What was the longest continuous vacation of your life? How long were you gone? Do you remember how much it cost?
My husband and I left on April 24th to travel first to Australia and then to New Zealand. This trip had been in the making for several years, and at 30 days length was the longest time we have ever spent vacationing. It was also the first time in 38 plus years of marriage that we have spent 30 days, 24/7 together! It was a good trial period for retirement.
The destinations were ones we had talked about traveling to, but the biggest consideration was that a professor my husband had at Iowa State had relocated to Melbourne back in 1981. He had been telling us for years that we needed to come and visit him and his family. None of us were getting any younger, so we decided to make the visit happen.
We spent two weeks in Australia, visiting Sydney, Cairns and Melbourne, where we met up with the Sinatra family for a few days. From there we traveled on to New Zealand, connecting up with Paul and Kathy who joined us for the last two weeks of our vacation. Kathy and I went to high school and later Iowa State together, and Paul and Jim were fraternity brothers at Iowa State.
As I have blogged extensively about the 30 day vacation over at my Kim Wolterman blog, I won't rehash the trip here. At the moment I don't have a tally on what the entire thing cost, but you know what? I don't care. It was the trip of a lifetime for us, and that makes it priceless in my book.
Blue Mountains, Australia |