Ubud The Garden view cottages in Ubud look as though they had their time about 20 years ago. But the grounds are very nice and there’s a pool. Again, we’re one of two lots of guests which is a little strange. All those tourists must be staying somewhere? Ubud itself Read more…
At Heathrow, we are reminded that we need a visa to enter the USA. We’ve become quite blasé about skipping between countries but you would have thought that acquiring a US Visa would have been a priority, considering their strict visa status. The check in staff are very helpful and Read more…
We have some more queue drama getting out of Paris. Having been instructed to board with my guitar early in order to make sure that it can go in the cabin, when I return from the toilet there is already a queue. I’m not very good at queue jumping, especially Read more…
Arriving in Paris is a bit of a shock. We are ready to feel cold in comparison with the heat of Morocco but it seems that Paris is already having a winter and Parisian locals are already fully rugged up in their winter gear. Roger and Stella have been to Read more…
We pick up a car from the airport which will attract attention wherever we go. It is bright greeny yellow and by far the most sporty looking car I have ever travelled in. Despite requesting a modest sedan that would fit my guitar across the boot space, we are assured Read more…
Driving into Marrakech is crazy. This is a big developed city compared to Fes and it is full of other tourists. We need to navigate ourselves to the car rental office where we will drop the car as there is no point in having a car while staying in the Read more…
Our drive to the Dades Gorge takes us through more incredible landscapes. As we enter Boulmalne Dades, the small city at the opening of the Gorge, and make our way through the windy road that leads up through the river valley, the view become more and more interesting. The sun has Read more…
Getting out of Fes in the hire car is pretty hairy as no one appears to have a lane, but once we’re away from the Medina and heading out of town, the road empties considerably. The landscape is really spectacular as we near the lower Atlas Mountains. It is dry Read more…
The reality dawns on us both, the next morning, that we drank too much wine and ate too little food the night before but we were so starved for company that we got a little carried away. It is always a little tough getting everyone packed up and back on Read more…
Our bus leaves for Chefchaouen at 12pm and we find a taxi down in the car park where we had the five euro spin the day before. Catching a taxi is quite complicated. The person you think is going to drive you, ends up being the hawker who then wants Read more…
21st to 23rd September Because we had exceeded the amount of air miles we could do on our round the world air tickets, we had to go overland from Portugal into Spain, in order to catch the ferry from Spain to Morocco. This was all planned before we left Aotearoa Read more…
Tortuguero is on the Northern part of the Caribbean Coast and is accessible by boat and air only. We drive from Punta Uva to the tiny settlement of La Pavona where we leave our car and catch a small boat, half an hour down the river to Tortuguero. We arrive at Read more…
Punta Uva It’s quite a long drive but amazingly there seems to be very little visible Hurricane damage on the way. As we pass around San Jose and head towards the Caribbean, the landscape becomes more and more lush. To the right of much of the drive is densely forested Read more…
Our next destination in the Monteverde cloud forest which sits on the continental divide of the Pacific and Carribean and is often shrouded in cloud because of its fairly high altitude.The road into Monteverde is so bad that it’s hard to believe that that this is a major tourist stopover. Read more…
Parts of the road from Montezuma to Ostional, further north on the Pacific Coast, are fairly rugged in places and the rain doesn’t help. There are so many potholes in Costa Rican roads that you are forced with the choice to either drive very slowly and carefully or drive as Read more…
Arriving in Costa Rica is so easy and relaxed and everyone is so friendly. The airport has everything we need to set ourselves up before we even walk through the exit and the trollies are free! Although we are all really tired from the night in the airport in New Read more…
Zambujeira do Mar Sept 13th -17th We had four days to spare and were looking for somewhere we could just “live” for a few days without too much to do. Zambujeira is down on the Aljezur region which is a little more wild and less overrun by condos which dominate Read more…
Obidos Sept 3rd-7th Driving inland from Peniche to the small, walled, Medieval town of Obidos, we drive out of the fog that has hung over the coast for the last three days. Our spirits immediately lift, which is a relief as the damp and cold of Baleal were not proving Read more…
We hire a car for the rest of the time in Portugal and head off on the 25th of August, to Viera do Minho, in the North. The drive takes several hours and we pass a number of large areas that have suffered in the recent bush fires. It is Read more…
The month in Portugal, was breathtaking, relaxing and claustrophobic in equal measure and I will write about it more briefly as I want to be reporting on our travels as they happen and am anxious to move on to Morocco (where we are currently). It felt familiar but sad to Read more…
On the 18th of August we drive from Rome to Venice. Venice was on Stella’s travel wish list. Having investigated the price of the train, to find that the tickets were about one hundred euro each, just for one way, we decide that car hire, auto strada tolls and a Read more…
