Planning a trip to the other side of the world for bucket list adventures.
We’ve just returned from the trip of a lifetime – 8 weeks in sunny Europe, which we called ‘Honeymoon 2’.
My husband and I both ticked things off our bucket list – for him this included the MotoGP motorbike racing in Mugello, Italy and the Formula 1 at Silverstone in England. I’ve always dreamed of sailing the Greek islands – and can confirm our week on a yacht in the Ionian islands was one of the best holidays I’ve EVER had.
I’ve been working as a contractor for about 5 or 6 years now. One of the great benefits of this style of work is that you get to take breaks when your contract ends – this time it was an 8 week break! Hoosband aligned his time off with a gap between projects and had the blessing of his lovely boss to take this time off.
Our holiday ended up being a bunch of micro holidays all joined up, we spent time in Tuscany, Rome, Athens, the Ionian islands, Sicily, England and lastly Scotland. We travelled by plane, train, car, boat and campervan.
Planning for our trip started about 6 months out, and yes, there was a spreadsheet. Key dates we locked in early were school holidays (for a week with our nephews in Europe), our sailing trip in Greece, and hoosband’s go-fast events (racing cars and motorbikes).
First up we booked our long-haul flights and the sailing trip, both big ticket items. We used Flight Centre to book our return flights. Our booking agent recommended stopovers each way to help reduce the jetlag, she reckons it’s worse on the way back. We locked in stopovers in Singapore both ways. It was 8 hours flying from Brisbane to Singapore, then 13 hours from Singapore to Italy, numb bum territory for sure.
We booked all connecting flights ourselves, and it took a bit of time researching online to get them sorted. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised as we had no dramas with our flights in Europe, our luggage turned up, no last minute flight changes, it all went swimmingly. (The one exception being our delayed train from Edinburgh to London, we meant we missed our flight to Singapore and had to pay $2000 to rebook. We’re hoping to get this back through our insurance).
Our hire cars and campervan were booked online too. That all went pretty well, although, we learned the hard way not to book the biggest campervan in the fleet to drive the teeny tiny roads in Italy. We booked most of our accommodation before we left, leaving only 2 or 3 nights that we had to book along the way.
We both agree that next time we’d prefer to stay in fewer places for a bit longer. We didn’t include any ‘time out’ in our schedule, but ended up resting on a few days to catch up with ourselves. The incidental travel took it out of us, but when you travel to the other side of the world you want to make the most of every moment.
We were lucky to have family in both Rome and Scotland. It was awesome spending time with them and super helpful using their local knowledge on where to go and what to see. I also had some great recommendations from a friend for our visit to Athens.
The last time I was in Europe was 2007. A lot has changed since then, so I’m going to write a post with some tips and recommendations for you. I’m also going to write a post about my week sailing in the Greek islands – so stay tuned!
