Darin and his wife Natalie are now on "The Next Journey" -- a journey of discovery, adventure, and learning about themselves and the world as they seek to grow their family through Domestic Infant Adoption.
June 17, 2016: Santiago, Cuba With a slightly later arrival (9am) into the port of Santiago de Cuba, this provided enough morning sunshine to catch an amazing sail in towards today’s full day port of call. As we wound our way though many twists and turns in the 6 miles from the channel entrance, we had the fortune to see the Castillo (the fortress) from the...
June 16, 2016: Cienfuegos, Cuba The comparisons between Havana and Cienfuegos started the moment we left the Cuban capital city. Havana is 3.5 million people, Cienfuegos is only 150,000! It’s a quiet sleepy little coastal town “David” in comparison to the “Goliath” of Havana that we just left. Dubbed La Perla del Sur (“The Pearl...
June 14, 2016: Havana, Cuba After an amazing (and exhausting in good way) first day in Havana, we had a 7:30am start to a full day of panoramic touring with Havanatur, the state run tour agency, and today, one of our impact guides, Paige was on board to experience Havana along with all of us! Customs and security screening was much easier this time around, and with...
June 13, 2016: Havana, Cuba It was at this point of the Day 1 Havana Walking tour that we let our guide know that we were going to head out on our own to explore Old Havana. She offered her thanks for our sharing the day with her and we asked her one question as we said our goodbyes… “What’s a good direction to get lost in?” She pointed...
June 13, 2016: Havana, Cuba It was just after 9:30 in the morning… I opened the door to our stateroom balcony, stepped outside into the warm humid sunshine, and looking towards shore saw Cuba and it’s capital of Havana for the very first time. Ready to #TravelDeep with Fathom to Cuba or the Dominican Republic? The Next Journey & Cruises, Inc can help...
June 12, 2016: Miami, Florida We’ve arrived into Miami and boarded the Fathom Adonia for only its 4th cruise to Cuba (Less than 2000 people to date have made the voyage we are about to undertake!)… We’ve taken a tour of the ship and we’re excited to set sail as we head towards our first port of call in Havana, arriving a little more than 18...
June 12, 2016: Miami, Florida It’s no secret… Natalie and I love to cruise. After logging nearly 200 ports of call and 50+ countries in the last 12 years, I can say without question that our 7 days cruising to Cuba with Fathom cruise line was a truly one-of-a-kind and life-changing experience. How Could We Say No? While it was incredibly hard for us to leave R...
May 14, 2016: Hamburg (Kiel), Germany After a nice, relaxing (and overdue) day at sea, we arrived into the port of Kiel, on Germany’s north coast. Today is another DIY day with a train trip on Deutche Bahn to Hamburg and visiting the Miniataur Wunderland museum. With an on time 8am arrival to our dock, we had an extra 30 minutes before we left the ship, taking a...
May 12, 2016: Stockholm, Sweden Today was a DIY Tour day as the Zuiderdam pulled up to Stadgarden 167, our berth for the day, here in Stockholm. We all headed out just after 8:30am and right next to the ship we picked up our hop-on, hop-off boat ticket for the day. Stockholm is made up of hundreds of islands, so the boat service is a great way to avoid tons of...
May 11, 2016: Helsinki, Finland After two full days of touring in St. Petersburg, we wanted to dial it back just a bit for today’s port stop, Helsinki, Finland. As the capital of this country (and a new country for all of us), we investigated the many available options and selected a fun tour with Helsinki Happy Tours, which offered a private 4 hour tour that took...
May 10, 2016: St. Petersburg, Russia A bit past 7:30am this morning, we exited the ship to begin our second day in St. Petersburg, meeting up with Elena, Vladimir, and the rest of our tour group to kick off a new day of sightseeing. See all 249 pictures from our 2016 Russia Visit in the Photo Galleries First up today was a return to the waterfront pier along the Neva...