Everyone is on high alert when arriving in Rome on the 14th of August. After all, Roger has been schooling the kids in hyper-vigilance for the last seven months, to the point that Jasper now thinks there are grandmothers in disguise, waiting to grab our bags. This is of course, Read more…
The kids and I read a book a few years ago called ‘Halo’ by Zizou Corder, about a baby washed ashore on Zakynthos and raised by a family of centaurs. She is later kidnapped and in order to survive, joins the Spartan army disguised as a boy. The descriptions of Read more…
We make the six -hour trip back to mainland Greece on the 28th of August and pile into a tiny car that we have hired. It seems that car-hire is more economical than the bus for the five of us and as we are arriving at 3pm, much easier. We Read more…
In Naxos, we are faced with the problem of how to get the six of us to the village of Filoti in the middle of the island. In the end we hire a car for twenty-four hours. When I visited Naxos in my twenties, we came to Filoti to climb Read more…
After a week in Hydra, we take a ferry back to Piraeus Port near Athens and spend two nights in Plaka, just below the Acropolis. Rachel, needing a bit more space than the little airbnb that I have booked, finds another little apartment and she and Stella stay there together. Athens Read more…
Houston, we have a problem! No, this is not it (although my hair is greying at an impressive rate, which is perhaps an indication of the stresses of travelling). Perhaps someone could have mentioned to us before we left… we’re all bonkers in this family! Our arrival in Greece marks Read more…
We have chosen to stop in Konya for a night on the way through to Goreme, as the trip is several hours. Konya is the former home of Rumi, the great Sufi poet (1207-1273). Between 1150 and 1300, the Sultans of Rum beautified Konya, erecting many lovely buildings and mosques. Read more…
Roger “went to Pumukkale twenty years ago” but I didn’t, so that’s where we’re headed next. It’s nice to see that storks are indiscriminate about the kind of religious structures they nest on. I’m initially a little underwhelmed by Pummakale. The whole town is geared around what looks, from a Read more…
Kaleköy :27th June – 3rd July One of the amazing things about travelling extensively, twenty years after a first major trip, is how technology has changed the way we choose our destinations. In a way, it seems much less intrepid but at the same time, it is nice to get Read more…
Our destination the next day is Selçuk, the former ancient city of Ephesus. After sampling a number of the most enormous peaches I have ever seen, we catch the car ferry across the Dardanelles to Çanakkale where we stop briefly to pose with the horse used on “Troy” the film, Read more…
We farewell Istanbul where we will return in a month, and the next morning we head to the Gallipoli Peninsula. Louie was particularly interested in visiting Gallipoli and it was one of the places that he chose to put on the list of destinations. My own family had very little Read more…
Leaving Cairo and arriving in Istanbul: June 10th I love Turkey. I wasn’t sure that I would after fleeing from here twenty years ago when, as a travelling 21-year-old, I took a job advertised in the paper for an English teacher for a family in Istanbul. Roger also came here the Read more…
8th June: It’s hard to get up in the morning. We are sleeping quite badly during Ramadan as there seem to be a lot of pre-dawn calls which make sleeping between about 3am and 5am quite difficult. We are out of the house by 6.30am and our first stop is Read more…
We had decided that we couldn’t afford a Felucca trip, but when our accommodation in Aswan was cancelled a few days before, we found a last-minute deal. On arrival, it is obvious why the Felucca trip is not as popular at this time of year. It is simply almost too Read more…
Marsa Alam:1st-5th June I admit to having a few second thoughts over the last couple of weeks, about some of our travel plans in Egypt. The Sinai Peninsula, that is shaped like a sharks tooth and sits between the mainland of Egypt and Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, has a Read more…
Arriving in Egypt: 29th June When we first started talking about exiting our current life and travelling, I introduced it after a particularly glum day in Grey Lynn, like this…. Hey kids, who wants to travel around the world next year? Kids: Yeah right! You’re always talking about it and Read more…
Back in Abu Dhabi that evening, Rachel has a few friends around to meet us. It’s been a long time since we sat round a dining room table with friends and it feels very normal and really nice. A very foreign concept to us is the “Beach Club”. On Thursday Read more…
We have two days in Dubai to experience the sheer contrast against where we have been so far, in the world. The drive from Abu Dhabi is only about an hour and a half and there is barely a gap in development between the two Emirates. Abu Dhabi is stretching Read more…
We have a massive day of travel from Kathmandu on the 20th of May. We leave Kathmandu for New Delhi where we have a six-hour wait followed by a flight to Mumbai where we wait for another four hours. We arrive in Abu Dhabi at about 3am in the morning. Read more…
17th May: We get on the road early as the mountainous road between Chitwan and Kathmandu is closed each day between 11 am and 3pm for repairs and it is most likely a 5 hour drive. Perhaps some of the traffic problems in Nepal could be avoided if people didn’t Read more…
Our drive that afternoon, to Chitwan National Park is thankfully on much straighter, roads. Now that we are out of the mountains and driving from West to East, closer to India, there are no drop offs to contend with. This however, seems to encourage Binud to drive even faster and Read more…
