Hi friends,
Well it’s that time of year again — the one where everyone takes a couple minutes to take stock of how the past 12 months have gone? This year has been a particularly important one for myself and Chris. It was our first year of married life. It was a year spent celebrating our marriage around the world with family and friends. It was a year that we made some pretty big decisions about our future (not yet shared here!), and one that had a lot of amazing traveling in it …
Hi friends!
Well we’re firmly into the second quarter of 2013 here, and it’s time for me to start getting excited about some of the trips we have planned for the rest of the year.
So let’s see. For starters, my in-laws will be making their way to the U.S. the week after next, and Chris and I will be heading to London with them to watch Chris run the London Marathon:
^^A little flashback to when Steph and I first visited London back in 2010
Then, Chris and I booked a trip out to Arizona to visit an old friend of mine for the weekend of July 4th. Neither one of us has been before, so we’re super excited. We’re going to go camping and hiking, and visit Lake Powell and Havasu Falls:
September will be a big month for us, too. We’ll be heading to Australia to celebrate our wedding with Chris’s side of the family, and then taking a couple-day honeymoon to The Great Barrier Reef:
^^A little memory from our last trip to Australia (written about here and here). That’s Shawn the Koala, the subject of my soon-to-written children’s book series. Seriously. It’s coming.
There will be another trip in September two weekends before Australia, but that’s super secret for now, as it’s a surprise trip in honor of Chris’s 30th birthday. Let’s just say—I’m super excited about it!
And that’s about it (for now)! Bis bald, friends! I’ll catch up with you again super soon …
My sister and I finally set off into the sunset on our Euro-Adventure this Sunday—although I feel like we should have been there and back about a thousand times already, with all the planning.
From back in February, when we really started searching for flights and hotel reviews and travel plans, our itinerary has morphed into something that we’re pretty happy with—but planning certainly didn’t come without its stresses.
Continue reading “Last Minute Touches on a European Adventure”
Let this be a lesson to you ladies and gentlemen, have your ducks in a row before you sit down to plan your trip, or else it will DRIVE YOU CRAZY!
On this Valentines day, as my boyfriend traipses around Japan with his best friend, I’m sitting at my mom’s house planning out my trip to London and Italy with my sister for her graduation. Let me tell you- this is not easy. First, there’s the timing aspect. It has to be after graduation (and possibly after a graduation party to pay for it), but before she starts grad school in the fall. All of these factors combined leaves us with only a short time period to plan the trip, which also, unfortunately, happens to coincide with the most expensive time to travel to Europe- the summer.
After a lot of back-and-forth (will we stay with a friend in London for a few days? Will it be too expensive to book two separate tickets from two separate places? Will a hostel really be that much cheaper than a hotel (that answer might surprise you)). After all of this back-and-forth, I think we have a plan we can get on board with (and, hopefully, afford). It goes a little something like this:
Fly into London, stay with friend for a few nights
Book a cheap(ish) sleeper train that will take us from London to Rome (with a short stop-over in Paris, which I see as a plus, my sister is on the fence about it)
Stay at a cheap(ish) hote that got decent reviews and apparently is in a decent area of Rome to get to sites and such (NOT a hostel, surprisingly. This hotel is actually cheaper than the decent/safe hostels we were looking at, and we get our own room. I guess we’ll have to let you know how it works out when we come back).
Book a couple of day trips around Italy
Fly out of Rome back to NYC
Overall, I think it will work. This is my sister’s first trip like this, certainly her first out of the country, and it’s our first alone together. So, I think it’s safe to say we’re still in the midst of figuring out our ‘travel relationship,’ but we’re coming along quite nicely. And soon, my friends (after we actually book this trip!), we’ll be here:
And here:
So, my friends, until we actually book the flight…bis bald…see you soon!
P.S. Does this intimidate anyone else?!
I mean, I thought the New York City subway map was scary, but this is what Chris had to deal with for his trip from the first airport to his hostel in Tokyo before he boards his second flight to where his friends live. Can’t wait for that update!