May 9, 2016: St. Petersburg, Russia There’s nothing like waking up to a beautiful blue sky and light winds as your ship comes alongside the dock for one of your bucket list locations. After many years of planning, budgeting, and one previously cancelled itinerary, we looked out our balcony windows, overlooking the city of St. Petersburg, Russia in the distance...
May 8, 2016: Tallinn, Estonia Following a day at sea from our 12 hour blitz of Berlin touring, we arrived in Tallinn, Estonia, the capital city of this former Soviet state. Just shy of its 25th birthday, this relatively young country has one of the oldest and most preserved city centers of all the European capitals. Pulling up to the dock at 10am, we had a...
May 6, 2016: Berlin (Warnemunde), Germany The first official port of our 12 day Baltic cruise onboard the Holland America Zuiderdam brought us to visit the northern German port of Warnemunde, a pleasant, if tiny port on the water’s edge in the Baltic Sea. When a port city is officially identified as “Warnemunde (Berlin)”, it implies that this is your best bet to...
May 5, 2016: Copenhagen, Denmark (Note: While The Next Journey is completely committed to posting only our own, original photography as we document our travels, through a series of unfortunate errors, all of the photos taken in Copenhagen, over 250 of them, were lost and irretrievable. As a result, the banner picture above is still an original The Next Journey...
May 3, 2016: Rotterdam, Netherlands It was an early 7am start for us in Rotterdam, as today’s Do It Yourself (DIY) shore excursion day would take us far outside of the city of Rotterdam and to the east, for a day in the small town of Lisse, where for just 7 short weeks a year, the world’s largest spring garden comes to life with more than 15 million tulip bulbs on...
May 2, 2016: Bruges, Belgium It was another beautiful morning as the Zuiderdam arrived into Zebrugge, Belgium. At 8am, we hopped on-board the free bus shuttle to the nearby Blankenberge train station and with a 3 Euro one way ticket, we found our seats on a Belgian Rail train for the quick 13 minute ride to the city of Bruges, our destination for the day. See all...
May 1, 2016: Cherbourg, France As we have learned from previous visits to France, the French take Sundays seriously as a rest day. Most places are open for just 2-4 hours during the day, and that’s if they are open at all to begin with… Couple that with the fact that our arrival to Cherbourg, on the Northern coast of the country, falls on May 1st, the national May...
April 29, 2016: A Coruna & Santiago de Compostela, Spain It was a beautiful morning as we arrived into A Coruna, Spain, our first stop in mainland Europe and our first visit ever to the Northern coast of Spain. While we have been fortunate to visit the Southern coast several times, including Barcelona, Malaga, Cadiz, Alhambra, and Seville, as well as make our...
April 26, 2016: Ponta Delgada, Azores, Portugal While the rough weather and seas of the Atlantic Ocean crossing was starting to subside, the thick overcast cloud cover would again impact our stop in Ponta Delgada, on the most populated island within the Azores, Sao Miguel. While it changed the scheduled itinerary, our driver and guide for the day, Carlos of Azorean...
April 25, 2016: Horta, Azores, Portugal After six days at sea, all of us on the Holland America Zuiderdam were pleased to hear the captain announce that given good speed and remaining on/ahead of schedule, we would be able to arrive to our first port of call, Horta, 90 minutes earlier than expected. Instead of anchoring to begin tender service at 10am local time...
A Message to My Future Sibling Hi! I’m your big brother RJ and I’ll do my best to tell you about life in our home. We live with Mom, Dad, and our dog, Cruise, in the house Mommy grew up in. There are only two rules here: be safe and be kind. Though that may seem simple, I’m finding that a lot of stuff falls into those two little rules. But...
March 2, 2013: San Francisco, California When news of the Color Run made its way to San Francisco, Natalie and I decided that we would get a group together to go out and tackle this 5K (even though it is called a run, and is a 5K course, there is little to no running involved…) as it seemed like a fun and certainly memorable event. Who wouldn’t want to...