Lumbini is much closer to the Indian Border and therefore about another ten degrees hotter. It is also suffering, like all of Nepal, from a limited power supply. At best, the power comes on in the evening to operate fans and air conditioning. Here in Lumbini, it is smotheringly hot Read more…
We drive on to Pokhara, which is the lakeside town from where it is good to do several short or longer treks. Of course our focus is sitting around in bad hotels drinking beer and arguing, rather than trekking, but the aim is to get out and do some walking Read more…
Shanti and Tashi have organised for us to hire a car and driver (potentially safer than taking the bus and probably as economic for five of us) around Nepal for the time that we are here. The next day we set off to Bandipur, a little village in the hills Read more…
Nepal The streets of Kathmandu seem almost deserted when we drive out of the airport at 11.30pm. It is raining and about 25 degrees cooler than it was in Varanasi. We have booked to stay at the Life Story Guest-house in Patan, once an independent city state but now more Read more…
The train from Lucknow to Varanasi For more “experience travel” and because of a lack of availability of any other seats, we travel from Lucknow to Varanasi in unair-conditioned sleeper class. We anticipate it will be hot and crowded but we are not expecting there to be no room in Read more…
The train to Jaipur is very comfortable and we spend the trip chatting with a very jovial Indian businessman who seems very impressed with our beautifully behaved children and their ability to entertain themselves for such a long time. Lucky he wasn’t in the bathroom at Udaipur! We arrive at Read more…
There are some parts of India where train travel is fairly easy, if not a little slow. However, there is no train route between Jodphur and Udaipur so we have decided to take a local bus service. I am imagining it might be a bit like this! (I found this Read more…
April 13th: Our first Train Trip to Jodhpur Something we have noticed about India is that we are a novelty wherever we go. We have to set aside at least half an hour in each location to pose for photos and take photos of other people. We must be on Read more…
Journeying to Pushkar Sunday morning we have organised another car and driver to take us to Pushkar as our wait-listed tickets on Indian Rail have not become available and we do not have the energy to turn up at the station at 4.30am to see if we can get onto Read more…
7th April After an hour of circling around and around in the plane over central India because there was congestion at the airport, we touch down in Delhi at about 11am. The benefit of flying around in circles is that we get to see the Himalayas out the window. Several times. Our big Read more…
Kanchanaburi The next day we take an open air taxi for the 2.5 hour trip north to Kanchanaburi. In hindsight, it might have been better to pay for a taxi with air conditioning as we all arrive with heat stroke and carbon monoxide poisoning. The hot exhaust air seems to blow Read more…
Arriving in Bangkok at 6.30am, we store our bags in a rat-infested luggage room and set off to the Indian Embassy where we need to sort out a visa for India. It is nicer to be back in Bangkok this time as it is more familiar. The embassy involves a Read more…
On the 22nd of March it is time to travel back to the mainland by Ferry, take a Bus from Krabi to Surtthani and another ferry to Koh Phangan. It’s a case of Fogorellis forever following the party (unintentionally). We arrive in Koh Phangan at the same time as the Read more…
17th-22nd March I knew when we chose to go to Koh Phi Phi that we were entering one of the main tourist areas of Thailand. How can a place that beautiful not be over run with tourists? The volume of people is quite unbelievable. Hundreds pouring off boats every hour Read more…
The Dang Derm Hotel in Khao San Road So perhaps I got a little confused. I had got the impression from someone that Khao San road was the cultural centre of Bangkok. I imagined little street vendors and delicious Thai restaurants. When we arrive at about 8.30pm, we were dropped Read more…
On the 3rd of March, Taka drives us to Tampaksiring near Ubud where we are booked to stay in the middle of a rice field in another airbnb place. On the way we stop and drink Luwak coffee, made from the poohed out coffee beans of the Luwak, a kind Read more…
From Amed we hire a driver to take us 2.5 hours north to Lovina. When I first began obsessively planning our travels as a distraction from a low point, back in April of last year, I planned country by country. Sometimes I started with airbnb and chose the coolest looking Read more…
Amed Blog entry number 1 Monday 22nd February Travelling is challenging The end. Actually, it’s stunningly beautiful here in Amed, Bali. We are on the East coast where the weather is very dry and hot. It is low season at the moment and the end of the rainy season, Read more…
Nusa Ceningan The next day we head to Sanur where we catch a boat to Nusa Ceningan for the next six days. So far, I’m feeling pretty pleased with my awesome planning and choice of accommodation (although we’ve only stayed in two places). The Secret Point Huts is no exception. Read more…
Uluwatu The flight to Bali is short and easy. It is only because of it being low season that the flights don’t go directly to Bali from NZ. I have a theory about the female Singapore air stewards. I think they have breasts built into their uniforms…… They are all Read more…
Singapore was a shock, not because of the location but because suddenly we were all carrying our bags on our backs (including a guitar, ukulele and trumpet) all of which weighed more than was possible to carry without experiencing pain. We had our first experience of five is a crowd Read more…