Mimi & Jacques’ Bon Voyage 2

Singer Island, Florida

Voila! Upon our return to Florida in July 2023 from Bon Voyage 1 (BV1) visiting Paris, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Provence and London over three months, the planning began for Bon Voyage 2. Mimi and I made sure BV1 was heavily focused on family, friends and far off places as we celebrated her retirement.

Thanks again for those lifelong memories! Now, we’re going to the other end of Earth New Zealand 🇳🇿 and Australia 🇦🇺 before returning through California for the next three months!

BV2 is one of those trips you dream about when you’re still in the working world, we’re not 😎. It’s about discovery, adventure and soaking in natural beauty. We start in what many say is the prettiest country on earth, New Zealand and its mountains, fiords and coastline. Then it’s off to Australia to drench ourselves in the animals, sites and the bucket list Great Barrier Reef. It’s what’s up, Down Under- just the two of us connecting with nature and each other as we meet strangers along the way. We only know two people in that part of the world and will just barely connect with them due to travel conflicts.

Since we’ll likely not make it back to Australia and New Zealand in our lifetimes we decided to spend significant time in these far off countries. So, as we check off another continent we’re expecting to see jaw dropping natural beauty and animals. We’ll venture as close to Antarctica as we may ever get. It’s also about learning new cultures and experiencing and honoring New Zealand’s Māori and Australia’s Aboriginal people.

The three month itinerary:

• Two days in LA

• Six and a half weeks in New Zealand

• More than a month in Australia

• Ten days in southern California

  Just writing that is exciting and exhausting! The aim of this blog is to publish daily, as internet allows. So, if you’ve ever dreamed of going Down Under here’s hoping our discoveries jostle your wanderlust. And to our grand children reading this Mimi and Papa will have surprises and stories to tell when we see each other again in April on Singer Island!

The Itinerary

For the sake of organization I’ll divide the trip into 5 legs:

Leg 1 - West Palm to LA - this is only two days of travel but helps cut up the length of the time in the metal tube. January 6, 2025 - January 8, 2025

Leg 2 - LAX to New Zealand - The experience of our longest flight ever. January 8-10

Leg 3 - New Zealand - 49 days and 20 stops on the north and south islands. January 10 - February 24

Leg 4 - Australia - 32 days and nine stops in eastern, southern and northern Australia. February 24 - March 27

Leg 5 - California - 10 days to unwind and hopefully catch up with family and friends before returning to West Palm Beach. March 27-April 8

How it got put together

I like to think of projects, problems and solutions in threes. So, here were the three most vital places I spent time researching and connecting the dots on the trip over the course of a year.

• Facebook- NZTT New Zealand Travel Tips is a private group I belonged to which is very engaging and run by a woman named Sarah Chant.

  

  It has a website chock full of event discounts and provides a robust search for all the questions people have about New Zealand travel.

  https://nztraveltips.com/

  Sarah runs a tight ship on the Facebook page where you connect with those who are planning their trips/are traveling in the moment/ or recently returned and provide tips and wisdom in addition to Sarah’s active participation in the site. After reading and engaging in the group I devised an itinerary and also paid for Sarah’s consultation to review and enhance the trip. Thanks Sarah!

• TripAdvisor- This was an immediate and easy way to get a first idea on what there is to do and to get an idea on costs for lodging and excursions. Whether you book through them, and we did in some, or separately, it helps form an idea of what and how you’ll explore and experience in the area.

• Booking.com- While we used Hilton points for Auckland and Sydney stays, the rest of the lodging was all reserved through Booking.com. After years of using Home Away, VRBO and AirBNB and having a couple bad experiences, I decided on Booking.com after a good experience using it in BV1 in Europe. Our travel buddies and French cousins Brigitte and Jeannot were avid users and recommended it, merci Brigitte!

  

The app has an interface that makes it easy to find your bookings. When you’re visiting 30 places for an average of 2-3 days each, the organization and ease are vital! Some say they have lower fees than AirBNB and the other sites and both private lodging and hotels surface in the search.

With an undertaking this big and complicated it was important to start a full year ahead of the trip to get the exact flight and seats, to have the broadest choice of lodging and to get the high interest excursions booked.

So, off we go! We’ll miss all of you and hope you’ll keep us company as ride alongs in our Bon Voyage 2 blog. Thanks to all you returning readers and to our newer friends welcome aboard. Please feel free to comment as we bring you half way across the globe! Kia Ora! Next stop, LA😎.