February 16-18, 2013: Napa, California It seems that this winter, Mother Nature has forgotten about the rain, and the gray clouds, and the cold… (That or maybe there might be the smallest bit of truth to this whole global warming messing with the weather patterns?) After a wonderful first 3 day weekend of 2013 in Portland, Oregon, we were excited to explore...
January 19-22, 2013: Portland, Oregon Click Here to see all 37 photos from our time in Portland, Oregon It was just a few days after New Years that the big winter air travel sales kicked into high gear, presenting us with $69 fares to the city of Portland, Oregon, a destination that has been on our US travel list for quite some time… We booked immediately and...
Monday, December 17, 2012: Bermuda Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise After five days at sea, we finally saw land in the form of the island chain of Bermuda. As it was our first visit to this port of call, we were excited to spend a portion of the day exploring the northernmost point of the famous “Bermuda Triangle”. ...
Tuesday, December 11, 2012: Funchal Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise We arrived before the sunrise to the Portuguese island of Madeira. Though we had a 7am arrival to the port city of Funchal, we exited the ship as soon as possible as today was only a half day stop and all-aboard was at 1:30pm before we began our Transatlantic leg...
Sunday, December 9, 2012: Casablanca Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise It was an early morning as we docked alongside the pier in Casablanca, Morocco. As we had a number of long distance shore excursions available today, we were on schedule to be in port from 7am until 8pm, allowing passengers the chance to see and experience...
A Glimpse into 10 Sea Days Onboard Pacific Princess Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise On this Transatlantic crossing, we spent 10 Sea Days onboard the Pacific Princess, one of the small ships of the Princess Fleet. With a passenger load of approximately 650, and a crew complement of approximately 350, the ship is one of the smallest...
Saturday, December 8, 2012: Gibraltar Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise Shortly after 8am, we docked in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory that sits on a small 5 square mile patch of land carved out of Spain’s southern coastline. Just a stone’s throw from the coast of Africa, if the weather permits, you can see the...
Thursday, December 6, 2012: Barcelona, Spain Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise Our Transatlantic itinerary provided us with the chance to return to one of our most favorite cities in the world… We’re back in Barcelona, Spain and today’s plan will take us an hour outside of Barcelona for the opportunity to visit...
Tuesday, December 4, 2012: Palermo, Italy Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise A lot of people ask us about independent shore excursions and how it works to do a day in port “on our own”. No tour guide, no ship tour, yet seeing great sites and the local culture for minimal cost. Here is a look into our day in the city of...
Monday, December 3, 2012: Naples, Italy Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise After an easy train trip to the embarkation port of Civitavecchia (less than 60 minutes and less than 8 Euros each), a quick check-in for the ship, and an on-time sail away, we enjoyed our first dinner, meeting our fantastic tablemates for the trip and then...
Friday, November 30, and Saturday, December 1, 2012: Rome, Italy Click Here to see all 330 photos from our 2012 Transatlantic Cruise After a long, but thankfully uneventful, 12 hour flight from San Francisco to Rome (via Frankfurt), we have arrived in the capital of Italy! We will spend the next two days revisiting some of our favorite sights before heading an hour...
2013 Travel Kickoff: A Little Motivation To Find Your Travel Passion The Next Journey originally started as a travel log to share updates with friends and family on our career break adventure to Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Bali in 2011. Since then, the website has been picked up by travelers all over the globe looking to get their...
One year ago, right about this time, Natalie and I slowly drifted off to sleep on an overnight flight, crossing the international date line, and woke up in Auckland, New Zealand to begin what would be an epic, 100 day travel adventure that would change our lives. Though many people like to tackle new year’s resolutions in the last week of December, only to...
What a difference the internet has made… For thousands of years, mankind has been hunting and gathering for food, developing unique solutions for locating, preparing, serving, and storing it. Today, one mouse click at Safeway.com will have your entire grocery list selected by a cheerful team member, placed into color-coded bins, loaded onto a climate...
