weeks. This trip is in addition to driving to Virginia in June for my daughter's wedding, which is another large financial hit.
Our trip would have been much cheaper without the cruise, but I wanted to visit as many countries as I could on the way to help achieve my goal of visiting 100 countries in the next few years (I'm currently at 63). Once one sets a goal like that, you could conclude that I have too many holidays on the horizon...but one can never have too many holidays! Just not enough money.
Reply to this oh that sounds pretty good Bob! I havent actually been to the islands in the pacific and would love too...but as we're on the other side of Aust we always say we'll do it once we move to the east coast. I'm sure we've been saying that for 10 years and still havent moved to the east coast lol!
Reply to this GUILTY!! It seems like ive only just gotten back from round two of Sulawesi but in 8 weeks will be heading back to manado as i have tickets booked there but have decided to add flights to sorong and fak fak and dive Raja Ampat. So West Papua April.
I was supposed to be going to Bhutan a trip I booked for last year but had to postpone due to injury and am about jumping out of my skin because..in my new group of students I have an endeavour program of 6 Bhutanese Engineers who are amazingly beautiful wonderful people who have taken all the hassles and a lot of expense away for me by negotiating the deposit I had booked with a tour agent....turns out the tour agent is one of their cousins! So Karma (no sh1t, thats his name, Karma found me :-)) and his family will be my host family when they go back home in December. So it appears Karma does work in funny ways!
However..there are four terms so - April = West Papua. June = Thailand and Laos. October = ?? maybe NZ and the Cook islands or Vanuata and December...going to stay with the beautiful bhutanese.
I have also got a lecturing schedule this year that gives me 5 day weekends for half the year (YAY) so have promised to take a couple of colleagues up to Lembongan and the Gili's as they are wanting to do their dive certification but dont like cold water either.
And....next year....i have from April to the following February off so thats my Africa and South America year.
Oh and I suppose I should probably throw in a couple of camping diving trips up north with the 5 day weekends. Ningaloo and Broome???
[Edited: 2012 Feb 18 02:52 - littlewing:163970 ]
Reply to this I feel like I'm rough planning my entire life in terms of trips I can take.
Should probably get my head out of the clouds and think of pencilling in some time for employment, aquiring a mortgage and "normal" responsibilities sometime soon rather than my biggest day to day concern being finding someone to teach me how to play the ukelele...
Got Bhutan on my wish list for my 30th birthday- 5 and a half years to go!! 😊
Reply to this We do the same thing in China. We returned 2 weeks ago from 6 weeks of traveling around China, Hong Kong, India and back to southern China. Five days after returning from our travels we found a special on Jet Star to Bali. Now I have been planning our 10 day/9 nights in Bali.
We are planning on moving back to the US this summer and it kind of makes me sad that we won't have as many international travels in the near future. But we are already planning trips around the US to visit family and friends.
Living in Asia has given us the chance to travel to over 15 countries in 2.5 years. It also makes me think do we need to live the "traditional life" of getting a home while raising a family?
Always planning and looking for that next trip sure does make life exciting.
Reply to this Hi Cindy, airasia have a sale on from perth at the moment from sept to jan next year so make sure you look at that! 😊
Elyse and Pete, you can do heaps of travel from the US! I think i did the most travelling ever when i lived there... at least once a month 😊 The US itself has a massive amount of diverse cities and events to attend. Or it is only 5 hours down to the carribean, or mexico, cuba and the rest of south america, or only 9 hours to the UK and everything in Europe! But you can most certainly have a home and travel as we do, or do as some of the guys on here and just keep travelling! One of the families we lived in the US were Australian and had brought their two under 10 yo kids over for 2 years and had also lived in malaysia with the boys for 2 years with no impact to their education or life...one of the boys is in university at the moment 😊
hehe amy & chris, thats exactly why i do plan my life via holidays! certainly dont want to be in the doom and gloom over every day existance and worrying about bills to pay!
Reply to this There is no such thing as having too many trips planned 😊
When we lived in the UK, the first 6 months of one year, we had a lot of trips and it became a bit of a running joke at both our workplaces. We had a 5 day trip to Barcelona in mid-January, a 4 day trip to Amsterdam in the second week of February, a 10 day trip to Prague at the beginning of March and then in mid-April a month away in Thailand. Then in the first week of June it was back to Prague! In between all of these there were visits to family and friends all over the UK too.
