Commuting to Sydney from the Central Coast each day allows plenty of time for the mind to wander to places completely different from what I was viewing outside the train window. A playlist compiled with song choices to ease the noise of the screaming children and the sound of snoring businessman alike. It had felt only moments ago that we had returned from our Europe holiday in 2012. It was such a great holiday, always ending too soon. As many people experience bed bugs whilst travelling among various hotels and hostels, we were lucky enough to only catch the travel bug.
Back in 2011 we booked a body boarding trip and travelled to Rarotonga in the Cook Islands… Absolute paradise! We yearned to return and after getting excited with our friends, no sooner than later did we book a trip to return in the beginning of 2013!
One afternoon, A friend and I were commuting home from Sydney when the train stopped in the middle of nowhere. A usual occurrence for City Rail is frequent delays, however this particular delay went unnoticed as we both excitedly sat waiting for the internet page to load for the Jetstar Friday fare sales. $600 return to Honolulu, Hawaii. This was a price we could not resist and it wasn’t long until we received the confirmation email stating we were going to HAWAII!!! And little did I know that was the start of an adventure to come…..
We got a little too excited with all the holiday planning that my boyfriend forgot to clear the dates with his work… woops! Wades boss wasn’t happy that he was taking 2 x 2 week holidays so close to each other, one in February to the Cook Islands and one in March to Hawaii but the problem was we had already booked the tickets! Wade was near finishing his 4 year apprenticeship in Landscaping so knew he could take the break after finishing up in February but the boss was still not happy with the holidays being so close together. As a quick suggestion, I joked to Wade saying we should pretend we want to go for 6 months, but if we can get the 2 x 2 week holidays instead we will be happy. Assuming the boss would not take this offer, it back fired (in a good way) and he agreed to let Wade take the 6 month break. We were both in shock! Could this be possible?
No sooner did we receive an email from STA travel titled Round The World Fare Sales, we booked an appointment with a consultant to work out how much the plane trip would cost and the possible stops along the way.
Planning at home, we realised how close Hawaii appeared to main land USA and Canada. We got out the map and started tracking the locations we wanted to visit. I have always wanted to visit Alaska after seeing a picture of the Northern Lights. I’ve never had a ‘bucket list’ but if it existed, Alaska would be smack-bang on the top.
It actually makes me laugh, thinking back to when we started planning the trip and thinking ‘if we are going to California, we may as well visit Miami on the way to New York’ – And there was still more locations we wanted to visit in Europe… and it all fell perfectly into place!
The original plan was crazily fizzled out upon receiving the confirmation email, with what we viewed as ‘The Lucky Ticket’… The ticket confirming our flight details with a nice shiny price of $2,500… A price that some people pay just to fly return from Sydney to London…. We are going on a round the world trip!
ONLY HAPPY WHEN I TRAVEL 