Once Upon A Time… These are timeless words that conjure up visions of a child’s bedtime story. It is where tales of bravery, kingdoms, dragons, evil queens, poison apples, and chivalry blend with magic, imagination, and life lessons presented through beloved characters. Filled with amazing twists and turns, they fill us with joy, suspense, and excitement while...
It was a busy afternoon… I was running around the house bouncing between phone interviews and working on several aspects of the adoption paperwork and our profile. I was multitasking in overdrive as the downstairs telephone rang. The caller ID flashed and the numbers didn’t have a chance to register before I hurriedly clicked the answer button and...
(Photo Credit – “When I Grow Up”, a children’s story by Al Yankovic) (Yes… It’s “Weird Al” Yankovic, but the reviews are exceptional!) What I want to be when I grow up… It’s a question that nearly every person struggles with at some point in their lives. It’s the stuff that childhood dreams are made...
As we left the Bethany Adoption Seminar, program binder in hand, the 100+ pages of documentation, checklists, and required deliverables for our domestic infant adoption process slowly began to burn a hole in my brain. We had only completed one questionnaire up to his point, and based on a cursory review of our requirements to come, we would need to complete at least...
An Interesting Request One of the most interesting education assignments we were asked to complete as part of our adoption requirements was some required viewing of an episode of MTV’s “16 and Pregnant”. To be honest, I haven’t watched MTV in over a decade (you know, back when they use to actually show music videos on the channel…), and...
February 7, 2012 As we were closing out our Bethany orientation, our leader identified that there was an 8 hour education seminar that all prospective adoptive parents must complete before being able to proceed to submission of an adoption profile (the final component required before you can be presented to expectant parents). The seminar was only provided four...
February 7, 2012 As we exited the freeway and made the needed turns to reach our destination, I have to admit that I was a little nervous. We were about to walk into an office building, introduce ourselves to someone we had never met, and request permission to start the needed steps to become parents to a newborn baby we didn’t conceive, nor have any idea...
The Next Journey Has Begun We’re Adopting! We have started the process to become adoptive parents and hope that, when the time is right, we will be able to grow our family through domestic infant adoption. Yes, I am the first to admit that this is a clear departure from traveling the world and seeking out adventure through culture and geography. (Don’t...
Friday, December 16, 2011: St. Thomas, USVI See all 138 pictures from our 2nd week in the Southern Caribbean It’s the last stop on our Southern Caribbean itinerary and we’re spending the day seeing the sights and sharing some beach time on our Celebrity Shore Excursion Lovely Island and Beach Tour. We met our tour guide and vehicle for the day (open air...
Thursday, December 15, 2011: Philipsburg, St. Maarten See all 138 pictures from our 2nd week in the Southern Caribbean Though one of the smallest islands in the Caribbean at only 37 square miles, St. Maarten/St. Martin is one of the most popular amongst cruise ships and as the Celebrity Summit pulled into port, we were joined by three other ships, making it our most...
Wednesday, December 14, 2011: St George, Antigua See all 138 pictures from our 2nd week in the Southern Caribbean Coming into our next port of call, St. George, Antigua, we were surprised to be joined by two other ships, making this one of our busiest port stops on this cruise! We booked today with a local guide in the hopes of getting away to the places a little...
“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” — Don Williams, Jr. Where will The Next Journey take you in 2012? We look forward to walking that road together in the year to come… In the coming year, we will certainly be discussing travel, but there are so...
Tuesday, December 13, 2011: Castries, St. Lucia See all 138 pictures from our 2nd week in the Southern Caribbean Today’s shore excursion of St. Lucia takes us along the west coast of the island, from our arrival port and captial city of Castries, down to the gateway of the Pitons in Soufriere, and everywhere in between. Disembarking our ship in the capital...
Monday, December 12, 2011: Bridgetown, Barbados See all 138 pictures from our 2nd week in the Southern Caribbean We’ve added one more passenger to our traveling team this week and we’re off for another week of Caribbean ports onboard the amazing Celebrity Summit. As we left San Juan, Puerto Rico, we headed south and east, enjoying a relaxing day at sea...
