With all the hurricane chatter from the East Coast, and American election chatter from everywhere else, we somehow skipped over the fact that this weekend marked one year of travel abroad for us! We’ve made it to Australia, which is another big marker for me personally. Upon stepping off the plane, I have officially visited all seven continents. Hooray!
We considered doing a year-long roundup of sorts to commemorate the moment, but figured we’ll save it for the very end, which unfortunately is creeping up on us. We found a great deal on a flight home in February and have bought the tickets, so we’ve had to come to terms with the fact that even though it’s still a few months away, there is now an official end to our journey.
The rest of our trip will be spent in Australia and New Zealand. More than a year ago we promised my mother we’d meet her ‘down-under’ for her birthday, which is next week, so here we are.
We’re going all in and are hitting up spots from the vineyards of Western Australia to the deserts of the Outback all the way to the beaches of Sydney and the wilderness of Tasmania.
After a year of travel through places where the amenities of home aren’t always available, we are ecstatic to be drinking tap water, flushing toilet paper and showering with HOT water again!
We still have a lot of adventuring left to do, so stay tuned, and thanks for keeping up with us this year!
The Parallel Life 
Simple pleasures eh? But I bet you wouldn’t have missed it!
So true!
Amazing! It’s been so incredible to just read about all your adventures, so I can only imagine what it’s like to live them. 🙂 Congrats on a whole year already!
You will no doubt love Australia/NZ. I was lucky enough to see a bit of the Queensland outback a few years ago–I was surprised at how beautiful it was! And then we ended at the Great Barrier Reef and it blew my mind. So if you have a choice in itinerary/mapping, I suggest doing the same–brown/dry parts first and then the tropical, lush stuff. 🙂
Thanks, it’s been the best thing we’ve ever done 🙂 You’re getting ready to have quite an adventure of your own… 😉 Hope your move went smoothly and that you guys are settling in to your new place!
You should have a great time – Australia and NZ are such diverse countries. Take care in the heat of the outback though this time of year.
We love Australia already, people have been so friendly. We are just finishing our week in the Outback, and yeah, it’s HOT. We were getting up at 4am to do all our hikes so we’d be done before 10 when it really started to get hot…
Congrats on the year of travelling! 🙂 I’ve only been following your blog for a few months but I have quite enjoyed it so far and will definitely keep reading, when I’m on the road myself! Enjoy your last months ‘down under’ – we’re also heading to nZ in February! 🙂
Thanks, and we will! If we have any overlap in NZ perhaps we can meet up 🙂
That would be very nice! We should arrive in Auckland on Febr. 14th…
Happy Travel Anniversary! Ours is on November 30th – it’s crazy how a year can seem so long yet so fast at the same time. You still have quite a long vacation left – so don’t think about the end for now! It’s only the beginning of November! It took me awhile to get used to flushing toilet paper 🙂 Enjoy the free tap water – we are back to bottled water! 🙂 Can’t wait to hear about your adventures in Australia and NZ – have a great time with your mom and I hope she has an awesome birthday! 🙂
Thanks! It’s been awesome here, we’re glad we planned for 6 weeks in Australia, and we’ll still only scratch the surface…
Wow! So it Australia as expensive as everyone says? That’s made me think we won’t stay too long but it sounds like it may be worth going over the budget for awhile. I can’t wait to hear the details in your round-up. Btw, Congrats on your 7th continent! “Seven Windows” would be very proud of you! 😉
Yes, yes it is. $9 beer is pretty common. Our budget is getting ripped apart…but we’re having a good time! If we hadn’t come here to travel with my mom we might have considered staying for 3-4 months and working for half the time to earn cash for the rest of the trip. Maybe I should start calling myself ‘7 Continents’ 😉
Congratulations on your year of travel 🙂 I’m from New Zealand. Hope you enjoy your trip here.
Thanks, we are really looking forward to New Zealand as we’ve heard only great things about it!