A few days ago marked 1 month that I have been out of the country. What an adventure this first month has been so far! We have seen so much and it is still just the beginning really. Everything has pretty much been planned on the fly, so we ended up staying in Sydney for 2 weeks (check out my top things for Sydney). I think Brian really enjoyed it, as did I. It was nice to be back in a familiar city for me and we somewhat had a routine since we stayed in the same apartment for 12 days.
We then decided to head to New Zealand for 3 weeks. At first we thought the visitor visa was only 1 month and we figured 3 weeks was enough. We spent basically a full day planning the flights as you have to have your return flight in order to go there. We figured 1 week on the North island and 2 weeks on the South and I think that has worked out really well. Also, turns out the visitor visa is good for 3 months, in case anyone plans to travel to New Zealand, you can spend more time. Though we have about 5 days left of our New Zealand adventures, I think the amount of time we spent here worked out well. There are plenty of things (adventures) to do, but very expensive. Most of our South island adventures have been free walks at stopping points along the main road we are on. There is definitely a benefit to having a campervan and planning on the fly as to where you are staying. Some days, we make it 50km and other days we drive 200km, depending on the amount of stops.
Towards the end of our South Island adventures, we have been becoming more social with others who are traveling. It helps when the camp sites have something like a hot tub for use and suddenly you strike up a conversation with others. It is interesting to learn where people have been traveling from, how long they plan to travel and at what point in their journey they are. Sometimes we learn other places to go. Actually, just talking to some locals, we learn of some not so tourist spots to stop at and since our schedule is flexible, sometimes we can fit in the stops.
I have to say this first month hasn’t been cheap at all! Australia and New Zealand are both expensive, which I knew, but there are some things that we were spending money on in the beginning that we have stopped, like getting a coffee or buying certain items at the grocery store that are more like treats and not necessary. The other thing is we haven’t stayed in any hostels, but we might try some when we head back to Australia as it is fun to chat with others around our age who are also traveling for months. I don’t really like sharing a room, but it may help us save on costs as well.
So what’s next? Well next week we are headed to Melbourne and exploring there and up to Alice Springs. We haven’t worked on the details on if we are renting a car, taking a bus tour and how many days. We should probably get on that soon…
We are also thinking of looking for a farm job of some sort along the way. I don’t know exactly when that will come into play, but it would be nice to have a bit more of routine for a month or something and earn a bit of money.
So far, enjoying the travels for as long as we can make it work!!
Thanks Katie for the link up
Have you ever been backpacking?