Friday, December 9, 2011: St. John, USVI See all 123 pictures from our 1st week in the Southern Caribbean Like a wonderful reunion, waking up to the sights of the Charlotte Amalie harbor brought back all sorts of great memories. Nine years ago, almost to the day, Natalie and I had woken up with much the same view, spent an amazing day snorkeling and just laying on...
Wednesday, December 7, 2011: St. George, Grenada See all 123 pictures from our 1st week in the Southern Caribbean As the steel drum bands played, we arrived into St. George, the captial city of Grenada, the next stop on our Southern Caribbean itinerary. Today, our plan is to take the Spice Plantation tour route with Mandoo Seales, our superguide for the island. As...
Tuesday, December 6, 2011: Roseau, Dominica See all 123 pictures from our 1st week in the Southern Caribbean Arriving into the capital city of Roseau, the island of Dominica, we knew that today would be about green, lush, rainforests and all of the jewels that come from that amazing tropical environment. Today, we will be spending the day with Bumpiing Tours and...
Monday, December 5, 2011: Basseterre, St. Kitts See all 123 pictures from our 1st week in the Southern Caribbean The gray skies continued to dominate the horizon as we arrived into our next port of call, Basseterre, St. Kitts. There was no dampening of the spirits, however, as we knew that the sun wouldn’t be too terribly far behind. Disembarking the ship...
Sunday, December 4, 2011: St. Croix, USVI See all 123 pictures from our 1st week in the Southern Caribbean After 100 days of international travel, one would think that it might be time to take a little bit of a rest. Not so! The Next Journey takes us for 14 days onboard the Celebrity Summit on two back-to-back week long itineraries in the Southern Caribbean. And...
What a ride… 100 Days… 42,000+ Miles… 50+ TheNextJourney Posts… 1325 Pictures Posted Online… 6 Countries… 9 Rental Cars… 55 Days Onboard Ship… 20 Hotels, Motels, Hostels, and B&Bs… 24 Cruise Ports Of Call… 30+ Methods of Transportation (including Gondola, Jet Boat, Camel, Segway, & Bamboo...
Monday – Wednesday, November 14 – 16, 2011: Katoomba, Australia We had a very early morning on Monday, waking at 3:30am, getting to the airport by 4:15am, and boarding our plane at 5am for our flight from Cairns to Sydney. Thankfully, all of the above events didn’t require too much brain power as we were probably half asleep most of that time, but...
Thursday – Sunday, November 10 – 13, 2011: Cairns, Australia (Part 2) The time was already flying by in Northern Queensland as we entered our third and final day of our visit to the region. Our itinerary today includes a visit to the Aboriginal Tjapukai cultural centre, a ride soaring over the forests of the area on the Skyrail, a visit to the sleepy...
Thursday – Sunday, November 10 – 13, 2011: Cairns, Australia (Part 1) Arriving into Cairns early in the evening, we were amazed at how quickly we had crisscrossed the country as the weather had changed from a dry, hot, desert climate at Uluru, to a thick, humid, and sauna like rain forest climate of Northern Queensland. Securing our rental car at the...
Tuesday – Thursday, November 8 – 10, 2011: Uluru, Australia (Part 2) Following the early morning sunrise at Uluru (Ayers Rock), we had a few hours remaining before the sun turned intense and the temperatures began to rise, so we jumped in our rental car and headed over to our first walk of the day at the base of Uluru. The Kuniya Walk gave us our first...
Tuesday – Thursday, November 8 – 10, 2011: Uluru, Australia (Part 1) Throwing ourselves out of bed at 4am hurt a bit, but it was more than worth it as we were headed to the airport this morning to take the necessary two flights to Uluru (Ayers Rock) in the southwest corner of the Northern Territories. The massive stone monolith would be our home base...
