Going Down Under

Before our son Drake was born Greg and I made a family travel list. It included Turkey, Costa Rica, Europe and a few return trips to Galapagos and African safari. We didn't plan to make a trip to Australia for another ten years or so but sometimes you gotta keep your plans flexible.

A friend was invited to a wedding in Melbourne and she asked if we wanted to join them on the trip. We said YES! Greg and I are sometimes very impulsive about our travel and we have been itching to start to plan our first family travel. Two weeks after our friend popped the question, we had booked our tickets. We are going down under in March with a two week stop over in China so Drake can meet his family.

To be honest, Australia was never high on my wish list. I always thought it was too civilized and developed for my taste. I also heard that Australia is just like North America with funny accents, but I consider myself pretty open minded. Not to mention I miss traveling terribly. Australia will be a great and easy (relatively speaking of course) travel intro for Drake.

We started doing some in depth research. Many of our friends have been to Australia and we are getting really good advice. We wish we got the same when we went to Ethiopia and Bolivia.

I'm getting more excited about hitting my last populated continent. I am even more excited about our first trip as a family that will involve diving in the Great Barrier Reef, petting a kangaroo, hiking the outback, and dealing with a tantrum or two. I'm less excited about the over ten hour flights though... (We are also getting a lot of advice from friends on this topic as well).

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Location:Vancouver