Thanks to budget airlines travelling lots throughout the year is possible at such a low cost - flights won't stay as cheap as what they are forever, so definitely take advantage while you can!
Now our life is just one big trip but we still plan around the cheapest fares on the budget airlines.
Reply to this Tam!!! Shhhhh! Stop it LOL. I dont need to have access to anymore airline booking websites 😉
Reply to this Cindy--
My thoughts are you should look at the website Tam has recommended.
You know you will be traveling so you might as well book it now and save some CASH.
Repeating the wisdom of Donna and Neil
There is no such thing as having too many trips planned 😊
[Edited: 2012 Feb 20 19:17 - D MJ Binkley:42569 ]
Reply to this It's been a running joke at our work that we are always either on holiday or planning a trip - but do you know, we haven't got anything planned this year yet. How did that happen?
Reply to this LOL Merry Jo - I actually have Air Asia, Jetstar and Qantas alerts sent both to my email and phone. The problem I have is not so much with the major carriers to the usual hubs but marrying up from there to middle of nowhere....its not easy to get to Fak Fak 😉
Reply to this I have a fear in which I must have atleast one trip booked at any one time (I know it's not really a fear but it should be).
We're just back from Mexico, I'm off to Cyprus next week for 2 days, then 3 days in Appledorn in April, 3 days in Portugal in May and lastly 2 weeks in Peru in September/October.
Next year we may not have many trips though, for numerous reasons 😞 I think we may only manage 2, possibly 3 weeks out of the UK in the entire year.
Reply to this Off to Armenia next week, very excited!!!
Chris and Nikki we hope to hear about Cyprus and Portugal, we are hoping to go there at some point this year!
Reply to this argh all you aussie and EU people. I have 2 weeks vacation a year in NYC and im pretty much freakin out about it. always have, but post RTW, its been impossible to get my head around.
have fun for me.
[Edited: 2012 Mar 06 15:35 - annieandmatt:15608 ]
Reply to this Too many trips? NEVER
I just read an article by Bronnie Ware called the Top 5 regrets of dying.
It was pointed out that as people grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality.
The regrets were:
1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expect.
2. I wish I didn't work so hard.
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.
The article pointed out that many people didn't realize until the end that happiness was a choice.
In summary: Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously, Choose wisely and choose honestly. Choose happiness.
Those are certainly words to live by.
So-- today we went shopping.
We purchased a few airline tickets.
We will take a few months off and travel to------- Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands, the Shetland Islands, Denmark, Germany (in time for Oktoberfest) Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar, the Philippines and Hawaii.
We hope to run into a few of you while on our travels. Let us know if we will be near you at any point.
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In response to: Msg #152854
ah yes, 2 weeks annual leave would k1ll my holiday travels 😞 Although i do take a lot of little trips over long weekends and public holidays to try and use as much time as possible.
one thing a lot of aussie companies are now doing to encourage retention is either leave without pay, or purchase leave schemes. So you can get paid at 90%!y(MISSING)our normal salary for a year and get an extra 4 weeks annual leave. I think once my kids get older i wont have a choice but this over the big school break but certainly worth investigating if youre a diehard traveller 😊)
Reply to this This year I only have 2 trips planned so far. I might be adding another couple, depending on how things go. I have just gone through a chaotic 6 months, which has limited my travel plans. There have been years though that I went on more than 10 and those types of years will be happening again soon, I hope.
I am actually embarrased to tell our friends or family...
I say, go on as many trips as you have the time and money for. It will be time enough to be stuck home unembarassed when those unexpected huge expenses, family emergencies, illness... happen. At least, you will have the memories at the times when you cant go on so many trips.
...hubby isnt keen until my youngest can function better by herself...and speak and eat properly...
I can see his point. I have taken my daughter on trips with me, when she was younger. When they arent old enough to even go to the toilet by themselves, or be aware of any dangers you are super alert all the time with them, and it is exhausting. And, as well as that there is the lack of privacy when they could use a time out. At least at home, you can set them free more, and get on with doing something relaxing, because your house is child proofed and it is only you they can disturb, and your stuff they can destroy.
one thing a lot of aussie companies are now doing to encourage retention is either leave without pay, or purchase leave schemes. So you can get paid at 90%!y(MISSING)our normal salary for a year and get an extra 4 weeks annual leave.
Thats pretty cool! When I was working for a company, I used to do lots of overtime, in return for more time off, instead of money. I got enough time off to travel from 1 to 3 weeks at a time, every 3 to 4 months.
Mel
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