Sunday and Monday, November 6-7, 2011: Phillip Island and Melbourne, Australia Phillip Island, located about 90 minutes south of Melbourne, is the home of one of the largest colonies of Little penguins in the world as well as a reknown Grand Prix Racing Track. An interesting combination for a place only about 20kms long by 10kms wide, but the place seems to be...
Saturday and Sunday, November 5-6, 2011: Great Ocean Road, Australia Once we had reached the coastline of Australia, we had the chance to slow things down a bit and take “the scenic route” between Warambool on the west end of the Great Ocean Road and Melbourne, the capital of Victoria on the east end. The Great Ocean Road is much like the Pacific Coast...
Friday and Saturday, November 4 – 5, 2011: Grampians National Park, Australia We began our road trip from Adelaide, in South Australia to Melbourne, Victoria with a 600km drive to the south and east and headed to Grampians National Park. The Grampians is home to dozens of sights, scenic outlooks, bush walks, waterfalls, and reminded us quite a bit of Yosemite...
Friday, November 3, 2011: Barossa Valley, Australia After the incredibly long and rewarding day on Kangaroo Island yesterday, we gave ourselves a bonus couple of hours of sleep and started our day this morning at 9:30am. Since we were headed to the Barossa Valley, a world renowned wine producing region, we figured that wine tasting would be best started later in...
Thursday, November 2, 2011: Kangaroo Island, Australia Arriving into Adelaide from Sydney, we have begun the final leg of the journey, spending the next 17 days hopping from place to place in Australia as we close out our travels on this 100 day adventure. After a late departure from the Dawn Princess in Sydney, we landed in Adelaide on Wednesday evening and...
Saturday, October 29th, 2011: Bay Of Islands, New Zealand After more than 50 days onboard the Dawn Princess, we have arrived at our final port of call, Bay Of Islands, in the northeast corner of New Zealand’s North Island. We had the good fortune of spending two days here earlier in the trip, experiencing the amazing history of Waitangi, sandboarding in Te...
Thursday, October 27th, 2011: Tauranga, New Zealand Though it was tough missing the port of Napier, due to a delay caused by a mechanical problem in the ship’s engine, it provided us with a welcome day at sea before our arrival into the Bay of Plenty and our port stop of Tauranga. Tauranga is an interesting port for us as we had originally tried to get onto a...
Friday, October 28th, 2011: Auckland, New Zealand There are those moments when you can recognize that Auckland, the largest city in New Zealand, is home to more than one-third of the country’s entire population. With its towering skyscrapers, morning commute traffic, and urban sprawl, it can certainly fit the description. Amongst the organized chaos of the...
Tuesday, October 25th, 2011: Wellington, New Zealand We’ve returned to the capital of New Zealand with a full day in port as we continue on a northbound course with the cruise ship Dawn Princess. As this was our fourth straight day of active ports, we were excited about a leisurely day at Zealandia, an animal sanctuary for endemic birds and animals. ...
Monday, October 24th, 2011: Akaroa, New Zealand A last minute port replacement for Christchurch, which while making good progress still has a lot of reconstruction to complete before thousands of cruise ship passengers can enter its damaged city center, the tiny town of Akaroa was this year’s beneficiary of 83 cruise ships to represent the Canterbury region...
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011: Dunedin, New Zealand Our first day back on New Zealand soil came as our ship arrived into port alongside the dock at Port Chalmers. This small town about 12kms northeast of Dunedin is the working port for the city, as the main body of water that borders Dunedin and the rest of the Otago Peninsula is simply not deep enough for most large...
Saturday, October 22nd, 2011: Fjordland, New Zealand As we completed two relatively calm days in the Tasman Sea, headed southeast from Sydney, we arrived into Milford Sound early on Saturday morning for scenic cruising of Fjordland National Park in the southwest corner of New Zealand’s South Island. Onboarding our ranger and pilot for the sounds, though it...
Sunday, October 16th, 2011: Noumea, New Caledonia Sometimes its fun being #2… Though the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is without a doubt the largest reef in the world (it can be seen from space), until our arrival in the South Pacific, we were unaware that New Caledonia is actually home to the 2nd largest reef on the planet. So today, we...
Friday, October 14th, 2011: Dravuni Island, Fiji Imagine a place of absolute quiet… The only sounds are the stir of a light breeze and the quiet drawing in and out of tiny ocean waves from crystal clear turquoise water. You are standing on a nearly endless stretch of white sand. A brilliant blue sky with puffy white clouds hangs overhead and coconut palm...
Thursday, October 13th, 2011: Savusavu, Fiji Savusavu is located on another island to the northeast of Viti Levu, where things began to slow down and we really begin to grasp the concept of “Fiji Time”. Our third stop of four within Fiji, this tender port with a picturesque harbor has a population of only 5,000 people, and a small main street that runs...
Wednesday, October 12th, 2011: Suva, Fiji Suva, the capital of Fiji, is the largest city by far in all of the 330+ islands that make up the archipelago. Although there is much to see and do here, we had a wonderful opportunity to get outside of all of the hustle and bustle of the port and make our way west to the town of Navua. Here, the Navua River meets the...
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011: Port Denarau, Fiji Port Denarau, Fiji, is the gateway to the western part of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu, and to the city of Nadi. Unfortunately, if you travel to Port Denarau and no where else, you will spend all of your time in Fiji in an artifical resort town, away from the Fijian people, their warmth, hospitality, villages...
Sunday, October 9th, 2011: Port Vila, Vanuatu The island nation of Vanuatu got its independence in 1980, making it one of the newest countries on the planet. It was our privledge to have a port day in Port Vila, the largest city and the capital of this country. As we disembarked our cruise ship, though, we came to realize that this new country is still very young...
Saturday, October 8th, 2011: Lifou, New Caledonia After two sea days working our way northeast from Sydney through the Coral Sea, we arrived shortly before 10am to the island of Lifou in New Caledonia. The largest of the Loyalty Islands, this island paradise is truly unspoiled, untouched, and quite amazing. Nearly the entire island is covered in thick tropical...
Monday, October 3rd, 2011: Hobart, Australia We awoke very early on this Monday morning, as we wanted to get a jump on rush hour traffic in the Hobart city center, in addition to trying to beat out the cruise buses to arrive at today’s destination, Port Arthur. Located about 100 kms away from Hobart by car, the single lane twisting, turning roads allowed us...
Sunday, October 2nd, 2011: Hobart, Australia Though it seemed so far away when we first boarded the Dawn Princess, we have arrived at the final port of our 28 day circumnavigation of Australia cruise. It has been an amazing introduction to the country (and continent) of Australia and even before we close out the first of these cruise itineraries, we can highly...
Saturday, October 1st, 2011: Burnie, Australia We’ve arrived in Tasmania for 3 days in our two ports of call, Burnie, on the northern coast of the island, and Hobart, the capital, in the southeast. In addition, we get to enjoy a wonderful day with family as we will spend our day in Burnie with Steve, Beth, and the Hill family at our first stop. Upon arrival...
Friday, September 30th, 2011: Melbourne, Australia Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria, was our next stop on the 28 day circumnavigation of Australia. As this too will be a stop later in the journey, we elected to see the city center and to “get our bearings” for the return journey in November. Upon exiting the ship, we hoped onto Tram 109...
Wednesday, September 28th, 2011: Adelaide, Australia As the capital of South Australia and with more than 1 million living in and around the city, we decided to spend the day right in the city and take advantage of a number of different sights and things to do right in downtown! As we exited the ship, we headed to the free shuttle bus into town and made the 40...
Sunday, September 25th, 2011: Albany, Australia Our final day in southwest Australia was spent in the town of Albany. With only 29,000 people, it is still one of the larger cities in Western Australia, and allowed us access to a number of beautiful sights on the edge of Australia’s Southern Ocean. Arriving right on time at 9am to the berth number 2 in this...
Saturday, September 24th, 2011: Bunbury, Australia Bunbury is a small coastal town of about 55,000 people along the southwest Australian coast and is the gateway city for the Margaret River wine region. That’s our focus today and we hire a car and take to the roads, headed for the world famous wineries that call this fertile grape growing region home...
Friday, September 23rd, 2011: Fremantle, Australia It’s our first of three straight port days here in on the Southwest corner of Australia. As we explore the state of Western Australia, our first stop is the port of Fremantle. As we dock alongside the river front (we are actually at the mouth of the Swan River), we take a short walk into town and grab a...
Monday, September 19th, 2011: Bali, Indonesia We we’re both anticipating our arrival to Indonesia as one of many “firsts” on this journey. It was our very first visit to Asia, and though it would be short (just one day), it would mark the 6th continent that we have travelled together, leaving only Antarctica on that list. We were up...
Friday, September 16, 2011: Darwin, Autralia We’ve arrived in the Northern Territory and to Darwin, Australia, the northernmost port on our Australian itinerary, and the gateway to the Australian Outback. Through our travels today won’t take us more than 120kms from Darwin, we will travel down the Stuart Highway, also known as the A1, which runs from...
Tuesday, September 13th: Port Douglas, Australia Port Douglas, located at the northern edge of the Great Barrier Reef area, is also the closest port to Cairns, the largest city in Northern Queensland. Our shore excursion today would take us about 30 kms south of here to Hartley’s Creek, about half the distance to Cairns, and to Hartley’s Crocodile...
Sunday, September 11th: Airlie Beach, Australia Our second port, Airlie Beach, is one of the two main jumping off points for the Great Barrier Reef (the other being Port Douglas, which we will visit in a few days), and the primary gateway for the Whitsunday Islands — a chain of 74 islands that are not only beautiful, but combine quiet and remote bush tracks on...
Friday, September 9th: Brisbane, Australia Our first stop on the Australian cruise is the port of Brisbane along the east coast of the country. Docking at the new Portside Wharf on the northeast fringes of the city meant that we would take advantage of public transportation today to see the city and to get to our stop for the day — Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary...
Sunday: Christchurch to Sydney It was an early morning as we were out the door at 7am and headed to the airport for a 9:30 flight. The drive in was quiet and uneventful as most of Christchurch was still asleep for an early Sunday morning. As we dropped our rental car off, we made our way inside without delay to begin our check in at Air New Zealand for our trans...
It’s time to wrap our heads around another fun transition to face as we travel on the journey… The Metric System The United States is one of only 3 remaining countries on the planet not yet using the system of measurement (we join the world powerhouses of Liberia and Myanmar in this somewhat sad distinction), so in prepping for days on the road, making...
Friday: Dunedin to Christchurch On Friday morning, after a late morning start (we left at 10am), we took a scenic 6+ hour drive along the Inland Scenic Route from Dunedin to Christchurch. One of our first stops on the drive north was to the Moeraki Boulders. This site contains 60 million year old spherical boulders that only in the last several hundred years...
Tuesday: Queenstown to Dunedin To say that we took the scenic route today is a bit of an understatement. The most direct route from Queenstown to Dunedin will take you east/southeast on SH8 over a distance of just under 170 miles (280kms). Instead, we decided to drive due south on SH6 to Invercargill and finally on SH1 to Bluff (the end of the highway on the South...
Sunday: Franz Josef to Queenstown It was an early start to our day, as we had a lot of ground to cover making our way south along the west coast and into Queenstown. As we left Franz Josef, the skies began to part and we got a better view of the snow-capped peaks surrounding the glaciers. As we continued south along SH6, we passed through the smaller and lesser...
Wednesday: Wellington to Nelson It was time to say goodbye to the North Island and board the Interislander Ferry for the 3.5 hour transit to the South Island. Boarding just a few kilometers north of Wellington CBD, the Ferry was much like a small cruise ship, complete with reclining chairs, cafes, movie theater, and a playground for passengers, vehicles, and...